Abstract
Abstract:Radical sceptical possibilities challenge the anti‐realist view that truth consists in ideal rational acceptability. Putnam, as part of his defence of an anti‐realist view, subjected the case of the brain in a vat to a semantic externalist treatment, which aimed to maintain the desired connection between truth and ideal rational acceptability. It is argued here that self‐consciousness poses special problems for this externalist strategy. It is shown how, on a standard model of first‐person reference, Putnam's brain in a vat will be mistaken in its rational self‐ascription of externalist predicates. The natural response, which employs an alternative model of first‐person reference, is shown to have the equally realist consequence that there are enquiry‐transcendent truths about the self.
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