Hilary Putnam y la tercera vía del realismo natural

Abstract

The construction by Hilary Putnam of a pathway between metaphysical realism (and its different versions) and relativism (and its different versions); its problematic formulation in his early so called interna! realism and its last one, the natural realism or commonsense realism with the corresponding arguments as expresed in Dewey Lectures of 1994 are presented and critically evaluated in this paper. The author's question: "Does this kind of realism (natural or common sense realism) do justice to our claims of knowledge of reality, avoiding the problems of internal realism?" is answered negatively. One principal reason to do this is that it is not necessary to take internal realism as the expression of an antinomy to be overcome at any price. For a reflexive mind, the natural realism is not the last word. There are questions for which the dichotomy metaphysical realism/ relativism returns.