What Wiki Doesn’t Know About Me

In 1976, when I delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford, I often spent time with Peter Strawson, and one day at lunch he made a remark I have never been able to forget. He said, "Surely half the pleasure of life is sardonic comment on the passing show". This blog is devoted to comments, not all of them sardonic, on the passing philosophical show.

Although I have great respect for what Wikipedia has achieved, I am disappointed that the description of my views in the article about me is one that could well have been written in 1999, whenI publishedHere is “wiki’s” current description:

‘In

, he originally espoused a position called

, but eventually became one of its most outspoken critics, first adopting a view he called "internal realism”, which he later abandoned in favor of a

-inspired

. Putnam's "direct realism" aims to return the study of metaphysics to the way people actually experience the world, rejecting the idea of mental representations,

, and other intermediaries between mind and world. In his later work, Putnam has become increasingly interested in American pragmatism,

, and

, thus engaging with a wider array of philosophical traditions. He has also displayed an interest in