Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Herodotus, Richard Fitzralph and Hilary Putnam

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13 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam]
     Full Idea: The desire that grips Fodor, as it once gripped me, is the desire to make belief-desire psychology "scientific" by simply identifying it outright with computational psychology.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], p.7)
     A reaction: An "outright" identification looks very implausible. It seems that we should accept that belief-desire psychology is a very good guide to normal brain events, but a bad guide to unusual brain events. See Ideas 2987 and 7519.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / b. Human rationality
Rationality is one part of our conception of human flourishing [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Our notion of rationality is, at bottom, just one part of our conception of human flourishing, our idea of the good.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Pref)
     A reaction: This looks like the beginnings of virtue epistemology, since rationality will have criteria, which would seem to be virtues. I find this idea appealing, both as a view of rationality, and as a view of the human good.
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
If everything uses mentalese, ALL concepts must be innate! [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Fodor concludes that every predicate that a brain could learn to use must have a translation into the computer language of that brain. So no "new" concepts can be acquired: all concepts are innate!
     From: Hilary Putnam (What is innate and why [1980], p.407)
     A reaction: Some misunderstanding, surely? No one could be so daft as to think that everyone has an innate idea of an iPod. More basic innate building blocks for thought are quite plausible.
No machine language can express generalisations [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Computers have a built-in language, but not a language that contains quantifiers (that is, the words "all" and "some"). …So generalizations (containing "all") cannot ever be stated in machine language.
     From: Hilary Putnam (What is innate and why [1980], p.408)
     A reaction: Computers are too sophisticated to need quantification (which is crude). Computers can work with very precise and complex specifications of the domain of a given variable.
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
If Twins talking about 'water' and 'XYZ' have different thoughts but identical heads, then thoughts aren't in the head [Putnam, by Crane]
     Full Idea: Putnam claims that the Twins have different thoughts even though their heads are the same, so their thoughts (about 'water' or 'XYZ') cannot be in their heads.
     From: report of Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Tim Crane - Elements of Mind 4.37
     A reaction: Is Putnam guilty of a simple confusion of de re and de dicto reference?
We say ice and steam are different forms of water, but not that they are different forms of H2O [Forbes,G on Putnam]
     Full Idea: Putnam presumes it is correct to say that ice and steam are forms of water, rather than that ice, water and steam are three forms of H2O. If we allow the latter, then 'water is H2O' is not an identity, but elliptical for 'water is H2O in liquid state'.
     From: comment on Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Graeme Forbes - The Metaphysics of Modality 8.2
     A reaction: This nice observation seems to reveal that the word 'water' is ambiguous. I presume the ambiguity preceded the discovery of its chemical construction. Shakespeare would have hesitated over whether to say 'water is ice'. Context would matter.
Does 'water' mean a particular substance that was 'dubbed'? [Putnam, by Rey]
     Full Idea: Putnam argued that "water" refers to H2O by virtue of causal chains extending from present use back to early dubbing uses of it that were in fact dubbings of the substance H2O (although, of course, the original users of the word didn't know this).
     From: report of Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 9.2.1
     A reaction: This is the basic idea of the Causal Theory of Reference. Nice conclusion: most of us don't know what we are talking about. Maybe the experts on H2O are also wrong...
'Water' on Twin Earth doesn't refer to water, but no mental difference can account for this [Putnam]
     Full Idea: The word 'water' used on Twin Earth refers not to water but to this other liquid (XYZ). Yet there is no relevant difference in the mental state of Twin Earth speakers and speakers on Earth (in 1750) to account for this difference of reference.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2)
     A reaction: In this world, if you and I separately meet twins, and I think about this twin while you think about that one, our mental states are different even if they are indistinguishable. I know I'm thinking about my twin, not yours. Indexicals.
Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam]
     Full Idea: The 'mental representations' of Earth speakers and Twin Earth speakers were not in any way different; the reference was different because the substances were different. Reference is fixed by the environment itself.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §2 p.32)
     A reaction: There seems to be an elementary distinction here between what you think you are referring to, and what you are in fact referring to. "That man is the Prince of Wales" (pointing at the butler).
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
I can't distinguish elm trees, but I mean by 'elm' the same set of trees as everybody else [Putnam]
     Full Idea: My concept of an elm tree is exactly the same as my concept of a beech tree (I blush to confess). ..We still say that the extension of 'elm' in my idiolect is the same as the extension of 'elm' in anyone else's, viz. the set of all elm trees.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.154)
     A reaction: This example is clearer and less open to hair-splitting than his water/XYZ example. You could, with Putnam, say that his meaning of 'elm' is outside his head, but you could also say that he doesn't understand the word very well.
'Water' has an unnoticed indexical component, referring to stuff around here [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Our theory can be summarized as saying that words like 'water' have an unnoticed indexical component: "water" is stuff that bears a certain similarity relation to the water around here.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.160)
     A reaction: This is the causal theory of reference, which leads to externalism about concepts, which leads to an externalist view of thought, which undermines internal accounts of the mind like functionalism, and leaves little room for scepticism… Etc.
Reference is social not individual, because we defer to experts when referring to elm trees [Putnam]
     Full Idea: My concept of an elm tree is exactly the same as my concept of a beech tree (I blush to confess), which shows that the determination of reference is social and not individual - both you and I defer to experts who can tell elms from beeches.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.1)
     A reaction: If I said 'that tree looks nice' I wouldn't be deferring to experts. Nor if I said 'that tree, which I take to be an elm, looks nice'. If I am an expert I don't defer to experts.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 3. Ontology of Concepts / b. Concepts as abilities
Concepts are (at least in part) abilities and not occurrences [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Concepts are (at least in part) abilities and not occurrences.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.1)
     A reaction: This seems to be building on the idea that meaning is use, and also arises from a background of pragmatism. Perhaps a concept is an acquaintance with a node in platonic space? Lots of abilities aren't concepts, so what distinguishes the concepts?