Dretske’s Semantic Externalism Account and Its Problems

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aakash Guglani
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Keith DeRose

In this chapter, substantive Mooreanism, according to which one does know that one is not a brain in a vat, is explained, and two main varieties of it are distinguished. Contextualist Mooreanism, (a) on which it is only claimed that one knows that one is not a brain in a vat according to ordinary standards for knowledge, and (b) on which one seeks to defeat bold skepticism (according to which one doesn’t know simple, seemingly obvious truths about the external world, even by ordinary standards for knowledge), is contrasted with Putnam-style responses, on which one seeks to refute the skeptic, utilizing semantic externalism. Problems with the Putnam-style attempt to refute skepticism are identified, and then, more radically, it is argued that in important ways, such a refutation of skepticism would not have provided an adequate response to skepticism even if it could have been accomplished.



2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jussi Jylkkä ◽  
Henry Railo ◽  
Jussi Haukioja




Author(s):  
Jennifer Nagel

When you start to get self-conscious about what you know, even the simplest fact, something you usually think you could verify at a glance, can start to seem like something you don’t really know. ‘Scepticism’ describes the historical roots of scepticism beginning with the two distinct sceptical traditions: Academic and Pyrrhonian. A central worry of both schools of ancient scepticism concerns the ‘criterion of truth’ or the rule we should use to figure out what to accept, assuming that knowledge requires not just accepting things randomly. Modern approaches to scepticism from philosopher G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell's ‘Inference to the Best Explanation’ to Hilary Putnam's Semantic Externalism and the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis are discussed.





The Monist ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 103 (4) ◽  
pp. 468-480
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Narboux

Abstract Throughout his philosophical career, Hilary Putnam was preoccupied with the question of what survives of the traditional notion of a priori truth in light of the recurring historical phenomenon, made prominent by the scientific revolutions of the early decades of the twentieth century, through which “something that was literally inconceivable has turned out to be true” (1962b). Impugning the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, Putnam’s redefinition of “conceptual truth” in terms of “quasi-necessity relative to a conceptual scheme” is meant to accommodate the possibility of transitions of just this sort. In this essay, I trace the origins and development of Putnam’s account of “quasi-necessity.” I try to defend it against some objections naturally arising in connection with the interplay of modality and negation. My main contention is that the main tenets of Putnam’s semantic externalism inform his reconception of conceptual truth, and that they must be recognized to hold of such basic logical notions as those of judgment and negation.









2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Åsa Wikforss
Keyword(s):  


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