Naïve Perception, Cartesian Skepticism, & Putnam's Model-Theoretic Arguments

source: Philosophical Overdose      2013年6月9日
Tim Button (Cambridge) gives a talk at a MCMP workshop on Putnam's Model-Theoretic Arguments (May 23, 2013) at the University of Munich. In this talk, Hilary Putnam's model-theoretic argument against metaphysical realism is discussed in connection to perception and philosophical skepticism (Cartesian versus Kantian skepticism). Putnam's model-theoretic argument tries to demonstrate that reference cannot be accounted for on the metaphysical realist's view. Metaphysical realism is the view that there's one true way the world is, and that truth involves a correspondence relation between our thoughts/language on the one hand and the external mind-independent reality on the other. The issue then is what this mirroring or correspondence relation is actually supposed to consist in. How can our thoughts and language hook onto the world at all? How can we avoid falling into the abyss of radical skepticism?
Credit to LMU Munich.