From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Hilary Putnam
Distribution: world
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 11:02:50 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents

Something from Hilary Putnam which appears relevant to anthropology,
and my own enquiry concerning it:

        If someone approaches us with a gleam in his eye and says,
        'Don't you want to know the "Truth"?', our reaction is
        generally to be pretty leery of this person. And the reason
        that we are leery (apart from the gleam in the eye) is
        precisely because someone's telling us that they want us to
        know the truth tells us really *nothing* as long as we have
        no idea what standards of rational acceptability the person
        adheres to: what they consider a rational way to pursue an
        inquiry, what their standards of objectivity are, when they
        consider it rational to terminate an inquiry, what grounds
        they will regard as providing good reason for accepting one
        verdict or another on whatever question they may be interested
        in. Applied to the case of science, I would say that to tell
        us that science 'seeks to discover the truth' is really a
        purely formal statement. It is to say no more than that
        scientists don't want to assert that snow is white if snow is
        not white, that they don't want to assert that there are
        electrons flowing through a wire if electrons are not flowing
        through a wire, and so on. But these purely formal statements
        are quite empty as long as we don't have some idea what the
        system of criteria for rational acceptability is which
        distinguishes scientific ways of attempting to determine
        whether snow is white from other ways of attempting to
        determine if snow is white, scientific ways of attempting to
        determine whether electrons are flowing through a wire from
        other ways of attempting to determine whether there are
        electrons flowing through a wire, and so on.

        If the notion of comparing our system  of beliefs with
        unconceptualised reality to see if they match makes no sense,
        then the claim that science seeks to discover the truth can
        mean no more than that science seeks to construct a world
        picture which, in the ideal limit, satisfies certain criteria
        of rational acceptability. That science seeks to construct a
        world picture which is *true* is itself a true statement, an
        almost empty and formal true statement; the aims of science
        are given material content only by the criteria of rational
        acceptability implicit in science. (1981:130)

Putnam goes on over the next few pages to build in his own words a
quite incoherent argument about Australians, and the Guru of Sydney
(HHHAAAAA), but my own enquiry is rather concerned here with the
matter of why would science want to be concerned with constructing
a world picture at all?

Aboriginal people have often asked me the question, "What are all
these white people so worried about all the time? Don't they know
anything yet?", to which I have yet to think of a good answer.

The people here do not seem to think there is any problem with their
own world picture, and so spend no time arguing over such questions
like white people do. Is there a problem with European knowledge, or
do Europeans simply think Socrates (or somebody like that) was onto
a good thing and they just want to be arguing the pitch and toss?

Or perhaps European science merely dances the Male Duet like its
military counterpart, like two drunks in a bar?

Ref:

        Putnam H.  1981
        Reason, Truth and History
        Cambridge: CUP

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.archaeology