Bài thuyết trình gồm các phần:

- Skeptical hypotheses and the skeptical Argument.

- Moore’s Argument against BIV
- Putnam’s Argument Against BIV-Skepticism
- Conclusion.
1. Skeptical hypotheses and the skeptical Argument.
- brain in a vat hypotheses: chiếu video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO0sSJB1TrI
- the skeptical argument:
(1) We are unable to know the denials of sceptical hypothesis (one does
not know that one is not in a sceptical scenario)
(2) If we are unable to know the denials of sceptical hypothesis, then we
are unable to know anything of substance about the world (if one does
not know that one is not in a sceptical scenario, one does not know that
one is sitting here).
(3) So one does not know that one is sitting here.
2. Moore’s Argument against BIV
- trích lập luận của ông “I can prove … that two human hands exist.
How? By holding up my two hands, saying, as I make a certain gesture
with the right hand, “’Here is one hand,’ and adding, as I make a
certain gesture with the left, ‘and here is another.’”
- common sense
- the BIV scenario attempts to prove that all my ordinary beliefs are
false. But not all my ordinary beliefs are false => radical scepticism is
false.
- His argument:
(1) If I am a BIV, then I don’t know that my hand is in front of my face
(2) But I know that this is my hand in front of my face (there is a relation
my hands and my mind. )
(3) Therefore, I am not a BIV
- The Problem:
SKEPTICISM MOORE
Do not accept perceptual our direct perceptual knowledge
knowledge of the world is direct and reliable
3. Putnam’s Argument Against BIV-Skepticism
- Putnam provides a counterargument for the conclusion that we are
not BIVs.
- if one were a BIV, one would not be able to grasp the meanings of
various general terms, such as ‘tree’, ‘brain’, and ‘vat’. For in order for
an utterance of ‘tree’ for example to represent or refer to trees => there
must be some causal connection between uses of ‘tree’ and real trees.
- A similar point holds for the words ‘brain’ and ‘vat’, as well as for
mental utterances of such words => if we are BIVs, then since our uses
of ‘brain’ and ‘vat’ do not bear the right causal relations to actual brains
and vats, we cannot so much as think or say that we are brains in a vat.
- if I think I am BIV, then I am not deceived, because
the difference between semantic a causally external semantic reference
reference to a casually internal to real trees.
semantic content (i.e. my brain)
(chỗ này ch0 1 bên là cây người đời thực, 1 bên là cây trong não của một
người)
4. Conclusion: