The Twin Earth thought experiment was presented by philosopher Hilary Putnam in his 1973 paper "Meaning and Reference" and subsequent 1975 paper "The Meaning of 'Meaning'", as an early argument for what has subsequently come to be known as semantic externalism. Since that time, philosophers have proposed a number of variations on this particular thought experiment, which can be collectively referred to as Twin Earth thought experiments. Edmund Hu...
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The Twin Earth thought experiment was presented by philosopher Hilary Putnam in his 1973 paper "Meaning and Reference" and subsequent 1975 paper "The Meaning of 'Meaning'", as an early argument for what has subsequently come to be known as semantic externalism. Since that time, philosophers have proposed a number of variations on this particular thought experiment, which can be collectively referred to as Twin Earth thought experiments. Edmund Husserl developed a similar thought experiment nearly 70 years earlier.
Putnam's original formulation of the experiment was this:
This is the essential thesis of semantic externalism. Putnam famously summarized this conclusion with the statement that "'meanings' just ain't in the head." (Putnam 1975/1985, p.227)
In his original article, Putnam had claimed that the reference of the twins' 'water' varied even though their psychological states were the same. Tyler Burge subsequently argued in "Other Bodies" (1982) that the twins' mental states are...
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