Hunh. How 'bout that. Well, that's gotta' be a shift for Putnam. He did--if I'm not completely mistaken--want to identify as a pragmatist at one point in his career (Putnam is also very famous for changing his mind in very bold stripes; kinda' like Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein), whereas Davidson, you are right, did never self-identify as a pragmatist. And, it would indeed seem, Putnam and Davidson both identify the core of pragmatism with their theory of truth (rightly or wrongly).
Gimme' this to save face at least: Davidson at least never wrote a book (Pragmatism, 1994) or essay (many in Realism with a Human Face) defending pragmatism. He was at least less confusing about what he self-identified as ;-) I like the way Putnam denies Rorty the title to pragmatism at the end: he says, while chuckling, Rortyism is a good enough name, he doesn't have to call himself a pragmatist. That's the spirit in which I wish more intramural debates took place. It keeps things in better perspective than the strident tones many take in order to be heard. But perhaps that's the answer right there: Rorty and Putnam already had big names, they didn't need to make a space for themselves in the conversation. They could afford to shrug and chuckle. Matt > I'm basing my claim about Putnam on this video > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlrEbffVVjM > > > At 3:40 Putnam says, "I don't call myself a pragmatist. For one thing, > I don't like the pragmatist's theory of truth which they were too > proud of." _________________________________________________________________ The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?tile=multiaccount&ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_4 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
