Putnam, Context, and Ontology 1 STEVEN GROSS University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304 USA I Introduction When a debate seems intractable, with little agreement as to how one might proceed towards a resolution, it is understandable that philoso- phers should consider whether something might be amiss with the debate itself. Famously in the last century, philosophers of various stripes explored in various ways the possibility that at least certain philosophical debates are in some manner deficient in sense. Such moves are no longer so much in vogue. For one thing, the particular ways they have been made have themselves undergone much critical scrutiny, so that many philosophers now feel that there is, for example, a Quinean response to Carnap, a Gricean reply to Austin, and a diluting prolif- eration of Wittgenstein interpretations. 2 Be that as it may, 3 there do of CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY 507 Volume 34, Number 4, December 2004, pp. 507-554 1 This paper was written for the conference Hilary Putnam and the Pragmatic Tradition held in Münster in 2000. I thank Marcus Willaschek and Marie-Luise Raters for the invitation and Hilary Putnam for his response at the conference. I am grateful also to anonymous referees for their comments. 2 See, e.g., Quine (1951) in response to Carnap (1950), and Grice (1967) in response to Austin (1956). I wont attempt a bibliographical guide to the Wittgenstein literature. 3 See Stein (1992) for a defense of Carnap against Quine. See Travis (1985) for a defense of Austin against Grice. The writings of Hilary Putnam, the subject of the present paper, are deeply informed by his understanding of Wittgenstein.