Ananalysis Of Putnam's "Braininavat"

Putnam proposed the thought experiment of "brain in a vat" to defend his internal realism.He mentioned the internal realism stood on the position of criticize the metaphysical realism,and he opposed the following views of metaphysical realism: "the mysterious referent",truth conformity,subject-object dichotomy.By demonstrating that we are not brains in a vat,and that the brain in a vat cannot think and mention this proposition,we can prove that there is no reality that is divorced from our linguistic framework and theory.His argument is based on his theory of reference,that the words of the brain in the vat cannot refer to what our words refer to,because there is no external thing for him to refer to.But since this thought experiment was proposed,western scholars have talked it more from the perspective of skepticism or anti-skepticism,try to find the argument of "I know I'm not a brain in a vat".In addition,some scholars also analyzed the problems from the perspectives of philosophy of mind,philosophy of technology and cognitive science.And since the21 st century,more and more scholars in China have paid attention to Putnam and this thought experiment,but the main analytical perspective is also about the anti-skepticism.This paper will analyse the ideological background,purpose,argument,existing problems and the philosophical significance of the thought experiment of "brain in a vat" on the basis of previous studies at first.After that,the paper will analyse the philosophical issues related to the "brain in a vat" based on the achievements of cognitive science and virtual reality technology developed rapidly in recent years.That includes:(1)An analysis of the contradiction that may arise in the field of cognitive science and virtual reality in the demonstration of semantic externalism.If Putnam is right,the brain in a vat can't refer to anything external,and the stimulation of neurons in the brain to produce images or sounds to the subject is meaningless.What people see in the virtual environment through virtual reality technology is false.(2)From the perspective of the daily context of body-involved interaction,we can see that when people in the vat,the virtual world and the real world are the same,there is no difference in people's behavior,words and mental state.But when people can freely access the real and the "real virtual world",his cognition will inevitably have problems.Comparing the cognitive differences between people in real and virtualenvironments,will help us to put forward some suggestions for the development of science and technology.