Putnam, H. (1981). Brains in a vat. In Reason, Truth and History, pp. 1–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511625398.003.
Not read: no lawful copy was reached on 2026-10-22 (see the status note). The summary is drawn from what the chapter is standardly cited for, and a reading should check it first.
Why this is here
The owner’s exchange of 2026-10-21, “Experience and interpretation”, asked whether experience is constituted by interpretation or produced by it. The exchange cited this chapter for its semantic externalism: an envatted brain’s thoughts may not refer to what a normally embodied subject’s thoughts refer to, though the experiences are alike. On the exchange’s reading, the constitution of an experience and the fixing of its reference can come apart. Bears on CLAIM-413 and THEORY-095.