A Note on Global Descriptivism and Putnam’s Model-Theoretic Argument

Abstract

According to Putnam’s model-theoretic argument, an epistemically ideal theory cannot fail to be true. Lewis contends that all the argument really shows is that an epistemically ideal theory must be true provided a certain theory of reference—which he terms Global Descriptivism—is the whole truth about reference, which he emphatically denies. In this note it is argued that Lewis grants Putnam too much. However implausible Global Descriptivism may be as a comprehensive account of reference, on what appears to be the only reasonable construal of it Global Descriptivism does not imply that an epistemically ideal theory must be true.