Abstract

This paper is an attempt to undermine the view of those that adopt an ‘entangling’ view of thick concepts. Many of them think that it is only by adopting this view that one can make sense of the civilized ways of thinking about learning, understanding, and various other forms of human activity. In their view, disentanglers, such as expressivists, cannot say all of the things that right-minded people should say. This paper argues for the opposite view and it does so by focussing on Hilary Putnam's recent work and his discussions of, amongst other things, economic theory, the fact-value distinction, and philosophical theorizing about science.