Abstract
I present a novel anti-sceptical BIV argument by focusing on conditions on the production and use of the locative preposition ‘in’. I distinguish two uses of ‘in’—material and descriptive phenomenological—and I explain in what respect movement is central to the concept that our use of ‘in’ expresses. I go on to argue that a functionalist semantics of the intelligible use of ‘in’ demands a materialist philosophy of action in the spirit of G.E.M. Anscombe, but also why the structure of space is not irrelevant either; appeal to the structure of space unsettles the causal-empirical assumptions that ground the picture of subjectivity and agency that the biv narrative assumes. Finally, I explain why a functionalist semantics demands a Naïve Realist metaphysics of perception, consistent with some of Putnam’s last writings on philosophy of perception.
Highlights
PreambleThere are different ways of formulating Putnam’s notorious antisceptical ‘biv’ argument, just as there is diverse opinion as to whether it succeeds
Both these aspects of philosophy are necessary to it
Since the possibility of movement is sensitive to the structure of space—and here I mean the unimpeded translation from one place to another of things like purses, bikes and birds, as well as our own movement—the structure of space in our vicinity is explanatorily relevant to the intelligible use of ‘in’
Summary
There are different ways of formulating Putnam’s notorious antisceptical ‘biv’ argument, just as there is diverse opinion as to whether it succeeds. I will assume that it does in the following form: My word ‘brain’ refers to brains, the biv’s word ‘brain’ refers to brains*, and the same goes for vats and vats* and for thoughts as well as words. Were I a biv, the thought that I could be such would be unrepresentible—my thoughts and words refer to brains* and vats* not brains and vats. This is a formulation of the argument in Kantian guise.. I make a different antisceptical move, one that, so far as I can tell, has not yet been tried out This is a formulation of the argument in Kantian guise. In this paper, I make a different antisceptical move, one that, so far as I can tell, has not yet been tried out
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