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Single Idea 14706
[filed under theme 18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
]
Full Idea
Your verdicts about whether the stuff on Twin Earth counts as water depends on whether you think of Twin Earth as a hypothesis about your actual environment or as a purely counterfactual possibility.
Gist of Idea
Your view of water depends on whether you start from the actual Earth or its counterfactual Twin
Source
Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.2.3)
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.18
A Reaction
This is the 'two-dimensional semantics' approach to the Twin Earth problem, which splits meaning into two components. Whether you start from the actual world or from Twin Earth, you will rigidly designate the local wet stuff as 'water'.
Related Idea
Idea 14701
Array worlds along the horizontal, and contexts (world,person,time) along the vertical [Schroeter]
The
20 ideas
with the same theme
[we may not know what we mean by 'water']:
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4099
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If Twins talking about 'water' and 'XYZ' have different thoughts but identical heads, then thoughts aren't in the head
[Putnam, by Crane]
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12026
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We say ice and steam are different forms of water, but not that they are different forms of H2O
[Forbes,G on Putnam]
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3208
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Does 'water' mean a particular substance that was 'dubbed'?
[Putnam, by Rey]
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14200
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'Water' on Twin Earth doesn't refer to water, but no mental difference can account for this
[Putnam]
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2343
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Reference may be different while mental representation is the same
[Putnam]
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6990
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Keep distinct the essential properties of water, and application conditions for the word 'water'
[Jackson]
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3408
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Two identical brain states could have different contents in different worlds
[Kim]
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3420
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Two types of water are irrelevant to accounts of behaviour
[Kim]
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15226
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What properties a thing must have to be a type of substance can be laid down a priori
[Harré/Madden]
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2437
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XYZ (Twin Earth 'water') is an impossibility
[Fodor]
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12630
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If concept content is reference, then my Twin and I are referring to the same stuff
[Fodor]
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17378
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Presumably molecular structure seems important because we never have the Twin Earth experience
[Dupré]
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4100
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The Twin Earth argument depends on reference being determined by content, which may be false.
[Crane]
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6633
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Twin Earth cases imply that even beliefs about kinds of stuff are indexical
[Lowe]
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3108
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If 'water' has narrow content, it refers to both H2O and XYZ
[Segal]
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3110
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Humans are made of H2O, so 'twins' aren't actually feasible
[Segal]
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3124
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Externalists can't assume old words refer to modern natural kinds
[Segal]
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15168
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That water is essentially H2O in some way concerns how we use 'water'
[Sidelle]
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14706
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Your view of water depends on whether you start from the actual Earth or its counterfactual Twin
[Schroeter]
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17873
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Water must be related to water, just as tigers must be related to tigers
[Almog]
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