“Reason and History” by Hilary Putnam takes the reader on a journey of the absurdness of opinion and morality. The rise of STEM fields in the recent decades has pushed away many humanities subjects of knowledgeable pursuit such as politics, moral thinking, philosophy, and art. An argument can be made that the stated social sciences are not worth studying as much since there is no “right answer.” Putnam brings up a situation proposed by Bentham where a preference of the arts is no more as substantial as playing a child’s game when compared to the STEM sciences. However, Putnam proposes putting a situation of subjectivity in which she applies variables to preferences in an objective way. This experiment proves that one cannot just apply objective properties to subjective principles and receive true and consistent feedback. Putnam then tries to correlate when in society an opinion remains mostly “objective” or still subjective because of its state as an opinion. Something like disagreeing with the Nazi’s principles is still an opinion even though most of society would heavily agree with it as opposed to liking a flavor of ice cream which most everyone would agree is subjectively just. This then leads to the conclusion that societal opinion “preferences are not correlated with important traits of mind and character,” whereas depending on societal morality, certain other opinions are seen as “objective” based on more “important” traits of mind and character (page 153). Another topic that is brought up is how reason changes through history. 1000 years ago, everyone thought they were just as right about topics as we are today. 1000 years from now, the same notions will be applied. This then relates to Cultural Relativism where different places around the world have their own respective morality complexes.
Putnam’s essay stood out to me especially because I have thought deeply on many of these topics. I agree that there is no real objectiveness to opinions and that cultural and historical relativism skews the actuality of facts from the universal perspective. I was very intrigued by the introduction of Bentham’s comparison of poetry and the toy. I personally believe that arts and the humanities need more of the spotlight these days in terms of their societal importance. The logic and facts of scientists seem to get first say in cultural opinion based on the technological revolution. I also appreciate how Putnam shows how societal structure has made us not be able to identify objectiveness in subjectivity through the use of the ice cream variables.
One quote that stuck out to me was: “I want to urge that there is all the difference in the world between an opponent who has the fundamental intellectual virtues of open-mindedness, respect for reason, and self-criticism, and one who does not; between an opponent who has an impresive and pertinent store of factual knowledge, and one who does not; between an opponent who merely gives vent to his feelings and fantasies (which is all people commonly do in what passes for political discussion), and one who reasons carefully” (page 165-166). This quote is important to all philosophical thought because it sets the morality of the basis. One having knowledge does not make one smart. One is only a good person by their actions, not their thoughts. I feel like we can all use this line of thinking in society today.
Putnam, H. (1981). Reason and history. In Reason, Truth and History (pp. 150-173). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511625398.009