Autore: De Caro, Mario
Titolo: Hilary Putnam on Freedom and Nature
Periodico: Bollettino della Società Filosofica Italiana
Anno: 2025 - Volume: 245 - Fascicolo: 2 - Pagina iniziale: 75 - Pagina finale: 84

This article examines Hilary Putnam’s approach to the classical antinomy of freedom – the conflict between scientific determinism and human agency. De Caro argues that Putnam offers a third way through “liberal naturalism”, which avoids both dualism and reductive materialism. Putnam moved from an early libertarian position – grounding free will in quantum indeterminacy – to a later compatibilist stance. His solution centers on ontological and causal pluralism: the idea that reality comprises multiple irreducible levels that require different explanatory vocabularies. This allows physical and intentional causation to coexist without reduction. Putnam’s framework permits normative explanations of human action to operate at their appropriate conceptual level while remaining compatible with scientific naturalism. The article concludes that this pluralistic approach offers a promising foundation for understanding human agency within a naturalistic worldview – what he terms “naturalized Kantianism”.




SICI: 1129-5643(2025)245:2<75:HPOFAN>2.0.ZU;2-9
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.23816/118084
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.23816/118084

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