scholarly journals Is Putnam's 'brain in a VAT' hypothesis self-refuting?

2020 ◽  
pp. 73-95
Author(s):  
Živan Lazović
Keyword(s):  
Brain In A Vat

Two Substantively Moorean Responses and the Project of Refuting Skepticism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith DeRose
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Semantic Externalism ◽  
Adequate Response ◽  
Brain In A Vat

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.

The Non-identical World

2020 ◽  
pp. 139-162
Author(s):  
Sean Cubitt
Keyword(s):  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Central Character ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Downtown Area ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Critical Process ◽  
Brain In A Vat

There exists a powerful fantasy that the world is not only describable in numbers but is composed of code, in which case the world-as-code can be rewritten. This theme has already emerged in the analyses of Oblivion and Déjà Vu, and is shared by a group of what are here named as ‘irreality’ films made during the global financial crisis. Source Code (Duncan Jones, 2011) dwells on the fate of a protagonist who is the archetypal brain in a vat, another posthumous central character. The analysis draws out the historical formation of subjectivity and the history of the instincts that tie human personality to natural processes, discusses the utopian potential of the performative principles of software, reveals how, in a critical process shot, this utopianism is directed simultaneously towards the construction of community and of the romantic couple, and how these relate to the invisibility, in the repeated shots of the Chicago skyline, of the futures market housed in its downtown area.

scholarly journals Do You Know That You Are Not a Brain in a Vat?

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ned Markosian ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Brain In A Vat

2. Scepticism

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Nagel
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Externalism ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Brain In A Vat

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.

scholarly journals Why Should Warrant Persist in Demon Worlds?

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Normal Functioning ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Demon World ◽  
Brain In A Vat

In ‘Perceptual Entitlement’ (2003) Burge argues that a perceptual competence that is reliable in normal conditions when functioning normally confers prima facie warrant when functioning normally in any conditions, and so a normal functioning perceptual competence continues to confer warrant even when the individual is unknowingly massively deceived, such as in a brain-in-a-vat or a “demon world” scenario. This chapter critically examines Burge’s explanation. Burge’s explanation does not adequately explain why warrant should persist outside of normal conditions, and so why warrant should persist in demon worlds. The chapter distinguishes between bounded versus non-bounded normal conditions reliabilism to explain why Burge’s account falls short. According to bounded reliabilism, perceptual warrant does not persist outside of normal conditions. According to unbounded reliablism, it does. The chapter distinguishes two grades of warrant in terms of the distinction between bounded and unbounded reliabilism. With these two grades of warrant, one can then explain why warrant should persist in demon worlds.

scholarly journals Mózgi w naczyniu

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-92
Author(s):  
Tomasz Albiński
Keyword(s):  
Metaphysical Realism ◽  
Brain In A Vat

Although there is a disagreement about how Putnam’s argument should be understood, it is possible to point to several elements of this argument which are common for many different reconstructions. In this paper I have tried to show that not all of them are unquestionable. And I want to propose a new way in which self-refutation of statement „I am a brain in a vat” may be understood. A form of this reconstruction is neutral for controversy about metaphysical realism or skepticism – it differs from the argument suggested by Putnam’s text. But I think that a story about envatted brains is simply a story about a language.

Moorean Methodology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith DeRose
Keyword(s):  
Skeptical Argument ◽  
Brain In A Vat

In this chapter a Moorean approach, on which one seeks to defeat, rather than refute, skepticism, is explained, developed, and defended. The issue of whether skepticism was doomed to inevitable defeat on the methodology in question is explored, and the considerations on which that matter turns, are identified. The power of the AI, the classical skeptical argument from skeptical hypotheses, is defended, focusing mainly on the viability the skeptic’s first premise, that you do not know that you are not a brain in a vat. Finally, the importance of solving the puzzle that this form of skeptical argument confronts us with is vindicated, whether or not the skeptic who wields AI was doomed to defeat.

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