Summary Brains in a vat

In his text, Brains in a vat, Putnam posits the question, How is

intentionality, reference possible? Analyzing examples such as the
improbable possibility of an ant tracing a series of lines which end up
looking like to us Winston Churchill, Putnam asks if such can be
considered to be a representation. The conclusion is negative due to
the lack of intentionality in the ants actions. Some philosophers (no
names are given) draw from this the conclusion that intentionality is a
characteristic that strictly applies to the powers of the mind and not in
anyway way to physical beings themselves.
Putnam, however, questions this denying that mental
representation or words in general have any more of a necessary
connection with what they represent than physical representations do.
After presenting a series of examples (the spilled-paint tree picture, or
the monkeys Hamlet), Putnam concludes that no matter how large and
complex a system of representations may be, be it verbal or visual, it
nevertheless does not have any intrinsic, built-in, magical connection
with what it represents.
This conception of representation or referral plays a key role in
Putnams repudiation of the brains in a vat argument. Against those
who claim that it is possible that we are all simply brains in a vat
participating in a collective hallucination in which all communication
takes through stimulations of the nervous system, the following
counter argument is made: although the people in that possible
world can think and say any words we can think and say, they cannot
(I claim) refer to what we can refer to. The argument is, in fact, a selfrefuting supposition.
Turings Test
Brains in a vat (again)
The premises of the argument
- Taking physical possibility too seriously
- Unconsciously operating with a magical theory of reference, a
theory on which certain mental representations necessarily refer
to certain external things and kinds of things.
o Take physics as our metaphysics.
o Reasons for denying a necessary connection
Mental presentations
Signs
Concepts
Difference between what elm refers to and
what beech refers to is not brought about by
a difference in our concepts or a difference of
his one psychological state (doppleganger in a

Twin Earth).
Meanings are not just in the head.
Possessing a concept is not a matter o
possessing images.
o Image of a tree Point to a tree
- The phenomenological investigation fails to what the difference
between an inner expression of thought (an occurence), and the
understanding of that expression (an ability)
o No set of mental events images or more abstract mental
happenings and qualities constitue understanding
o No set of mental events is necessary for understanding.
Concepts cannot be identical with mental objects of
any kind (both in one who understands and one who
doesnt)