Abstract: Many still seem confident that the kind of semantic theory Putnam once proposed for natural kind terms is right. This paper seeks to show that this confidence is misplaced because the general idea underlying the theory is incoherent. Consequently, the theory must be rejected prior to any consideration of its epistemological, ontological or metaphysical acceptability. Part I sets the stage by showing that falsehoods, indeed absurdities, follow from the theory when one deliberately suspends certain devices Putnam built into it , presumably in order to block such entailments. Part II then raises the decisive issue of at what cost these devices do the job they need to do. It argues that - apart from possessing no other motivation than their capacity to block the consequences derived in Part I - they only fulfil this blocking function if they render the theory unable to deal with fiction and related 'make-believe' activities. Part III indicates the affinity Putnam's account has with the classically 'denotative' view of meaning, and thus how its weaknesses may be seen as a variant of the classical weakness of 'denotative' approaches. It concludes that the theory is a conceptual muddle

Abstract: Multiple realizability is a key issue in debates over the nature of mind and reduction in the sciences. The subject consists of two parts: “multiplicity” and “realizability.” “Multiplicity” designates a kind of variability in the mechanism and materials from which a particular type of thing can be made. “Realizability” designates a specific relation that exists when there is the stated variability

Abstract: 1. Three claims about meaning In a sense, the meaning of our words obviously depends on circumstances outside us. ‘Elm’ in English is used to talk about elms, and though I could decide – perhaps as a kind of code – to use the word ‘elm’ to talk about beeches, my decision would hardly change what other people mean by the word. The meaning of ‘elm’ depends on the practices or conventions of the language speaking community, and these are certainly beyond my control. In this sense, it certainly looks as though meaning is determined by factors outside the individual. At the same time, it seems that it is up to me what I mean by my words; and in fact, the meaning of a word in the language is simply a result of what most of us mean by it. Another way of putting this point is that even if the meaning of an expression is determined by social agreement, grasping the meaning of the word is an individual psychological act. I may grasp the usual public meaning correctly, or I may – willingly or accidentally – mean something different by the word, but it looks as though meaning in this sense depends entirely on me

Abstract: The content of the externalist thesis about the mind depends crucially on how we define the distinction between the internal and the external. According to the usual understanding, the boundary between the internal and the external is the skull or the skin of the subject. In this paper I argue that the usual understanding is inadequate, and that only the new understanding of the external/internal distinction I suggest helps us to understand the issue of the compatibility of externalism and privileged access

Abstract: Suppose that you had always had a physical twin, Chris, who on a different planet went through life having physical characteristics, sensory experiences, utterances, and brain processes exactly the same as yours in every physical and sensory respect. Chris’s perceptually accessible environment also was physically identical to yours. So throughout your and Chris’s lives you experienced or had _identical_ visual fields, uttered _identical_ words with _identical_ intonations, saw _qualitatively identical_ objects at the _exact_ same times from the _very same_ perspectives, etc. Surely everything in your and Chris’s respective and physically identical local environments seems precisely the same to you and Chris from the inside, from your own cognitive perspectives. It seems that you must have had the same thoughts too. When at age six Chris thought "I would like a cookie" you also had that thought. Of course, when Chris says that sentence the occurrence of ‘I’ picks out Chris, not you. But even so, complexities like that aside, it seems that you and Chris live the same cognitive life. Whenever you thought that walleye are freshwater fish, Chris thought that walleye are freshwater fish. Thus, it seems that one’s physical makeup determines one’s thoughts. Call this view _individualism._

Abstract: In “Contents just are in the head” (Erkenntnis 54, pp. 321–4.) I have presented two arguments against the thesis of semantic externalism. In “Contents just aren’t in the head” Anthony Brueckner has argued that my arguments are unsuccessful, since they rest upon some misconceptions regarding the nature of this thesis. (Erkenntnis 58, pp. 1–6.) In the present paper I will attempt to clarify and strengthen the case against semantic externalism, and show that Brueckner misses the point of my arguments

Abstract: The claim of the multiple realizability of mental states by brain states has been a major feature of the dominant philosophy of mind of the late 20th century. The claim is usually motivated by evidence that mental states are multiply realized, both within humans and between humans and other species. We challenge this contention by focusing on how neuroscientists differentiate brain areas. The fact that they rely centrally on psychological measures in mapping the brain and do so in a comparative fashion undercuts the likelihood that, at least within organic life forms, we are likely to find cases of multiply realized psychological functions

Abstract: In “Multiple Realizations”¹ Lawrence Shapiro aims to protect the special sciences–i.e biology, psychology, the behavioral and the social sciences–from the consequences of his denial that multiple realization is widespread in nature

Abstract: Anti-individualism is standardly accepted on the basis of thought experiments that test our commonsense intuitions about how to describe a person’s representational states. The idea is that our best, most careful descriptions of a subject’s representational states reflect our commonsense commitments about the individuation conditions of concepts. However, there are reasons to be dissatisfied with this style of argument. First, such arguments seem to turn on the semantics of attitude reports – one of the most highly contested areas of philosophical semantics. Second, even if an argument based on thought experiments were wholly successful on its own terms, it wouldn’t establish that anti-individualistic concepts capture a deep and important aspect of commonsense psychology. For all the thought experiments show, individualistic and anti- individualistic ways of characterizing mental states could be nothing more than notional variants of one another – two different ways of packaging the same underlying facts about representational mechanisms and the things they represent. But if that were so, the debate over anti-individualism would lose much of its philosophical interest. What we really want to know is: do anti-individualistic concepts play a distinctive and ineliminable role in commonsense psychology. Would anything important be lost without them? My aim is to provide some substantial answers to these questions

Abstract: Jaegwon Kim has argued that if psychological kinds are multiply realizable then no single psychological theory can describe regularities ranging over psychological states. Instead, psychology must be fractured, with human psychology covering states realized in the human way, martian psychology covering states realized in the martian way, and so on. I show that even if one accepts the principles that motivate KimÕs argument, his conclusion does not follow. I then offer a dilemma that forces Kim to concede the possibility of a unified psychology. I close with a discussion of what, according to Jerry Fodor, is Òreally buggingÓ Kim

Abstract: In this paper I try to make as much sense aspossible of, first, the extensive philosophicalliterature concerned with the status of `Wateris H2O' and, second, the implications ofPutnam's invention of Twin Earth, anotherpossible world stipulated to be just like Earth, except that water is XYZ, notH2O

Abstract: This paper discusses whether it can be known a priori that a particular term, such as water, is a natural kind term, and how this problem relates to Putnams claim that natural kind terms require an externalist semantics. Two conceptions of natural kind terms are contrasted: The first holds that whether water is a natural kind term depends on its a priori knowable semantic features. The second – currently gaining in popularity among externalists – holds that water is a natural kind term only if water in fact turns out to be a natural kind. In the paper I argue that the first conception of natural kind terms should be rejected, since it does not adequately account for instances in which a purported natural kind term fails to name a natural kind (familiar examples are air, sand and jade). However, I argue further Putnams externalism depends on this first, traditional conception of natural kind terms. The externalist is left with a Hobsons choice: Either hold on to the traditional conception of natural kind terms, with its inherent problems, or reject extemalism. I argue that we should in fact reject externalism and reconsider the possibility of giving a descriptivist account of the meaning of natural kind terms