Pluralismo ontologico e ontologia della sostanza. La critica di Putnam alla tesi quineana sull’indeterminatezza della traduzione

The paper provides an interpretation of Putnam’s ontological pluralism as articulated in the Philosophical Papers and The Meaning and the Moral Sciences, with respect especially to Quine’s ontological relativity. The model-theoretic argument is usually taken to support an anti-realist ontological view analogous to Quine’s, on which determining the meaning of words univocally is impossible. Contrary to this view, the paper argues that Putnam’s criticism of the indeterminacy of translation shows that the rejection of metaphysical realism does not amount to an anti-realist view. Rather, Putnam proposes a ‘sophisitcated’ realism admitting of a plurality of equivalent and mutually irreducible descriptions of the same fact. The paper concludes by pointing out that the compatibility between ontological pluralism and realism is the result of a synthesis of Aristotelianism and Kantianism obtained thanks to the mediation of pragmatism.