This philosopher argued that "psychological state does not determine extension" in a paper that aimed to show that its title concept was not "in the head" by positing a world in which water was not H2O but rather XYZ.
In one paper, this philosopher endorsed a "convergence" variety of scientific realism, which he also divided into materialist and metaphysical varieties. This author of "Three Kinds of Scientific Realism," rejected what he called the Democritean and the Berkeleyan forms of eliminationism and promoted a "pragmatic pluralism" of ethical discourse in lectures collected as Ethics Without Ontology. This thinker attempted to demonstrate that a certain thought experiment is based on a "self-refuting supposition" in the first chapter of his Reason, Truth, and History, which opens with a memorable description of an ant tracing a portrait of Churchill in the sand. This philosopher argued that "psychological state does not determine extension" in a paper that aimed to show that its title concept was not "in the head" by positing a world in which water was not H2O but rather XYZ. For 10 points, identify this American philosopher who postulated a "Twin Earth" in his paper "The Meaning of 'Meaning' and argued that we could not be "brains-in-a-vat."
In one paper, this philosopher endorsed a "convergence" variety of scientific realism, which he also divided into materialist and metaphysical varieties.
Hilary Putnam