The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays Revised Edition

by Hilary Putnam (Author)

4 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0674013803

ISBN-10: 0674013808

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If philosophy has any business in the world, it is the clarification of our thinking and the clearing away of ideas that cloud the mind. In this book, one of the world's preeminent philosophers takes issue with an idea that has found an all-too-prominent place in popular culture and philosophical thought: the idea that while factual claims can be rationally established or refuted, claims about value are wholly subjective, not capable of being rationally argued for or against. Although it is on occasion important and useful to distinguish between factual claims and value judgments, the distinction becomes, Hilary Putnam argues, positively harmful when identified with a dichotomy between the objective and the purely "subjective."

Putnam explores the arguments that led so much of the analytic philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology to become openly hostile to the idea that talk of value and human flourishing can be right or wrong, rational or irrational; and by which, following philosophy, social sciences such as economics have fallen victim to the bankrupt metaphysics of Logical Positivism. Tracing the problem back to Hume's conception of a "matter of fact" as well as to Kant's distinction between "analytic" and "synthetic" judgments, Putnam identifies a path forward in the work of Amartya Sen. Lively, concise, and wise, his book prepares the way for a renewed mutual fruition of philosophy and the social sciences.

The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays

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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Hume's and much 20th-century moral philosophy contrasted moral with factual judgments and led people to conclude that the former, unlike the latter, are subjective in the sense of not being rationally supportable. Putnam (philosophy, emeritus, Harvard) believes that the contrast is ill conceived and that the conclusion is both unwarranted and false. He acknowledges the usefulness of the fact/value distinction but denies that anything metaphysical follows from it. Indeed, he goes so far as to assert that knowledge of facts presupposes knowledge of values. He grounds his argument in Amartya Sen's discussions of non-self interested human motives and of "capabilities" people rationally value and enjoy freely exercising. Putnam covers such matters as imperative logic, economics vis- -vis ethics, and preference theory and such thinkers as V. Walsh, L. Robbins, and R.M. Hare. A fine philosophical workout for attentive readers.
Robert Hoffman, York Coll. of CUNY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Hume's and much 20th-century moral philosophy contrasted moral with factual judgments and led people to conclude that the former, unlike the latter, are subjective in the sense of not being rationally supportable. Putnam...believes that the contrast is ill conceived and that the conclusion is both unwarranted and false. He acknowledges the usefulness of the fact/ value distinction but denies that anything metaphysical follows from it...Putnam covers such matters as imperative logic, economics vis-à-vis ethics, and preference theory and such thinkers as V. Walsh, L. Robbins, and R. M. Hare. A fine philosophical workout. (Robert Hoffman Library Journal 2002-12-01)

In this bold, energetic, and extensive work, Putnam undertakes a revitalization of philosophy. He wants to put philosophy back in touch with the 'human issues which it has always been philosophy's highest goal to articulate'...This is exciting and engaging stuff, and anyone with an interest in philosophy, at whatever level, will enjoy it and learn from it. (Martha Nussbaum, The University of Chicago)

This is an excellent collection on a very important issue...These are also very useful contributions, because they guide the reader, particularly the general reader, who is not an expert in either philosophy or science or economics, around the issue, so that one sees its contours, what connects with what, how it ramifies out through different disciplines. The collection as a whole thus fulfils two rather different functions: (a) bringing new and original arguments to bear against the erroneous thesis that there is a dichotomy between fact and value, and (b) guiding the reader around the contours of the issue and pointing to interesting relevant arguments developed elsewhere by others. (Charles Taylor, Professor of Philosophy at McGill University)

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Product details

Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press; Revised edition (March 30, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674013808
ISBN-13: 978-0674013803
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #578,229 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #61 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Movements > Pragmatism
- #172 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Philosophy > Epistemology
- #411 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Movements > Humanism

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The Entanglement of the Fact/Value Distinction

January 21, 2004

Format: Hardcover

If there is one point that sticks out in my mind after reading Hilary Putnam's "Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy," it is his suggestion that there is an "entanglement" of facts and values, which effectually preserves a distinction between the two without positing a metaphysically dichotomous relationship vis-a-vis facts and values. According to Putnam, logic itself presupposes certain values (e.g., coherence, validity, soundness) and so does science with its talk of "elegant" or "parsimonious" theories. Values permeate all aspects of academic study and human life. No human being reasons on "facts" without simultaneously having axiological concerns. Putnam demonstrates this point analytically, though most of the book is fairly accessible to continental philosophers and even those who are philosophically challenged (n.b., the two aforementioned classes of persons are not to be confused with one another or epistemically conflated). The only portion of the book that I found somewhat challenging was his discussion of economics and Amartya Sen. That chapter notwithstanding, I find myself forced to accept Putnam's pragmatist mantra with some reservations: "knowledge of facts presupposes knowledge of values."

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Possibly Putnam's most important book?

September 30, 2003

Format: Hardcover

The fact/value dichotomy remains a standing dogma of contemporary empiricism. One sees it assumed without question in numerous works intended both for students and professional philosophers. (It is taken for granted, for instance, in Peter Singer's recent A Darwinian Left.) Yet Putnam shows that the original dichotomy, usually attributed to David Hume, was based (1) on a metaphysics of fact that nobody has seriously entertained since the early days of Logical Positivism, and (2) on an argument formally identical to Hume's argument against causality, the latter being an argument virtually nobody now accepts as cogent. Putnam argues that we must now accept the embeddedness of values virtually all theoretical and even factual statements. This does not, however, drop us into a morass of post-modern relativism, but allows us to think more clearly about the value-assumptions we make in all forms of discourse.

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Entanglement not Collapse

October 12, 2004

Format: Paperback

The fact/value dichotomy of the Logical Positivists "was not based on a serious examination of the nature of values and valuation at all." p. 29 Things are much more entangled than that and this is a serious study aimed at evaluating that entanglement. This issue seems clearly at the forefront of an examination of narratives and values, and their relationship to the Wittgensteinian "forms of life" -- how much value is a result of human creativity, or is all human creativity traceable to facts in the Humean sense?

This is a serious argument and I am rereading.

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A biased opinion

September 11, 2007

Format: Paperback

As a former student of Hilary's, I can't claim my review is free of bias. Nonetheless, in my view the simple insight that the fact/value distinction can be--has been--turned into a dangerous dichotomy is priceless.

Of course, there are many other things to like about this book. For one, I've gone back to Sen and to Walsh. For another, it's clarified (for me) many problems (or puzzles) in philosophy and economics.

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