Meeting 2/11

Hi folks,

This week at the philosophy club, Colin Bradley will be giving a paper entitled “Brains, Causal Chains, and Self-Defeating Claims.”

Here is an abstract: Hilary Putnam thought that his externalist theory of reference had a neat consequence: a quick and easy argument against a certain form of the classic Cartesian Evil Demon skeptical problematic (in the modern clothing of a worry about brains in vats). The argument is roughly: “If you were a brain in a vat, you could not think or say that you were. But you can think and say it. So you aren’t a brain in a vat!” Needless to say this pithy argument has sparked a lot of misunderstanding and has mostly been dismissed for one reason or another. I will offer a much more detailed account of Putnam’s argument, and then take on some of the fiercest criticism against it. In particular I will focus on Putnam’s insistence that the brain in a vat ‘possibility’ is no possibility at all. I think this is right and that it contains some deep insights about language, conceptual mastery, and the limits of knowledge. I’ll try to show that positions to the contrary have fallen victim to an illusion of thought.

Thursday, 2/11, 6-7PM. Stuart 209. There will be food.

 

best,

Phil