MITIGATING THE FORCE OF PUTNAM’S SKEPTICISM ON THE NATURE OF THE MENTAL STATES

Abstract

Hilary Putnam starts his enquiry into the nature of mental states by exploring the computational hypothesis. He abandoned this hypothesis for Functional Isomorphism because of some fundamental variations between the mental and the computational states. Functional Isomorphism, contra- Putnam’s simple realism, implies that meaning is in the head, whereas meaning is not in the head. This engendered a leap into the organism- cum - environment model. This model relies heavily on external realism which in turn relies on the broad sense of meaning determination, neither account of which Putnam finds possible. Putnam’s solace in “internal realism†only quickly slipped into the pitfalls of external realism. At this point, it is safe to radicalize Putnam’s skepticism on the possibility of sufficient account of the nature of mental states. However, the paper intends to show that much as this shall be a consistent reading of Putnam, there is a sense in which this skepticism could not be overstretched. This is true in view of his superimposing a kind of realism at the beginning of his 1988 book. Therefore, in this case, Putnam might rather be classified as a mitigated skeptic on the nature of mental states, that is, if he is a sceptic at all.