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SCIENTIFIC REALISM OF HILARY PUTNAM


Philosophy is often regarded as area of study which is redundant in the era of extreme commercial commitment, to earn profit at the cost of all the wasteful externalities. This is how the modern man creates artificial artefacts for leisure oriented commitment towards self and exploitative business with others. For science has effectively become a company in order to enhance technological efficacy for widespread consumerism. One simple example could be experienced accross Universities around the globe when classical or critical philosophy is disappearing from cariculum, because philosophy in its wider effects, is able to produce thinking mind, which is pernicious for the masters of mankind who are leading the cultural industries to produce consumer minds; for humanology is reaching to its death bed. 

Philosophy of science has two different streams; on the one hand, Aristotelean logic which rejects the idea of mind as a ghost in the machine. Rather, it starts with  teleogical logic. In that sense, the mirroring philosophy of knowledge is predicted with accuracy. Descartes' mind and body dualism offers rationalistic account of knowledge. Which means a mind has capacity to grasp the entire external existence, which exists independently. An empiricist, for example Aristotle, or a rationalist like Descartes is rejected by Kantian metaphysical realism, which accepts each school of thought as a half truth. The copernican revolution follows the third Buddha's medium, or Aristotelean golden mean; Kant becomes the liberator of epistemology; accepting metaphysical world in its completeness at the same time epystemogical enrichness is expounded through interpretative intuitionism. Kant in its total orientation became one of the leading philosopher of science, later on, Newton, Einstein, Darwin, to name a few, revolutionised humanology with path-breaking scientific ideas. 

One of the critics of science is its mythical nature, which works in sequence of 'conjectures and refutations', to refer the notable work of Karl Popper. Anti-positivist thinkers reject science as scientism, for example, Thomas Kunn, condemns it for its incompleteness. For science cannot tell us why our life is at the first place? It cannot understand the value judgment. Value rationality is outside the domain of science. Science as a method has never been constant, rather each paradigm of science remains for certain period, then a new Paradigm makes it redundant. For example, quantum physics could not be understood with the scientific lense used by Newton or Einstein. 

Hilary Putnam puts forward an optimistic account about science, which appears to be a mix of metaphysical and epystemogical streams. Science may not discover the theory of everything with perfection, however, it is one and only way to pursue it. For no other method has credibly provided alternative of science. Human's interpretation is undeniable in perceiving every scientific phenomenon, even mathematical numbers. But, it does not kill a human mind to pursue the quest of knowledge with keenness and enthusiasm.

Modern day scientific research is inclined towards computer science which works on boolean logic, which can compute any complex numbers, can process and conserve data, in a way, produces all the desirable ends through programmed softwares. Hardware has almost negligible role to play in its functionality. However, every human mind has a relationship with its bodily structures to refer William James. Humans are not simply considered to a machine, which can be replicated in/through computer; until now no scientific formula can successfully reduce human agency in computational logic. Human is more than machine, more than an static object. This is how the scientific realism of Putnam compels us to revisit all the prejudices for science, especially for those fellows, who are reducing even emotional intelligence in boolean logic. For value is not a number which may be decoded. Humans are now much interested in commercial and exploitative ethics. The 'Disenchantment of the World', to borrow the phrase of great Max Weber, has already 'alinieted' human agency. Much efforts are needed to emancipate science from its methodological slumber.

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