TWO TYPES of EXTERNALISM_Wittgenstein_The Philosophical Quarterly-1997-Rudd-501-7

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TWO TYPES OF EXTERNALISM

BAR

Externalism I take to be the doctrine that the mind is not self-contained that inorder to understand our mental states, essential reference has to be made to facts

about the social and/or physical environment in which we are situated. In this paperI am concerned with the relation between two kinds of externalism. The first takes

its inspiration from Putnams arguments in The Meaning of Meaning,1while thesecond is based on arguments from Wittgenstein. What I want to consider here is

how these two types of externalism relate to each other. Do they fit together to forma single coherent line of thought? Are they distinct but compatible? Or do they

contradict each other? I shall be considering these issues with reference to GregoryMcCullochs recent book The Mind and its World(London: Routledge, ), which isan attempt to show that the two forms of externalism can be integrated within theframework of a strong metaphysical realism. I aim to show that this cannot be done.

The Wittgensteinian argument for externalism can be put like this.2To under-stand a word is not to have any special subjective feeling about it. For a start, we

usually do not have any such feelings; but even if we did, they could not in them-selves constitute understanding. The criterion for understanding a word is the ability

to use it correctly; people who could not do that would not count as having under-stood the word, whatever subjective feelings of confidence they may have had about

it. The conclusion is externalist in this sense: understanding is something that ismanifested in practice, in using words appropriately in contexts. So the understand-

ing cannot be said to exist apart from the contexts in which the words are used. Thisis what the slogan Meaning is use (PI) comes down to. It is not a theory aboutwhat meaning essentially is; it is a reminder to us of the ways in which we ascribe

mastery of a concept to a person. I shall not attempt to defend this view at anylength; rather, assuming its validity, I shall try to clarify some of its implications,

especially for the Putnamian externalism with which McCulloch wants to integrate

it.The arguments for Putnamian externalism are also familiar. They concern the

ways in which we understand substance (or natural-kind) words. According to

Putnam, we intend such words to apply to whatever things (or stuff) have the samenature as the examples pointed out to us when we learn the words. For Putnam, it is

up to science to investigate what that nature is, so that, even if stuffvery different in

The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly,

1In his Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Vol. (Cambridge UP, ),pp. .

2See Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, , hereafterPI), .


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appearance from our stereotypes of water turned out to have the same internal

structure, it would count as water. Or vice versa; hence the Twin Earth thought-experiment. Even if XYZ on Twin Earth were phenomenally indistinguishable

from water, it still would not be water; that privilege is reserved for H2O. And thisgenerates the externalism: even if my Twin Earth counterpart was physically and in

terms of subjective psychological states indistinguishable from me, he would still notbe in the same state of mind as me when we both think I would like some water.

His thought is about XYZ, mine is about H2O. So the contents of my mental states

are determined by the way the world is, not just by how things are with me.Is it possible to make these two arguments harmonize? This may depend on how

we interpret Putnamian externalism, for it can be taken in either of two ways. Thereis an ambitious metaphysical interpretation, according to which we should try to

make our classifications correspond to the real, mind-independent structure of theworld to the way in which the world classifies itself, as it were. It might seem that,

since he accepts a basically Wittgensteinian account of understanding,3McCulloch

would wish to avoid this strongly metaphysical position. A more modest interpreta-tion of the Putnamian view would make it an empirical claim about our practices, aclaim to the effect that our scientific interests take precedence over all our other

interests in determining how we classify things. For a Wittgensteinian, this claimmight at least seem to have the merit of being intelligible, even if not very plausible.

Putnam himself made it clear, in some of his writings subsequent to The Meaningof Meaning, that he wanted his argument understood in this modest way, and

has tried to distinguish this stance from Kripkes metaphysically more ambitiousproject. This is of some importance, since shortly after publishing The Meaning of

Meaning Putnam abandoned his metaphysical realism for a much more Wittgen-

steinian position. But he seems for some time after this to have been keen tomaintain that his version of externalism, given a suitably modest interpretation, cansurvive the transposition.4 More recently, however, he appears to have effectively

abandoned Putnamian externalism altogether.5I shall say a little more about thislater in the paper.

