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
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