I'm slowly working through the posts in the latest philosopher's carnival that's up. As I mentioned in the sidebar this is a very good one. Lots of technical posts as well as interesting ones. (Although perhaps this is just a sign of my interests) One I wanted to address was a post from over at Nothing but the Truth-in-L on "A Problem for Externalists?". The basic issue is whether content-externalism is incompatible with metaphysical realism. Now in advance, let me note one has to be careful here. Metaphysical realism is typically taken to not just imply an external reality independent of thinkers but one in which a correspondence theory of truth is at work. Now one can reject the correspondence theory of truth (as many externalists do) while still accepting realism and allowing for correspondence of a sort. (Say Heidegger's view of truth) But the issue is still an interesting one.
I should note in advance that the kind of externalism Michael focuses in on is Putnam's semantic externalism where causes for a meaning individuate community individuate meanings. For the record, while I think Putnam gets close to the correct account, I don't ultimately accept Putnam's approach. Michael's scenarios basically deal with words that don't distinguish between pyrite and gold with various causal relationships to the entities. The question becomes whether speakers know what they are thinking.
Clearly, they can't.
The question then becomes, is this a problem?
Contra Goldberg, I don't think it is. I think the fact when we have conflicts we don't merely appeal to "what is in our head" suggests that meaning and intent can't just be in our head. Thus to me the adjudication of disagreements is a big plus for the externalist.
Consider Michael's examples. If scientists decide to separate out pyrite from gold how does one read older writings? Well, if they apply only to gold we say they mean gold. If they apply to both they we say they mean both. If they apply to pyrite we say they mean pyrite. This is how it typically works in science. We recognize that scientists are always working in terms of vagueness. Science always has a certain humility where we recognize the world is more than what we think of it. Often, especially for the scientific realist, we recognize this problem of externalism.
It's interesting that Goldberg takes the approach Michael suggests since, to me, it ends up being quite related to the old scientific realism vs. empiricism or instrumentalist model of debate in science.
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