The Wittgensteinian argument appeals to our having a form of life in which we

interact with our surroundings and with one another. It is within this network ofpractices that we use language and understand one another. So understanding

depends on use within a form of life. Now, according to McCulloch (p. ), whatPutnam has shown is that the understanding tracks real essence. He therefore

recognizes that in order to make the Putnamian considerations dovetail with theWittgensteinian argument, he needs an interpretation that construes use, form

of life, and so on, so that they too track real essence (ibid.). That is, he needs toshow that our concern in using substance words is primarily to keep track of what

stuffs have the same essential characters as are recognized by science, rather than by


3The Mind and its Worldch. .4See his Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge UP, ), pp. , and Is Water

Necessarily H2O?, in his Realism With a Human Face(Harvard UP, ), pp. .5See the later Aristotle after Wittgenstein, in his Words and Life(Harvard UP, ), esp.

pp. .

ANTHONY RUDD



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everyday experience. Now the Wittgensteinian point was that the meanings of our

words depend on the contexts in which we use them and the purposes for which we

use them. (Which is not a reductive definition of meaning, since our purposes and

social contexts themselves presuppose our being language-users.) And since we have

many different purposes, engage in many different language-games, different

systems of classification will emerge from these different contexts. In so far as we cantalk about their being justified at all, it is their practical usefulness which justifies the

classifications that we make. And, of course, what is useful in one context may be

inconvenient or unworkable in another. For instance,

The distinction between rabbits and hares is ... from most biological perspectives ...

trivial to the point of invisibility. It is, nevertheless, one that is commonly drawn by

experts neither technically scientific, nor scientifically technical, such as farmers,

hunters and amateur naturalists.6

If we are asked whether hares and rabbits are really different or not, then we

would have to answer that it depends on the purposes that the questioner has inmind. On this view, whether or not two things belong to the same class will depend

on what classification we are using, which in turn depends on the interest that we

have in the things. How then can we suppose that our form of life can be said to

track real essence? If by real essence we just mean what science says a thing is,

then of course we can say that our scientific forms of life do attempt to track real

essence. But this is just to state the platitude that science pursues scientific interests,

and nothing of philosophical importance follows from that. Our other forms of life

are clearly not concerned to track real essence in this sense. If, on the other hand,

we take real essence to refer to the way things are in themselves, apart from any

human system of classifications, then we would be reverting to the strong meta-physical interpretation of Putnam a position that can hardly be reconciled with

McCullochs supposedly Wittgensteinian stance.

With this in mind, let us return to the Putnamian argument for externalism. The

idea was that when I and my Twin Earth Doppelgngerboth think, in perceptually

identical situations, This is water, or I want a drink of water, we are thinking

different thoughts, because the objects of those thoughts are different substances.

But this seems metaphysical that is, it seems to presuppose that we can make

judgements about the sameness or difference of thoughts in abstraction from any

context that could give a point to making such judgements. McCulloch has a

Doppelgngerexample involving Liz1and Liz2. He imagines that they are switched un-knowingly from Earth to Twin Earth and vice versa. He claims that the switched Liz1,

now on Twin Earth, would be labouring under misconceptions; asking for water

( =H2O) she wrongly thinks she gets what she wants on being handed a glass of

XYZ (p. ). But the glass of XYZ iswhat she wants which is some of that clear

tasteless liquid that will quench her thirst. What misconception is she under?

That what she gets is H2O? But the point of making Liz1the Doppelgngerof Liz2 is


6J. Dupr, The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science (HarvardUP, ), p. .




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that neither knows anything about the chemical composition of water, so Liz1does

not know that water isH2O. Or is the misconception that what she asks for is thesame stuffas she had before (when on Earth)? But that is what she gets for her

purposes (drinking it), it is the same stuff. Different language-games throw up differ-ent systems of classification, and there is no need to suppose that they can always be

mapped neatly on to one another. If Liz1were a chemist wanting to do an analysisof the sample of water, then it would matter to her whether it is H2O or XYZ.

