Books by Hilary Putnam

Offers solutions to some of philosophy's vexing problems. This book examines the problem of realism: Is objective truth possible? It acknowledges the impasse between empirical and idealist approaches to this question, critiquing them both, however, by highlighting the false assumption they share, that we cannot perceive the world directly.

Hilary Putnam deals in this book with some of the most fundamental persistent problems in philosophy: the nature of truth, knowledge and rationality. His aim is to break down the fixed categories of thought which have always appeared to define and constrain the permissible solutions to these problems.

Hilary Putnam has at last paused from philosophizing to collect his papers for publication-his first volume in almost two decades. Contributing to a broad range of philosophical inquiry, Putnam has been said to represent a "history of recent philosophy in outline." In this volume he suggests philosophy's possible future, as well.

Can ethical judgments properly be considered objective? Reviewing what he deems the disastrous consequences of ontology's influence on analytic philosophy-in particular, the contortions it imposes upon debates about the objective of ethical judgments-Putnam proposes abandoning the very idea of ontology.

In this book, one of the world's preeminent philosophers takes issue with an idea that has found an all-too-prominent place in popular culture and philosophical thought: the idea that while factual claims can be rationally established or refuted, claims about value are wholly subjective, not capable of being rationally argued for or against.