Realismo scientifico senza scientismo: la proposta di Hilary Putnam

The reflection of Hilary Putnam over the scientific realism endured frequent distortions inside the contemporary epistemologic debate. Just recently, in fact, in Philosophy in an Age of Science (2012), Putnam himself wanted to explicitly denounce the undeserved identification of his originary scientific realism with the scientism, as well as the illegitimacy of the resulting criticism of incoherence considering the new appreciation of metaphysics of the Nineties. On the other hand, in Mathematics, matter andmethod (1975), Putnam has already led a fierce criticism against the logical empiricist scientism and its deceptive and non realistic concept of science. The paper intents to present this criticism starting with the analysis of some essays from the first volume of the Philosophical Papers, in order to bring to the “backlight” surface the actual nature of his scientific realism. The scientific realism will, first of all, show itself like the attitude of the phylosopher, or rather of the scientist, in front of the scientific activity: differently from the non-realistic “deductivism” which prior imposes its own methodological rules as an essential warrancy of truth, the scientific realism refuses such “feticism” of the method, sure that the scientific activity works by itself in the sphere of truth, as in inside the space defined by the relationship between a subject and something else. Such polarity will be verified through Putnam’s criticism against the geo-chronometric conventionalism of Adolf Grünbaum (An Examination of Grünbaum’s Philosophy of Geometry, 1963), in terms of “existential relevance” of scientific theories, even when recognising conventional elements in the definition with reference to physical quantities.