Reason, Truth and History

'Hilary Putnam's Reason, Truth, and History is an interesting, ambitious well-written book, which deals with a broad set of issues (in epistemology, metaphysics, value theory, and the philosophy of language) and diverse thinkers (ranging from Plato, Berkeley and Kant to Carnap, Quine, Kuhn, Wittgenstein, and Foucault). In spite of its broad scope, the book is both relatively short and possesses a remarkable degree of unity and coherence … the book is important because it reflects a serious effort to break the grip that the natural sciences have had on philosophical thought in this century. Although Putnam is not hostile to science, he rejects the equation of rational thinking with scientific thinking and rejects the idea that science provides the only true descriptions of reality.' International Philosophical Quarterly

• Preface; 1. Brains in a vat; 2. A problem about reference; 3. Two philosophical perspectives; 4. Mind and body; 5. Two conceptions of rationality; 6. Fact and value; 7. Reason and history; 8. The impact of science on modern conceptions of rationality; 9. Values, facts and cognition; Appendix; Index.