Il problema della conoscenza a priori nei Philosophical Papers di Hilary Putnam

This paper presents an interpretation of the early thought of Putnam about a priori knowledge, after Quine’s Two Dogmas of Empiricism. While Quine’s rejection of the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements and his epistemological holism involved the denial of a priori knowledge, this paper will show how, according to Putnam, they are coherent, underlining the epistemological value of pragmatic and extra-theoretical warrented assertibility criteria in the justification of empirical and formal scientific theories. Reminding C.I. Lewis “pragmatic conception of a priori”, this paper will define Putnam’s theory as a “pragmatic-trascendental” theory of a priori knowledge, because it reveals within scientific practices “quasi a priori principles”, which are necessary conditions, in order to conceive reality and pragmatic experience. Moreover, this paper will suggest that Putnam’s claim about “quasi empirical methods” seems to renew also the idea of synthetic a priori in a pragmatic way and so in connection with realism.