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Putnam's account of apriority and scientific change
its historical and contemporary interest
pp. 429-445
Abstract
In the 1960s and 1970s, Hilary Putnam articulated a notion of relativized apriority that was motivated to address the problem of scientific change. This paper examines Putnam’s account in its historical context and in relation to contemporary views. I begin by locating Putnam’s analysis in the historical context of Quine’s rejection of apriority, presenting Putnam as a sympathetic commentator on Quine. Subsequently, I explicate Putnam’s positive account of apriority, focusing on his analysis of the history of physics and geometry. In the remainder of the paper, I explore connections between Putnam’s account of relativized a priori principles and contemporary views. In particular, I situate Putnam’s account in relation to analyses advanced by Michael Friedman, David Stump, and William Wimsatt. From this comparison, I address issues concerning whether a priori scientific principles are appropriately characterized as “constitutive” or “entrenched”. I argue that these two features need to be clearly distinguished, and that only the constitutive function is essential to apriority. By way of conclusion, I explore the relationship between the constitutive function a priori principles and entrenchment.
Publication details
Published in:
(2010) Synthese 176 (3).
Pages: 429-445
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-009-9574-0
Full citation:
Tsou Jonathan Y. (2010) „Putnam's account of apriority and scientific change: its historical and contemporary interest“. Synthese 176 (3), 429–445.