Putnam: meaning is not in the head.
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Get Help Now!Putnam is a famous externalist indicating that meanings are not in the head. He explained that twin earth is a very different planet that is elsewhere in the galaxy but is just like earth. One different thing about twin earth is that it has a liquid that they refer to as water. However, the chemical composition of that substance is not H2O, it has a totally different chemical component probably XYZ. His intuition is that xyz is not water, which is the basis for his argument. Another argument that is possible though Putnam does not share it is that XYZ could be another form of water. If individuals were to visit twin earth, they would discover that there exists another kind of water that individuals did not have an idea about.
He argued that XYZ is not like a specific water isotope. It is just another liquid with various superficial water characteristics. This is an example trying to prove his point that meanings are not in the head. If individuals on twin earth would dig deeper, they would discover that they would discover that the liquid they refer to as water is has no chemical composition of water but a totally different composition. However, such individuals would still refer the liquid as water even though they realize that it has a different chemical composition. The main reason is that it serves the same purpose as water so the chemical composition does not really count.
To draw into his conclusion, he identifies that the extension of water in the English spoken by people on earth and those on twin earth are different. He argues that there is no major psychological difference between earthanian English and the English spoken on twin earth. The main psychological difference is what is in the heads of such individuals. To determine what is in the head of both individuals, he identified that there was a time that individuals on earth had no idea that the chemical composition of water was H2O. Still the stuff earthanians referred to as water was H2O, not XYZ even though no individual on earth could have made that difference.
Supposedly, there are two Oscars one on earth and another one on twin earth. Oscar 1 has his own beliefs about water with composition of H2O, which he talks of when he refers to water and Oscar two talks of water referring to XYZ (Press 109). Thus, despite the two individuals being in similar psychological states, their extension of water is totally different. Thus, despite the sameness in their psychological states, it does not determine the sameness in their extension. Thus, he argues that it is important for individuals to identify that intensions are the main determinants of extension and give up the idea that meanings are in the head of individuals. This is the same regard as the time when many years ago people used to refer to, point at a star, and believe that they were holes in the sky that enabled sunlight to shine through. When people discovered years later that stars were not holes as they earlier depicted, they still maintained the word star in the constant reference of the actual objects. Thus, this concurred with Putnam’s argument that meanings or beliefs that individuals hold are not in their heads.
However, Searle argues against this idea. He argues that the individuals are only seeing a substance they refer to as water. Such individuals have set conditions that the substance has to or anything else that is similar in a relevant way has to fulfill. The condition set is internalized in the individuals’ minds. He identified that it is up to the world to determine whether the object fulfills the set conditions and not on the mind (Gerken 109). Internalism theory defines how the mind is able to set conditions. Objects are often set with certain conditions and it is up to the world to determine whether such set conditions are fulfilled or not.
Thus, once individuals discovered that the substance they are using is not H2O; individuals have the alternative of redefining it to become H2O. Alternatively, they can allow the term known as water to continue defining any liquid that has the basic properties that water has. He argued that if Twin earth does not have water, then all these products made out of their XYZ are different from what the individuals living there would have wanted. For instance, the ice cream on twin earth would be different yet individuals would still refer to it as ice cream (Rosenkratz 23).
Thus, though both Putnam and Searle have differing points of view, both are trying to drive their point’s home. Putnam is driving his externalist point home by claiming that the mind does not send conditions to be fulfilled by object set. The beliefs and meaning of specific objects and terms are not in the mind of individuals. The reason is that individuals can still easily refer to the same object but with a different meaning or belief. Searle, on the other hand, is an internalist believing that our beliefs and definitions are in the mind.
Works Cited
Gerken, Mikkel. Epistemic reasoning and the mental. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Press, Oxfrod University. Metaethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Rosenkratz, Gary. Historical dictionary of metaphysics. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow press, 2011.
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