[3.7.4.5.] Putnam’s Internalism.

 

Putnam does not call his version of anti-Realism by that name. Instead, he calls it internalism.^[1]

                                                          

Putnam’s internalism includes the following ideas:

 

1.      conceptual relativity: the idea of objects that exist in complete independence of the mind’s conceiving of them doesn’t make any sense; the question what objects the world consists of only makes sense within a given conceptual scheme,^[2] or within a given description, or within a given theory.

·         Imagine a world containing three particular things: x1, x2 and x3.^[3]

·         How many objects are in this world? For Putnam, it depends on what you mean by “object.”

·         If you mean particular, individual things, then there are only three: x1, x2 and x3.

·         But if your conceptual scheme recognizes abstract objects, such as sets, then there are more than three objects. There are: x1, x2, x3, x1+x2, x1+x3, x2+x3, x1+x2+x3.^[4]

·         There is no answer to the question, “But how many objects are there really?” There are only answers relative to some prior definition of “object”; so ontology is relative to one’s conceptual scheme.

 

2.      internalism about reference: reference is a relation between words and objects as those words and objects are conceived by us, within a given conceptual scheme. Reference is not a relation between words (as those words exist in the world apart from what we think about them) and mind-independent objects. Reference does not extend beyond our conceptual scheme to pick out objects that exist apart from our cognition of them.

·         This is the element of Putnam’s internalism that incorporates the lessons of Quine’s doctrine of the inscrutability of reference.

·         Loux describes this aspect of Putnam’s anti-Realism as follows:

 

... talk of reference always points to items within a single conceptual structure. When we say what a term picks out, we are merely correlating one object from within a conceptual scheme with other objects from that same scheme; and what we say will not be all that interesting. We will say, for example, that ‘cat’ is true of cats and that ‘mat’ is true of mats. (278)

 

·         Putnam himself describes it as follows (here he is describing both his conceptual relativism and his internalism about reference):

 

In an internalist view ..., signs [i.e., things that stand for or represent things, including language] do not intrinsically correspond to objects, independently of how those signs are employed and by whom. But a sign that is actually employed in a particular way by a particular community of users can correspond to particular objects within the conceptual scheme of those users. ‘Objects’ do not exist independently of conceptual schemes. We cut up the world into objects when we introduce one or another scheme of description. Since the objects and the signs are alike internal to the scheme of description, it is possible to say what matches what.

        Indeed, it is trivial to say what any word refers to within the language the word belongs to, by using the word itself. What does ‘rabbit’ refer to? Why, to rabbits, of course! What does ‘extraterrestrial’ refer to? To extraterrestrials (if there are any).^[5]

 

3.      internalism about truth: a statement (belief, etc.)  is true if and only if it would be rational to believe it “in epistemically ideal circumstances,” i.e., circumstances in which one has access to the most comprehensive evidence possible.

 

 

[3.7.5.] Realism or Anti-Realism?

 

 

[3.7.5.1.] Objection #1: Against the Possible Worlds Account.

 

Putnam has assumed that an assignment of truth values to a sentence across possible worlds is enough to specify the meaning of that sentence.

 

And he has argued that such a specification of truth values leaves the reference of terms in the sentence indeterminate... so indeterminate that, in “A cat is on a mat”, the words “cat” and “mat” refer to cherries and trees just as much as they refer to cats and mats.

 

He concluded that, since an assignment of truth values across possible situations tells us everything there is to know about a sentence’s meaning, reference must be indeterminate.

 

And he takes this conclusion to show that the correspondence account of truth is wrong, and that Realism must be wrong, too.

 

But the Realist can reply by rejecting Putnam’s assumption that an assignment of truth values across worlds tells us everything there is to know about the meaning of a sentence.

 

The Realist can argue against Putnam’s assumption by pointing out that “two different propositions can have the same truth values in all worlds,” (279) even though they have different meanings.

 

E.g.,

“All bachelors are unmarried.”

“All spinsters are female.”

 

are each true in all possible worlds; so a truth-value assignment for one would be the same as a truth-value assignment for the other. But they are different propositions... so there must be something to the meaning of a sentence that is not captured by an assignment of truth values across worlds.

 

The same is true with regard to

 

“All triangles have three sides.”

“All triangles have three angles.”

 

But the members of each pair of sentences mean different things, even though they have the same truth value in all worlds.

 

“The strategy of assigning truth values across worlds is just too blunt a tool for semantic analysis of any sort, so its failure to determine referential force is of little theoretical interest. Certainly, it cannot serve to underwrite a position with the profound metaphysical implications of anti-Realism!” (280)

 

 

[3.7.5.2.] A Possible Reply.

 

Putnam could defend his use of the possible worlds account of sentence meaning by saying that this criticism is question-begging: it assumes the very thing that it should be trying to prove, namely, that the possible worlds account does not give a complete account of sentence meaning.

 

Specifically, this criticism assumes that a term like “side,” “angle,” “cat,” “mat,” “cherry,” or “tree” has a uniquely determinate reference. Here’s how:

 

·         The response points out that, e.g., “All triangles have three sides” and “All triangles have three angles” mean different things.

 

·         But to be justified in making this claim, the critic would have to be justified in assuming that “side” and “angle” have different meanings.

 

·         But exactly what Putnam is arguing is that predicates like that do not have uniquely determinate meanings.

 

·         The critic (Putnam will say) cannot simply insist that such terms have uniquely determinate meaning without providing some theoretical support for that claim.

