Hilary Putnams Religionsphilosophie zwischen Relativismus und Schizophrenie

Ein Jahr vor seiner Konversion zum internen Realismus hat Hilary Putnam 1975 eine Konversion zum expliziten Theismus durchgemacht (vgl. Putnam, H., (1/1992), S. 351) und einer Zeit gewisser Schizophrenie als Gläubiger und Atheist zugleich (vgl. Putnam, H., 1992, S. 1) ein Ende bereitet. Bislang hat nach verbreiteter Meinung Putnam aber weder eine eigene Religionsphilosophie oder auch nur religionsphilosophische Überlegungen systematischer Art im Sinne einer Rechtfertigung der Rationalität religiösen Glaubens derart vorgelegt, als dass klar wäre, was diese Konversion nun in seinem Leben bewirkt hat und folglich, gerade von einem pragmatistischen Standpunkt aus gesehen, mit seiner Philosophie zu tun haben soll. Putnam selbst erachtet seine religiöse Praxis in jüdischer Tradition als einen Katalysator sowohl für seine bereits vor der Konversion einsetzenden ablehnenden Haltung dem Szientismus gegenüber als auch für seinen den Pluralismus anerkennenden internen bzw. pragmatischen Realismus (vgl. Putnam, (1/1992), S. 351). Darüber hinaus fällt es ihm jedoch schwer, einen weiteren Einfluß seiner religiös geprägten Lebensform auf sein philosophisches Denken dingfest zu machen oder gar einen Einfluß seiner Philosophie auf seine religiöse Einstellung

Motivating the History of the Philosophy of Thought Experiments

Introduction to a special issue of HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science on thought experiments. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the paper: By any measure, the literature on thought experiments is thriving. Since 1988, we count at least thirteen monographs, seven collected editions, and eight journal issues dedicated to thought experiments. The thought experiments section of philpapers.org (moderated by Magdalena Balcerak Jackson) has 476 entries, which is more than the semantic view of theories (124), inference to the best explanation (198), scientific representation (203), structural realism (280), incommensurability in science (406) and is equal to the discussion of natural selection as a whole (476). Obviously, it is a lively and on-going discussion. And yet, there is still a lot of work to do. Concerning the class of scientific thought experiments, the majority of papers either focus on specific scientific cases (Schrodinger’s cat is a case in point with 55 entries on philpapers.org), the thought experiments of a specific scientist (Einstein4 and Galileo5 attracting most of the attention), or the epistemology of scientific thought experiments in general. Lacking, however, are historical accounts of the philosophical discussion of scientific thought experiments. There are notable exceptions, but more work seems necessary for at least two reasons. The first is that the current philosophical literature has much to gain by a reappraisal of its origins (or so we claim). The notion that there is a single “pure origin” of any debate is dubious (see Foucault 1977). Nevertheless, by identifying the historical contingencies that caused the on-going debate to take the shape it did, we are in a better position to entertain other directions the current debate could go, and also to (re)appropriate forgotten insights. A second reason why we think that it is worthwhile to look back at the history of the philosophy of scientific thought experiments is that most of the existing historical work on thought experiments has focused on individual thought experiments or individual accounts of thought experiments. We might call this micro-level history. What we do not see is macro-level history: that is, historical discussions of the interaction between different philosophers (or philosophical accounts), over time. Macro-level history can provide insights that are invisible at the micro level

Relativism, Coherence, and the Problems of Philosophy *

The eventual topic of this paper is the perhaps grandiose question of whether we have any reason to think that philosophical problems can be solved. Philosophy has been around for quite some time, and its record is cause for pessimism: it is not, exactly, that there are no established results, but that what results there are, are negative (such-and-such is false, or won't work), or conditional (as Ernest Nagel used to say, "If we had ham, and if we had eggs, then we'd have ham and eggs"). 1 I hope in what follows first of all to explain the record. My explanation will naturally suggest a way of turning over a new leaf, and I will wrap up the paper by laying out that proposal and critically assessing its prospects. However, the approach to my topic will have to be roundabout. Along the way, I will detour to consider how the problems of philosophy can be * I'm grateful t

The Book of Job as a Thought Experiment: On Science, Religion, and Literature

This paper presents a philosophical critique of the proposal that the Book of Job is a theological thought experiment about divine providence. Eight possible objections are entertained. They guide the discussion of the proposal. It is concluded that the proposal has more merits than perils

Introduction: God out of Mind

This Special Issue of Religions is about the encounter between thought experiments and theology [...