The Threefold Cord Mind, Body, and World Mind, Body, and World
- Binding: Hardcover
- Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr
- Publish date: 01/01/2000
Putnam first examines the problem of realism: Is objective truth possible? He acknowledges the deep impasse between empirical and idealist approaches to this question, critiquing them both, however, by highlighting the false assumption they share, that we cannot perceive the world directly. Drawing on the work of J. L. Austin and William James, Putnam develops a subtle and creative alternative, which he calls "natural realism".
The second part of the book explores the mind-body question: Is the mind independent of our interactions with the physical world? Again, Putnam critically assesses two sharply antithetical contemporary approaches and finds them both lacking. The Threefold Cord shows the entire mind-body debate to be miscast and draws on the later work of Wittgenstein, once more advancing original views on perception and thought and their relationship with both the body and the external world. Finally, Putnam takes up two related problems -- the role of causality in human behavior and whether thoughts andsensations have an "existence" all their own.
With Putnam's lucid prose and insightful examples, The Threefold Cord takes a middle path between reactionary metaphysics and irresponsible relativism as it loosens the Gordian knots into which philosophy has bound itself over the issue of epistemology.