 

·         And in the absence of an alternative, the possible worlds account of sentence meaning is the best we have.

 

So it seems that if this is the best that the Realist can do to criticize Putnam, the two parties are at a stand-off.

 

 

[3.7.5.3.] Objection #2: Anti-Realism Begs the Question.

 

This objection is directed against an assumption made by both Putnam and Quine.

 

Both philosophers assume that there are no private mental states, i.e., mental states that never get manifested publicly through behavior.

 

Recall that they assume this because they also assume that “[t]here can be no facts for which it is, in principle, impossible that there be evidence.”:

·         Were I to have a mental state (for example, an interpretation of a rule, or an understanding of a sentence) that never gets manifested in my behavior, then no one would ever have any evidence that I actually have that mental state. One’s behavior is the only evidence that he or she is in any specific mental state at all. So it is impossible to have evidence that someone is in a private mental state.

·         Since (the anti-Realists assume), if something is a fact then it is at least possible for us to have evidence of it, there are no private mental states.

 

But at this point the Realist can object that the anti-Realist is begging the question.

 

The very point at issue between Realism and anti-Realism is whether or not “reality” or “the world” can transcend our abilities to know about it. And by assuming that there can be no facts about which it is impossible for us to have evidence, the anti-Realist simply assumes that “reality” / “the world” cannot transcend our epistemic abilities.

 

The Realist can maintain, against the anti-Realist, that there are facts about which it is impossible to have evidence... for example, private mental states.

 

And the Realist can conclude: unless Putnam can provide an argument that there are no private mental states, an argument that does not beg the question in favor of anti-Realism, then the Realist’s position is safe.

 

 

[3.7.5.4.] Objection #3: Anti-Realism is Self-Defeating.

 

A third possible objection is that Putnam’s argument is self-defeating...

 

Putnam seems to be arguing that referring terms, like “cat” and “mat” and so forth, never actually refer to anything.

 

But to formulate his argument (or to say just about anything else, for that matter), Putnam must use referring terms. For example, he needs to explain that the word “cat*” sometimes refers to cats and sometimes refers to cherries. But if the conclusion of his argument is right, it seems like he can’t really refer to cats or cherries (or anything else), and so the premises of his argument lack meaning.

 

The problem is more general than this, though. It seems that if Putnam is right, none of us can ever refer to anything. So when you ask me where your graded test is, you fail to refer to your graded test; and when I say I left it at my house, I also fail to refer to it (and to my house).

 

 

Putnam could reply as follows:

 

This criticism misunderstands the cat* / mat* argument. That argument is actually a reductio ad absurdum:

 

reductio ad absurdum (df.): an argument that attempts to prove that a proposition is false by assuming the denial of that proposition and then deriving from it a claim that is false; in this way, the assumption is “reduced to absurdity” and thereby shown to be false.

 

Putnam’s strategy was to assume that a realist view of reference is true. This is the view that the relationship of reference is independent of cognition, and that whether or not a word refers to an object does not depend on how we cognize that object. From this assumption, he derives an obviously false conclusion, that reference is impossible. He then concludes that the assumption must be false. At this point he replaces the original, realist account of reference with his own internalism about reference, defined above.

 

Loux’s reply to this defense:

 

If Putnam’s cat* / mat* argument is to work as a reductio of a realist view of reference, then Putnam must still have some way of getting around the inscrutability of reference, i.e., his internalism about reference must itself be immune to arguments that say that reference is inscrutable.

 

And what’s more, whatever way Putnam finds to get around the inscrutability of reference must not be open to the Realist. Otherwise, the Realist can simply adopt that same way around worries about inscrutability and retain his or her Realist views without adopting Putnam’s internalism.

 

According to Loux, the prospects do not look good for Putnam, for the way in which Putnam goes about securing reference seems to be open to the Realist, as well:

 

Both philosophers seem content to show that despite the inscrutability of reference, the anti-Realist’s talk about reference is intelligible; and in both philosophers, the claim is that a background framework for identifying and describing things provides a coordinate system that makes it possible for us to pose and answer what would otherwise be unintelligible questions. The suggestion is that we can make our talk about reference intelligible by taking the referential force of certain terms as used by a specified group of speakers as somehow given. Those terms as so used are taken at face value; we pose no questions about their referential force. Then, relative to those terms as so used, referential questions about other terms, or about those same terms as used by some new set of speakers, can be intelligibly posed and answered. Thus, if I take my use of ‘cat’ and ‘cherry’ as just given, I can ask whether my neighbor means cats or cherries by her use of ‘cat.’

So the claim seems to be that the anti-Realist can just take the referential force of some terms as given, and can use those terms as fixed points for talking about reference. (283)

 

But Loux poses the following challenge: why can’t the Realist do exactly the same thing as Putnam says the anti-Realist can do?

 

Further, Loux questions whether the strategy described above really does help the anti-Realist avoid the problems of inscrutable reference

 

Does the acceptance of a background language make talk about reference meaningful? It is difficult to see how it could if reference is indeterminate in the radical way Putnam suggests. The idea is that we take certain terms at face value; but if it is genuinely indeterminate whether ‘cat,’ say, refers to cats or cherries, it is just not clear what taking the term ‘cat’ at face value would amount to. The upshot of generalized referential indeterminacy would seem to be that there is no such thing as the “face” value of a referring expression. (284)

 

 

Stopping point for Friday March 27. Next time we will have a review session for your test, which is next Wednesday.