Unit 4: Putnam, Locke, Parfit Flashcards
philisophical impact of putnams paper
- most influential of late 20th century
- has influenced every area in analytic philosophy ie language, psychology, mind, epistemology, etc
putnams paper attacks//2 theses
co tenability of the two theses about meaning
- that knowing the meaning of a term is just a matter of being in a certain psychological state
- that the meaning of a term, its intension, determines its reference or denotation, its extension
- taken together, C: psychological state determines extension PUTNAM REJECTS C
- putnam argues against the conjunction of the 2, one must be false
- no substantive account or notion of meaning can satisfy both theses
semantic externalism
- putnam defends
- def: the meaning of and reference of some words we use are not soley determined by ideas we associate with them or by our own internal psychological states
- “meaning just aint in the head”
argument against C, twin earth
- somewhere there is a twin earth
- twin earth is exactly like earth
- the liquid there called water is not h20, it has a different chemical formula
- XYZ is indistinguishable from H20
- if a spaceship visits twin earth, then they will think that water has the same meaning on both planets
- but it will be discovered that water is XYZ
- the word water there means XYZ
semantics of twin earth
- does the word water differ in meaning on the different earths?
- does the word water differ in extension on the different earths
- are answers to theses questions different before 1750, before the chemistry of water was understood?
- how do views about the meaning of natural kind terms, such as water, transfer over to other sorts of terms? ie artifcat terms, color adjectives, etc
complex problems that arise from twin earth
- philosophy of mind and language
- -what is the relationship between knowing a meaning and being in a psychological state
- -are you and your twin thinking the same thing?
- -if not, what does this say about our ability to know what were thinking and to do so authoritativeley?
semantic internalism
knowing the meaning of a term is just a matter of being in a certain psychological state, and the meaning of a term, its intension, determines its reference or denotation, its extension
example of wally and twally: internalist argument
- they feel the “water”
- the internalist argues that water on both earths have equal meaning, they have the same usage emposing word
- supported by claim about them before 1750, before science discovered the chemical composition of water
- since they are physically identical, their brain states are identical, so they have the same exact thought or belief
- methodological solipsism
methodological solipsism
- no psychological state presupposes the existence of any individual other than the subject to whom the state is ascribed
- you dont need others to have the thought “heres an apple”
- underlying meaning: we know the meaning of the term even if nothing else exists
- “one individual in isolation can grasp any concept whatsoever that his grasp of his concepts totally determines the extension of all the individuals terms. knowledge of meaning is private property”
wally and twally externalism argument
- water on 2 earths have different meanings
- putnam attacks 2 internalists general theses:
1. knowing the meaning of a term is to be in a certain psychological state
2. the meaning of a term, intension, determines its reference, extension - C: psychological state determines extension
- internalists idea: if two terms have the same intension, sense, they have the same extension, same set; if 2 terms have different extensions, they have different intentions, senses
- putnam says that since wally and twally employ a term water with the same meaning, they are in the same psychological state, however wally and twally refer to different extensions (h2o and xyz)
- *although they are physically identical, each is embedded in a different physical environment and so the meaning is different
- before 1750: even if ppl didnt know what water was comprised of, the fact that h20 is on earth and xyz on twin earth, water means a different thing when wally and twally use the term
key ideas in support of putnams semantic externalism, the division of linguistic labor
- the division of linguistic labor:the phenomenon that while most people can quite correctly use and understand most of the terms of ordinary language, few of them know and need to know very much about the nature of what those terms refer to
- we use the word correctly bc there are gold experts out there and you can rely on what they say ie gold
division of linguistic labor attack on methodological solipsism
methodological solipsism: when combined with the thesis that knowing the meaning of a term is a psychological state, implies meanings are in the head–meanings determined by the contents of a persons mind and it isnt necessary to appeal to any other mental considerations
what fixes the extension of a term?
