Abstract

PEREZ OTERO, Manuel. La Putnam’s Proof against Radical Skepticism: Two Reinterpretations Grounded in Self-Knowledge. Crítica (Méx., D.F.) [online]. 2012, vol.44, n.132, pp.35-63.  Epub Apr 30, 2020. ISSN 0011-1503.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iifs.18704905e.2012.742.

I present and defend two reinterpretations of Putnam’s proof that we are not brains in a vat. Both of them make explicit the role played in it by self- knowledge of our own thoughts and the role played by content externalism. The first one takes externalism as implying that a brain in a vat cannot have the relevant content (involving concepts about brains and vats). The other version only extracts from externalism a weaker thesis that a bodily subject and a brain in a vat cannot share the relevant content.

Keywords : brains in a vat; Falvey and Owens; content externalism; petitio principii; epistemic justification.