Hillary Putnam and Realism with a Human Face (Part 1): On the Possibility of a God's Eye View

On The Very Idea - A Philosophy Podcast

First episode in a three part series where I look at Hillary Putnam’s lecture Realism with a Human Face. Putnam talks about quantum physics and the philosophical implications of it. Basically, Putnam sees quantum theory as providing scientific justification for putting an end to God’s Eye View conceptions of our knowledge of the universe. If we take quantum physics seriously, we must see that it implies that there can be no view from nowhere. Any perspective providing knowledge must be in some sense local - a perspective from somewhere. Quantum physics is a bit beyond my pay grade but hopefully a good conversation can come out of it.