- whenever a term is subject to the division of linguistic labor, the average speaker who aquires it does not aqcuire anything that fixes the extension
- his psychological state does not fix its extension, it is only the sociolinguistic state of the collective linguistic body to which the speaker belongs that fixes the extension
key ideas to support semantic externalism: ex wally and twally
- wally and twally point to a liquid on their own earths and say that is water ( a demonstrative)
- 2 theories of water
1. water is constant in meaning but is world relative in extension//for every world W, for every X in W, X is water and is identical to the same liquid as the entity referred to as “this” in W
2. water is constant in extension but is world relative in meaning//for every world W, for every X in W, X is water and is identical to the same liquid as the entity referred to as “this” in the actual world - putnam adopts theory 2: on twin earth water has a different meaning and picks out different stuff: intuition is that XYZ is not water and only H20 is, this is because he thinks that kind terms ie water, tiger, etc, are rigid designators (a la saul kripke)
the indexicality and rigidity of natural kind terms: indexicals, kind terms, kind rigid designators
- the fact that terms for natural kinds have hidden “indexical” components allowing their extension to be dependent in a certain way upon contexts
- indexicals: terms with content dependent reference/extension ie “i, this, today”
- kind terms: terms that designate some kind, ie tiger has an extension to some kind of animal
- kind rigid designators: designate a kind in all possible worlds ie h20
putnams intuition is that XYZ is not water, only h20 is explained
- water is h20, water designates h20 in the actual world, thus since it rigidly designates it designates h20 is every possible world
- “water is stuff that bears a certain similarity relation to the water around here”
- so when twally says water it has a different meaning ie bank vs bank
- an entity x, in any arbitrary possible world is water IFF it is the same liquid as the stuff we call water in the actual world
ostensive definition and fixing meaning
an ostensive definition of water: point at a sample and declare–this is water
- term fixes on to whatever youre looking at and will always fix on whatever it is made out of the matter where youre at
- gives meaning by pointing at something and declaring it is the extension of a term, what is happening is tat one is saying that “water” means “the stuff that has the nature of this stuff right here”
2 personal identity puzzles, the ship of theseus
- consider the ship of theseus, recorded by plutarch
- theseus, an athenian, sailed to crete to slay the minotar
- upon return, the ship was left in the athens harbor in tribute
- over time, the ship decays, and the planks are gradually replaced
- 1st scenario (heraclitus, socrates, plato): each year one plank is replaced, in 1000 years, all are replaced. Q: is it the same or different ship?
- 2nd scenario: (hobbes, locke): if athenians saved all old planks and 1000 years later, rebuilt a ship with the old planks, which ship is the ship of theseus? Q: one of them? both? neither?
The question of personal identity
- how can the same person exist at different times?
- about numerical identity not qualitative identity
numerical identity
-that a person at one time and a person at another time are one and the same, 1 rather than 2 not different things at different times
qualitative identity
-that a person at 1 time and a person at another time are exactly similar in qualities ie height, hair color, favorite foods, etc
perfectly identical twins example
-twin 1 and 2 are qualitatively identical, exactly the same in all qualities, but not numerically identical (one in the same thing)
Q: but how is numerical identity possible in the case of a person over time?
locke: what personal identity is not, 3 rejected views
previous views locke rejects:
- same person= same body, physical
- same person=same man, living thing
- same person=sam soul, thinking substance
lockes belief on: being the same person is having the same body
- body: collection of atoms, 1 body=another body
- but being the same person cannot amount to having the same body
- the most minute changes to a body would result in a different person ie cell regeneration, scratching skin, etc
- ie lockes torn sock, ie ship of theseus
lockes belief on being the same person is being the same man
man: some individual living thing or being
-living things are collections of atoms that are functionally organized ie sunflower, man
-1 living thing is the same as another living thing it its the same individual understood as a type of functionally organized being
-being the same functionally organized individual or thing does not require having the same body over time, ie an oak seedling to a tree
-being the same person cant amount to being the same man, if it did, then what if reincarnation were true?
ie prince comes back as an animal–they could convince us they were the same person in a different body
