Rhetoric of Refutation

There is a certain pleasure in reading Hilary Putnam that is unrelated to the unfolding of the argument. It is found in the little asides that connive to bring the reader into the game. Take for instance the sly stab:

[...] but a mere restatement of a fact in a special jargon cannot claim to be an explanation of that fact.

And latter there is a full and vigourous use of hyphen to dare a challenge:

[...] is to say that we-know-not-what does we-know-not-what when we-know-not-what has happened!

And the most companionable merriment:

If I have taken Jaegwon Kim as my opponent of choice throughout these lectures (this is perhaps needless to say — but let me say it once again, nevertheless!), it is for two reasons: because his presentation of the arguments I have been discussing is the one I have found by far the most challenging and because of my admiration for his philosophical intelligence and the purity of his philosophical motivation. The only thing that could, indeed, make my admiration for Jaegwon Kim even greater would be for him now to concede that my view is the right one!

In among the final words is a type of exhortation (without exclamation!): "Many things deserve our wonder, but the formulation of an intelligible question requires more than wonder." All the quotations from Putnam are drawn from The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body and World.

And so for day 739
21.12.2008