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BEYOND THE INTERNAL REALIST'S CONCEPTUAL SCHEME
Author(s) -
CARUANA LOUIS
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
metaphilosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1467-9973
pISSN - 0026-1068
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9973.1996.tb00208.x
Subject(s) - epistemology , doxastic logic , conceptualization , relativism , philosophy , set (abstract data type) , flexibility (engineering) , psychology , sociology , computer science , mathematics , linguistics , statistics , programming language
Putnam holds that there can be equally coherent but incompatible conceptual schemes which fit our experiential beliefs equally well. On the other hand however, especially when discussing values, he wants to avoid total relativism because, for him, our choice of values can be considered constant even though our notion of truth varies. I argue that the apparent tension between these two views does not show that the internal realist position is self‐contradictory. The way internal realists like Putnam can hold on to both claims is to emphasise the fact that all inquirers, by the very fact that they are classified as inquirers, must be assumed to have a common cognitive faculty. There is flexibility when it comes to conceptualization, but a certain minimal amount of sameness as regards the evaluation of beliefs. In basic everyday practice, all inquirers have the same doxastic attitude towards some basic propositions. The set of all such universal doxastic attitudes constitutes the non‐plastic aspect of the mind.