TOPIC: HILARY PUTNAM'S MEANING OF MEANING

Topic: critique of externalist approach to mental content, evaluate validity of first person verse third person views, using Hilary Putnam's meaning of meaning as a source, John Searle's intentionality paper as a source



Topic: critique of externalist approach to mental content, evaluate validity of first person verse third person views, using Hilary Putnam's meaning of meaning as a source, John Searle's intentionality paper as a source

A significant inquiry for the idea of meaning is if meaning is a personal mental entity, or an abstract public entity. For demonstration, when we utter the phrase, 'horse' is the meaning of this phrase a mental concept? That is, manage we realize the meaning of the period 'horse' easily by that image we get in our head when we discover the phrase horse? Or is meaning some sort of abstract public entity where a period like 'horse' is easily appreciated as that thing to which every individual in a linguistic community mentions to when they state the phrase 'horse'? In “Meaning and Reference” Putnam contends that meaning is not a mental entity. Or as he states, ““meanings” just isn't in the head!” (Putnam, 2000). Putnam displays this by assembling a Twin Earth considered trial where the period 'water' on Twin Earth mentions to a fluid with a chemical structure XYZ. Putnam contends that the period 'water' has the identical intension on Earth and Twin Earth, yet has two distinct extensions. This is intended to display that meaning is not “in the head.” Putnam proceeds on to contend that the period 'water' is a rigid designator, and that what they call 'water' on Twin Earth is not actually water, because it disagrees in chemical structure from H20. In this term paper, I will contend that if we are reliable in our Twin Earth considered trial, we will have cause to question that the period 'water' is a rigid designator, and that it might not only mention to H2O, but could furthermore mention to XYZ. I will start by characterizing some key periods that are centered to Putnam's argument. Second, I will summarize Putnam's contention that two periods can have the identical intension, yet have distinct extensions. Finally, I will contend that there is cause to question that the period 'water' is a rigid designator, and that it might not only mention to H2O, but could furthermore mention to XYZ.

Before I give an account of Putnam's contention, it is first essential to characterize a couple of significant periods, mostly, 'extension'and'intension'. The 'extension' of a period is the entire set, or class of things to which a period refers. For demonstration, the period 'creature with a heart' mentions to 'humans', 'dogs', 'rabbits', and all other persons in the class of animals that have hearts. The 'intension' of a period mentions to the mental associations one has with a certain period, or another way to state this: the notion or concept one gets in one's head when one learns a certain ...