Lexicon of Arguments

 

Rorty VI 63
PutnamVsRepresentation/Rorty: parts of what we call "language" or "mind", penetrate so deeply into the so-called "reality" that "pictures" of something "language independent" must fail.
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Putnam III 38
Representation/PutnamVsDavidson: that the word "cat" refers to cats is not simply due to the causal relationship. The word stands in many causal relationships. It is just the case that I would not use the word, if there were no cats. Instead of representation one might assume fundamentally an evolutionary role. >Roles.
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V 17/18
Representation/reference/Putnam: mental images arise as little as normal pictures in a necessary connection with the represented (otherwise no mistake would be possible). E.g. Martians (who know no trees) are faced with a tree image. The internal mental images are then no representations. One who recites unfamiliar words, for him they refer to nothing. Thoughts have no intrinsic connection to something outside - but they possibly have connections.
>Reference/Putnam.
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I (h) 209ff
Representation/Putnam: a representation is not a magic connection between a phenomenological character and denoted objects - there is no intrinsic connection.
>Intrinsic.
Problem: brains in a vat: without intrinsic connection, one could say that the word "vat" with inhabitants of vats that come up with the idea, "we are in the vat!" refers to phenomenological manifestations of vats and not to real vats (and also in the case of "brain" and "in"). Problem: if a real vat were to collapse, the people could not use their "vat" word anymore. But that would be a connection between a vat and every word they use and no distinctive connection between real vats and the use of the word vat. Putnam: the truth conditions of the inhabitants of vats would be something like that they are in the vat in the image. And that is what is wrong if they think it (although they are in the vat, (s) because they have not learned the use in their environment.) >Brains in a vat/Putnam.