Abstract

Hilary putnam, In "reason, Truth, And history", Defends a strong version of antirealism--Roughly, The doctrine that the world is in some way mind-Dependent. Putnam's argument to this conclusion is discussed and found to depend on the unwarranted assumption that causal relations required to fix the content of states of mind must themselves be mind-Dependent. The assumption may be abandoned, But doing so amounts to the abandonment of the strong version of antirealism