Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction. Analytic versus continental: arguments on the methods and value of philosophy
- PART I FORMATIVE ENCOUNTERS: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE “DIVIDE”
- PART II METHOD
- 7 Introduction to philosophical method
- 8 Analytic philosophy and the intuition pump: the uses and abuses of thought experiments
- 9 Reflective equilibrium: common sense or conservatism?
- 10 The fate of transcendental reasoning
- 11 Phenomenology: returning to the things themselves
- 12 Genealogy, hermeneutics and deconstruction
- 13 Style and clarity
- 14 Philosophy, science and art
- PART III INTERPRETATION OF KEY TOPICS
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - Analytic philosophy and the intuition pump: the uses and abuses of thought experiments
from PART II - METHOD
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction. Analytic versus continental: arguments on the methods and value of philosophy
- PART I FORMATIVE ENCOUNTERS: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE “DIVIDE”
- PART II METHOD
- 7 Introduction to philosophical method
- 8 Analytic philosophy and the intuition pump: the uses and abuses of thought experiments
- 9 Reflective equilibrium: common sense or conservatism?
- 10 The fate of transcendental reasoning
- 11 Phenomenology: returning to the things themselves
- 12 Genealogy, hermeneutics and deconstruction
- 13 Style and clarity
- 14 Philosophy, science and art
- PART III INTERPRETATION OF KEY TOPICS
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Let us begin with an example, perhaps the most famous (or infamous) piece of science-fiction in recent analytic philosophy. Putnam asks us to suppose the existence somewhere in the galaxy of the planet Twin Earth, which is exactly like Earth except that the role of water – the clear colourless liquid that falls in rain, fills oceans and so on – is played by a different chemical (dubbed “XYZ”) instead of H2O. And here is the business end of what follows:
[L]et us roll the time back to about 1750. At that time chemistry was not developed on either Earth or Twin Earth. The typical Earthian speaker of English did not know water consisted of hydrogen and oxygen, and the typical Twin Earthian speaker of English did not know “water” consisted of XYZ. Let Oscar1 be such a typical Earthian English speaker, and let Oscar2 be his counter-part on Twin Earth. You may suppose that there is no belief that Oscar1 had about water that Oscar2 did not have about “water” If you like, you may even suppose that Oscar1 and Oscar2 were exact duplicates in appearance, feelings, thoughts, interior monologue, etc. Yet the extension of the term “water” was just as much H2O on Earth in 1750 as in 1950; and the extension of the term “water” was just as much XYZ on Twin Earth in 1750 as in 1950. Oscar1 and Oscar2 understood the term “water” differently in 1750 although they were in the same psychological state, and although, given the state of science at the time, it would have taken their scientific communities about fifty years to discover that they understood the term “water” differently. Th us the extension of the term “water” (and, in fact, its “meaning” in the intuitive preanalytical usage of that term) is not a function of the psychological state of the speaker by itself.
(Putnam 1975: 224)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Analytic versus ContinentalArguments on the Method and Value of Philosophy, pp. 57 - 76Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2010