"'meanings' just ain't in the head!" is a great quote; and one I have to agree with. While Putnam's talk about psychological states is a little hard to chew, the meaning comes across clear enough. His example using Twin Earth and water, along with Oscar1 and Oscar2 was pretty effective. If both thought of 'water' and could not distinguish one from the other, even though they are different on Twin Earth and Earth, the meaning of the term is not given by the psychological state of the speaker itself.
I disagree with most of Putnam's examples regarding Earth and Twin Earth. I understand what he is attempting, however I cannot help but think that the examples defeat themselves. You cannot state (or I cannot imagine) that the two planets have the same English language and then begin to change the reference for different words. At that point you might as well say that the two languages are more like separate dialects, and that gives rise to several other explanations that have less to do with the meaning of a word. Although the water example was alright, the aluminum and molybdenum example was rather weak for me.
In the second paragraph, Putnam talks about the "timeworn example of the two terms 'creature with a kidney' and 'creature with a heart'" and how it shows that two terms can have the same extension and yet differ in intension. He says that no argument for this impossibility was ever offered. Has any other philosopher addressed this?
I really agree with you that Putnam's examples are sort of weak, but I don't think I agree that they're self defeating. To me, it seems that he means that until a speaker has made the connection that what is referred to as water on TE is the same thing as he had on Earth, when he talks about water he must still be referencing what he knows to be water, even if they end up having been the same all along.
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