Swampman is a thought experiment devised by the philosopher Donald Davidson in his 1987 paper "Knowing One's Own Mind." Davidson imagines that he is struck and killed by lightning in a swamp, and that by sheer coincidence a bolt of lightning simultaneously strikes a nearby dead tree and rearranges its molecules into a being physically identical to Davidson himself, right down to apparent memories of Davidson's life. Despite this perfect physical duplication, Davidson argues that Swampman would have no genuine thoughts, memories or meaningful speech, because thought and linguistic meaning depend on an appropriate causal history connecting a thinker to the objects and events its mental states are about, a history Swampman entirely lacks. The thought experiment is used to argue for externalism about mental content, the view that what a thought or utterance means depends partly on a creature's causal relations to its environment and history, and not on its internal physical state alone.
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Position KindSourced to the subject's own account Origin YearSourced to the subject's own account Sources
1. Swampman (Wikipedia)
WikipediaSwampman (Wikipedia), bibliography reference to the 1987 paper
Swampman is the subject of a thought experiment introduced by Davidson in his 1987 paper Knowing Ones Own Mind.
Swampman (Wikipedia), on Davidson 1987
Swampman is the subject of a thought experiment introduced by Davidson in his 1987 paper Knowing Ones Own Mind.
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