Since she just wants to drink it, it does not matter. For purposes of drinking it isthesame stuff. For purposes of chemical analysis it is not. Yes, but is it just the samestuff? Outside any context, outside any language-game within which there would bea point to asking it, that question has no clear sense. Equally, there is no clear sensein asking whether Liz1and Liz2, prior to the switch, have the same thought when

they think about water. If this is right, Putnamian externalism itself is not a doc-trine with any clear sense.

Putnamian externalism has of course, been criticized along similar lines before.

For instance, Laird Addis argues that if my Doppelgngerand I share a purely phen-omenal concept of water, then the extension of that concept will also be the same forboth of us it will consist of everything of whatever chemical composition [which]

is a clear, odourless liquid that would quench my thirst.7So we are not forced todescribe the situation in the way Putnam requires, as one in which we have the same

(subjective) concept, but different extensions. A Putnamian might reply that thismisses the point: purely phenomenal concepts are inadequate because they are not

sensitive to differences in real essence. But if this response is meant to be a meta-physical one, it would not be available to a Wittgensteinian. The Wittgensteinian

point is that judgements of sameness and difference can only be made within

language-games; accordingly, one cannot insist that our concepts be answerable towhat are supposed to be real differences and samenesses existing outside ourclassificatory practices.

This takes us back to the modest, non-metaphysical interpretation of Putnam.According to this, if we did say that Twin Earth water was a different substance

from our water, it would not be on the basis of a metaphysical insight into what it

really was, from Gods perspective, as it were. It would have to be on the basis ofarguing that we do in practice accept scientific classifications as trumping everyday

ones, and that it is therefore by reference to them that we can make judgementsabout what is reallythe same and reallydifferent. However, as is shown by the rabbit/

hare example, and in general by the fact that, as Paul Churchland laments,8we havenot come to replace our folk-physics with scientific physics in everyday life, this

seems just false as an empirical claim about what our classificatory practices are. Wedo not in fact think that science trumps everything else. And it is not at all clear why

anyone should suppose that it ought to do so, unless relying on the strong, meta-physical view that science is our attempt to mirror the way in which Nature classifies

itself. In which case the weak empirical interpretation of Putnam collapses back intothe strong metaphysical one.


7L. Addis,Natural Signs: a Theory of Intentionality(Temple UP, ), p. .8See his Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind(Cambridge UP, ), esp. ch. .

ANTHONY RUDD



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Putnam himself has come to accept that we should distinguish ordinary ques-

tions of substance-identity from scientific questions, and that, therefore, there is noneed to make an issue about the logical possibility of water not being H2O. If you

have a hypothetical situation you want to describe that way, describe it that way.9

He has, however, still wanted to insist that

a community can stipulate that water is to designate whatever has the same chemicalstructureor whatever has the same chemical behaviouras paradigms X, Y, Z ... even if it doesnt

know, at the time it makes this stipulation,exactly what that chemical structure, or exactly what that

lawful behaviouris.10

But it is hard to imagine why anyone should disagree with this, or why it shouldbe supposed to have philosophically interesting consequences. Presumably a com-

munity can stipulate whatever it wants to, and scientific communities do no doubtsometimes behave in this way. (Of course, such stipulations may or may not pay off

in their own terms the various phenomena identified as paradigms may turn out to

have no chemically interesting properties in common.) But there is no reason to sup-pose that these practices of the scientific community should be normative for the restof us, or should determine the meaning of meaning.

