Selected readings

Just a few suggestions. Remarkable writings or reading recommendations, ordered by subject. In many cases the classification is purely conventional, some writings can easily belong to two or three categories. More, many writings could be considered as parts of a more general view, rather than stand-alone works. Surely I miss relevant contributes, suggestions are welcome.

 

Matemathics, logic, computer science

  • The Decision Problem for Exponential Diophantine Equations. With Martin Davis and Julia Robinson (1961)1
  • A Computing Procedure for Quantification Theory. With Martin Davis (1960) [Davies-Putnam algorithm]2

Philosophy of logic, philosophy of mathematics

  • Mathematics without Foundations (1967)4
  • It Ain’t Necessarily So (1968)5
  • Is Logic Empirical? (1968)6
  • Philosophy of Logic (1971)7
  • What is mathematical truth? (1975)8

Philosophy of language

  • The Analytic and the Synthetic (1957, 1962)3
  • Is Semantics Possible? (1970)9
  • Explanation and Reference (1975)10
  • The Meaning of ‘meaning’ (1975)11
  • Language and reality (1975)12
  • Meaning, Reference and Stereotypes (1978)13

Philosophy of mind

  • Minds and machines (1960)14
  • Dreaming and ‘Depth Grammar’ (1962)15
  • Brains and Behavior (1963)16
  • Psychological Predicates (1967)17
  • Logical Positivism and the Philosophy of Mind (1969)18
  • Philosophy and our mental life (1973)19
  • Language and reality (1975)20

Epistemology, skepticism

  • Brains in a vat (1981)21
  • Why Reason Can’t BeNaturalized (1982)22
  • The Depths and Shallows of Experience (2005)23

Philosophy of physics

  • Philosophy of Physics (1965)24
  • A Philosopher Looks at Quantum Mechanics (1965)25
  • Quantum Mechanics and the Observer (1981)26
  • A Philosopher Looks at Quantum Mechanics (Again)(2005)27
  • Quantum Mechanics and Ontology (2008, 2012)46
Philosophy of science
  • On Properties (1970)28
  • What Theories are Not (1975)29
  • The ‘Corroboration’ of Theories (1975)30

Ontology and metaphysics, realism, naturalism

  • Do True Assertions Correspond to Reality?(1960)47
  • What Is ‘Realism’?(1976)31
  • Why There Isn’t a Ready-Made World(1982)32
  • Realism Without Absolutes (1993)33
  • The Content and Appeal of “naturalism” (2004)

Philosophy of religion

  • Wittgenstein on Religious Belief (1991)34
  • On Negative Theology (1997)35
  • Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life: Rosenzweig, Buber, Levinas, Wittgenstein (2008)36

Philosophy of politics

  • Education for Democracy (1993)37

Ethics, moral philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of literature

  • Literature, Science and Reflection (1976)38
  • Meaning and the Moral Sciences(1978)39
  • The Place of Facts in a World of Values (1979) 40
  • Ethics Without Ontology (2004)41

General and meta-philosophical questions, history of philosophy, pragmatism, Wittgenstein

  • Renewing Philosophy (1992)42
  • Aristotle after Wittgenstein (1993)43
  • Pragmatism and Moral Objectivity (1994)44
  • Pragmatism: An Open Question (1995)45
  • Science and Philosophy (2010)

 

1Annals of Mathematics 74.3 (November 1961): 425-436.
2 Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery 7.3 (July 1960): 201-215
3 Scientific Explanation, Space, and Time. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 3, ed. Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962), 358-397. Repr. in Mind, Language and Reality (1975), 33-69
4 Journal of Philosophy 64.1 (19 January 1967): 5-22. Repr. in Mathematics, Matter and Method (1975), 43-59. Repr. in Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings, 2nd ed. (1983), 295-313.
5Journal of Philosophy 59.22 (25 October 1962): 658-671. Repr. in Mathematics, Matter and Method (1975), 237-249.
6 Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 5, ed. Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1968), 216-241. Repr. as “The Logic of Quantum Mechanics” in Mathematics, Matter and Method (1975), 174-197.
7 New York: Harper and Row, 1971. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972. Repr. in Mathematics, Matter and Method, 2nd ed. (1985), 323-357
8 In Mathematics, Matter and Method (1975), 60-78.
9 Metaphilosophy 1 (July 1970): 187-201. Revised version in Language, Belief and Metaphysics. Contemporary Philosophic Thought: The International Philosophy Year Conferences at Brockport, vol. 1, ed. Howard E. Kiefer and Milton K. Munitz (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1970), 50-63. Repr. in Mind, Language and Reality (1975), 139-152.
10 Conceptual Change, ed. Glenn Pearce and Patrick Maynard (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1973), 199-221. Repr. in Mind, Language and Reality (1975), 196-214.
11 Language, Mind and Knowledge. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 7, ed. Keith Gunderson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975), 131-193. Repr. in Mind, Language and Reality (1975), 215-271.
12 Mind, Language and Reality (1975), 272-290
13Meaning and Translation: Philosophical and Linguistic Approaches, ed. F. Guenthner and M. Guenthner-Reutter (New York: New York University Press; London: Duckworth, 1978), 61-81.
14Dimensions of Mind, ed. Sidney Hook (New York: New York University Press, 1960), 148-180. Repr. in Mind, Language and Reality (1975), 362-385.
15 Analytical Philosophy, First Series, ed. R. J. Butler (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), 211-235. Repr. in Mind, Language and Reality (1975), 304-324.
16 Analytical Philosophy, Second Series, ed. R. J. Butler (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), 211-235.
17Art, Mind and Religion, ed. W. H. Capitan and D. D. Merrill (Pittsburgh, Penn.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967), 37-48. Repr. as “The Nature of Mental States” in Mind, Language and Reality (1975), 429-440. Repr. in The Many Faces of Realism (1987), 150-161.
18The Legacy of Logical Positivism, ed. Peter Achinstein and Samuel Barker (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), 211-225. Repr. in Mind, Language and Reality (1975), 441-451.
19Mind, Language andReality (1975), 291-303
20Mind, Language and Reality (1975), 272-290
21Reason, Truth, and History, Cambridge University Press; 1981. Reprinted in DeRose and Warfield, editors (1999): Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader, Oxford UP
22 Synthese 52 (July 1982): 3-24. Repr. in Realism and Reason (1983), 229-247.
23 Science, Religion, and the Human Experience, ed. James D. Proctor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 71-86.
24 Aspects of Contemporary American Philosophy, ed. Franklin H. Donnell, Jr. (Würzburg: Physica-Verlag, Rudolf Liebing K. G., 1965), 27-40. Repr. in Mathematics, Matter and Method (1975), 79-92.
25 Beyond the Edge of Certainty: Essays in Contemporary Science and Philosophy, ed. Robert G. Colodny (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), 75-101. Repr. in Mathematics, Matter and Method (1975), 130-158.
26 Erkenntnis 16 (July 1981): 193-219. Repr. in Realism and Reason (1983), 248-270.
27British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56.4 (December 2005): 615-634
28 Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel: A Tribute on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Nicholas Rescher et al. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1970), 235-254. Repr. in Mathematics, Matter and Method (1975), 305-322.
29 Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, ed. Ernest Nagel, Patrick Suppes, and Alfred Tarski (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1962), 240-252. Repr. in Mathematics, Matter and Method (1975), 215-227.
30 The Philosophy of Karl Popper, ed. Paul A. Schilpp ( La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1974), vol. 1, 221-240. Repr. in Mathematics, Matter and Method (1975), 250-269.
31 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 76 (1976): 177-194.
32Synthese 51 (May 1982): 141-168. Repr. in Realism and Reason (1983), 205-228
33International Journal of Philosophical Studies 1.2 (September 1993): 179-192.
34On Community, ed. Leroy Rouner (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 56-75. Repr. in Renewing Philosophy (1992), 134-157
35 Faith and Philosophy 14.4 (October 1997): 407-422
36 Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.
37 With Ruth Anna Putnam. Educational Theory 43.4 (Fall 1993): 361-376. Repr. in Words and Life (1994), 221-241.
38 New Literary History 7.3 (Spring 1976), 483-491. Repr. in Meaning and the Moral Sciences (1978), 83-94
39London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978
40 The Nature of the Physical Universe: 1976 Nobel Conference, ed. Douglas Huff and Omer Prewett (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1979), 113-140. Repr. in Realism with a Human Face (1990), 142-162
41 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004
42 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992
43 Modern Thinkers and Ancient Thinkers, ed. Robert W. Shaples (Boulder, Col.: Westview; London: UCL Press, 1993), 117-137. Repr. in Words and Life (1994), 62-81
44 Women, Culture, and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities, ed. Martha Nussbaum and Jonathan Glover (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 199-204. Repr. in Words and Life (1994), 151-181
45 Oxford: Blackwell, 1995
46 ***** (2011), reprinted in Philosophy in an Age of Science. Ed.by Mario De Caro and David Macarthur, Harvard University Press, 2012
47 Conference, Oxford 1960. Printed in  Mind, Language and Reality (1975), pp. 70-84