Hanging Together
Home › WSS Forums › Post-Sellarsian Figures › Putnam’s Second Hand Knowledge of Sellars?
This topic contains 2 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by willem.devries 10 months ago.
| Author | Posts |
|---|---|
| Author | Posts |
| July 27, 2012 at 11:39 pm #951 | |
 Steven Bayne |
Although a lot of refinements must be made, as well as a few additions, I’ve completed most all preliminary writing for my book: Engineering Philosophy: Lessons from the History of Analytical Philosophy. Here is a curious historical fact I know a couple of you might find interesting. Hilary Putnam, one of the villains in my book, attributes to Sellars a criticism of sense-data theory based on its dependency on what is best described as “the metaphor of the inner theater conception of the mind.” Such metaphors and parables have been employed by Plato, Hume and others, but seldom as a way of addressing the mind/body problem, as such.(Putnam [1994] p. 100) The thing to notice is that in citing Sellars (Putnam [1994] p. 206) he “neglects” putting in a page number. No big deal, right? Well, not so fast! Turns out that Sellars NEVER mentions such a metaphor. So where did Putnam get this? It certainly wasn’t from what Putnam describes as Sellars’ “famous paper.” Here, I think, Putnam is using an ad hominem argument, based on respect for Sellars (in none of Putnam’s works is Sellars ever discussed, to the best of my knowledge). But WHERE did Putnam get this metaphor? It’s ultimate origins go way back, but Putnam almost certainly got the idea not from Sellars but, rather, Richard Rorty. Rorty actually used THIS metaphor in his Introduction to Sellars’ paper in _Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, with and Introduction by Richard Rorty and Guide by Robert Brandom_, Harvard,1997, p.7. But where does RORTY get it. I have a theory. Here the theory cannot be explained entirely because that would involve stating my idiosyncratic views on Wittgenstein’s Private Language Argument. However, I can say this: the theater view can be found in Russell’s Analysis of Mind, in his discussion of “perspective space.” Indeed, privacy and subjectivity can be given a perspectival characterization, topologically. The key to linking Wittgenstein on “private languages” and Cartesian representationalism IS this theater view, but the portal is Russell; not Sellars, not Putnam, and not Rorty. There are similar such cases in other contemporary analytical philosophers who attack historical figures without having given them much real attention. |
| July 31, 2012 at 1:19 pm #954 | |
 Carl Sachs |
Two minor points: (1) Putnam commented on “Language as Thought and Communication”, published in Synthese 1974, so there’s at least one article by Putnam where he engages Sellars explicitly and directly. (2) Sellars at several points talks about “the doctrine of the mental eye” (sometimes, “mental oculism”, I believe). Is this a plausible stand-in for “the metaphor of the inner theater conception of the mind”? |
| August 21, 2012 at 1:52 pm #974 | |
|
willem.devries |
When Putnam came to UNH to speak some years ago, I queried him at the dinner afterwards about his acquaintance with Sellars. (Remember, Putnam had been a visitor at the Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science in the mid-50s.) Putnam’s response was to recount that he had a job interview with Sellars back then — it lasted 15 minutes, and Putnam didn’t get the job. It was pretty clear that Putnam was still ticked off about it 50 years later. And I also think it explains the lack of reference to Sellars in Putnam’s work (excepting, of course, the externally arranged comment Carl mentions). |
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
"The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term." - from "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man"