Nor, for that matter, need there be any single system of classification shared byscientists who have different interests. Science, after all, is not a single monolithicentity, to be contrasted with an equally monolithic (and equally mythological)common sense, so there is no reason why different scientific practices should not

establish different classifications, none of which can be said to be the right one inan absolute sense. This point is indeed made by Putnam himself in a paper more

recent than the one I quoted from in the last paragraph. Considering whether we

should say that it is part of the essence of dogs that they are descended from wolves,he points out that this is indeed the case for an evolutionary biologist, for whomspecies are essentially historical entities, very much like nations, but not for a

molecular biologist, for whom animals are viewed simply as finished products.11

For the latter, having a certain kind of DNA is an essential property of a dog, and

Putnam creates a thought-experiment in which a synthetic dog is created in a

laboratory, with the right DNA but not, of course, descended from wolves. Would itbe a real dog? There is no single correct answer to the question. It would be a real

dog from one point of view, not from another. And of course, we also have other,completely non-scientific interests in dogs. And from these perspectives, neither of

the scientific properties mentioned above is essential.

... to tell me [simply as a dog owner] that I dont know the nature of dogs if I dont

know they are descended from wolves ... is nonsense. And of course, millions of

people know and have known a good deal about the nature of dogs without having

any idea that there is such a thing as DNA.12


9Is Water Necessarily H2O? pp. .10Is Water Necessarily H2O? p. , italics original.11Aristotle after Wittgenstein pp. , .12Aristotle after Wittgenstein p. .




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In making these points Putnam seems to be abandoning Putnamian externalism

altogether. However, McCulloch, who does not refer to any of these later writings

by Putnam in his book, is still determined to defend that doctrine. He is sensitive to

the charge that it involves implausibly over-rating the importance of scientific

considerations in determining our classificatory practices; but his response to this is

to move away from the modest, non-metaphysical, priority-of-science interpretationaltogether. Accordingly he argues (p. ) that Putnamian externalism need not de-

pend on an over-reverential attitude to science, as opposed to ordinary experience,

but just involves the realist assumption that something could, possibly, impinge on

our awareness in normal conditions in exactly the same way as water yet still fail to

be water. But by taking this line he seems to be openly reverting to the strong

metaphysical interpretation of Putnam, not simply contrasting scientific and every-

day practices, but trying to draw a contrast between all our practices on the one

hand and the way things are in themselves on the other.

It seems clear that this distinction cannot be drawn on the Wittgensteinian

premises which McCulloch himself wants to maintain. For, if understanding must bemanifestable in practice, how could we manifest our grasp of what is supposed to

be the reality of things in themselves, as opposed to the ways in which they might impinge on

us? And even if we could make sense of such a metaphysical realism, why should itmatter to us? Why should we take an interest in what water really is, as opposed to

the way it seems to us as it impinges on our experience? If the stuffis to play some

role in our form of life (if it does not, we would have no motive for wanting to

include it in our classifications anyway) then it will do so in virtue of the ways it

impinges on us. McCulloch claims (ibid.) that to deny the possibility set out in the

quotation above is to embrace a very forthright form of idealism. But this will only

seem the case to someone whose thinking moves within the metaphysical frameworkwherein one must be either an idealist or a realist. In the non-metaphysical sense,

Wittgenstein is thoroughly realist, for he insists that our thought and language

emerge from the practical need to engage with the world in which we find ourselves.

But this is not the metaphysical realism that sees the task of thought as the mirroring

of the structure of the world as it is in itself.

The Wittgensteinian view that meaning must be manifestable in use not only

establishes a kind of externalism (my understanding something is not a private

mental act but an ability to participate in a practice); it also demonstrates the vacuity

of metaphysical realism. For the way the world is in itself, considered as something

distinct from the way it does or may impinge on us, is something that is irrelevant to

our practices. On the Wittgensteinian view, the mind is not self-contained, but

neither is the world; the world which has to be taken into account in determining

mental content is the world as it impinges on us. The point of Putnamian extern-

alism is that the contents of our thoughts depend on the way the world is, quite

apart from whether or not we know it. Which is why two Doppelgngerare supposedto think different thoughts when they both think This is water, even if they do not

know and will never learn anything about the chemical composition of water. For a

Wittgensteinian, however, the question of whether their thoughts are reallydifferent


ANTHONY RUDD



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is an entirely empty one. We can say what we like here, but nothing of metaphysical

significance will follow.13

University of Bristol


13I am grateful to Carlos Fane and Ross Cogan for their helpful comments on drafts ofthis paper.




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