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2. Intentionality (Intentionality on PhilPapers)

Anscombe, G. E. M. (1957). Intention. Harvard University Press.   (Google)
Bermúdez, José Luis (2003). Thinking Without Words. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Thinking Without Words provides a challenging new theory of the nature of non-linguistic thought. Jose Luis Bermudez offers a conceptual framework for treating human infants and non-human animals as genuine thinkers. The book is written with an interdisciplinary readership in mind and will appeal to philosophers, psychologists, and students of animal behavior
Cappelen, Herman & Lepore, Ernie (1997). On an alleged connection between indirect speech and the theory of meaning. Mind and Language 12 (3&4):278–296.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: A semantic theory T for a language L should assign content to utterances of sentences of L. One common assumption is that T will assign p to some S of L just in case in uttering S a speaker A says that p. We will argue that this assumption is mistaken
Chauviré, Christiane (2007). Dispositions or capacities?: Wittgenstein's social philosophy of mind. In Danièle Moyal-Sharrock (ed.), Perspicuous Presentations: Essays on Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan.   (Google)
Chasseguet-Smirgel, Janine (2005). The Body as Mirror of the World. Free Association.   (Google)
Chomsky, Noam (1995). Language and nature. Mind 104 (413):1-61.   (Google | More links)
Chomsky, Noam (1994). Naturalism and dualism in the study of language and mind. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 2 (2):181 – 209.   (Google)
Deonna, Julien A. & Scherer, Klaus R. (2010). The Case of the Disappearing Intentional Object: Constraints on a Definition of Emotion. Emotion Review 2 (1):44-52.   (Google)
Abstract: Taking our lead from Solomon’s emphasis on the importance of the intentional object of emotion, we review the history of repeated attempts to make this object disappear. We adduce evidence suggesting that in the case of James and Schachter, the intentional object got lost unintentionally. By contrast, modern constructivists (in particular Barrett) seem quite determined to deny the centrality of the intentional object in accounting for the occurrence of emotions. Griffiths, however, downplays the role objects have in emotion noting that these do not qualify as intentional. We argue that these disappearing acts, deliberate or not, generate fruitless debate and add little to the advancement of our understanding of emotion as an adaptive mechanism to cope with events that are relevant to an organism’s life.
Dummett, Michael A. E. (1975). What is a theory of meaning? In Samuel Guttenplan (ed.), Mind and Language. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Evans, Gareth (1985). Collected Papers. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Geach, Peter (1957). Mental Acts. Routledge and Kegan Paul.   (Google)
Gibbs, Raymond W. (2006). Embodiment and Cognitive Science. New York ;Cambridge University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: This book explores how people's subjective, felt experiences of their bodies in action provide part of the fundamental grounding for human cognition and language. Cognition is what occurs when the body engages the physical and cultural world and must be studied in terms of the dynamical interactions between people and the environment. Human language and thought emerge from recurring patterns of embodied activity that constrain ongoing intelligent behavior. We must not assume cognition to be purely internal, symbolic, computational, and disembodied, but seek out the gross and detailed ways that language and thought are inextricably shaped by embodied action. Embodiment and Cognitive Science describes the abundance of empirical evidence from many disciplines, including work on perception, concepts, imagery and reasoning, language and communication, cognitive development, and emotions and consciousness, that support the idea that the mind is embodied
Gibbons, John (2001). Knowledge in action. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (3):579-600.   (Google | More links)
Green, Mitchell S. (2009). Speech acts, the handicap principle and the expression of psychological states. Mind and Language 24 (2):139-163.   (Google)
Abstract: Abstract: One oft-cited feature of speech acts is their expressive character: Assertion expresses belief, apology regret, promise intention. Yet expression, or at least sincere expression, is as I argue a form of showing: A sincere expression shows whatever is the state that is the sincerity condition of the expressive act. How, then, can a speech act show a speaker's state of thought or feeling? To answer this question I consider three varieties of showing, and argue that only one of them is suited to help us answer our question. I also argue that concepts from the evolutionary biology of communication provide one source of insight into how speech acts enable one to show, and thereby express, a psychological state
Harman, Gilbert (1998). Intentionality. In William Bechtel & George Graham (eds.), A Companion to Cognitive Science. Blackwell.   (Google)
Harman, Gilbert (1990). Immanent and transcendent approaches to the theory of meaning. In Roger Gibson & Robert B. Barrett (eds.), Perspectives on Quine. Blackwell.   (Google)
Harman, Gilbert (1973). Thought. Princeton University Press.   (Cited by 227 | Google)
Katsafanas, Paul (forthcoming). Activity and Passivity in Reflective Agency. In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Oxford.   (Google)
Abstract: Lately, a number of philosophers have argued that agents can be more and less active in the production of their own actions. Some actions—principally reflective, deliberative ones—are said to involve agential activity; other actions—principally unreflective, non-deliberative ones—are said to be brought about in a more passive fashion. In this essay, I critique these claims. I show that philosophers employing the notion of agential activity have relied on one or more of the following claims, which have not been clearly distinguished in the literature: (1) that choice causes action, (2) that motives do not determine choice, and (3) that reflective deliberation suspends the effects of motives. These claims are closely related, and are often conflated in the literature. However, I argue that they are importantly distinct. I explicate and assess each of these claims, arguing that while there are precisifications of the first and second claims that render them true, there are philosophical arguments and results from empirical psychology indicating that the third claim is false. Moreover, I argue that the third claim is the crucial one; its truth is necessary in order to support the idea that reflective agency is paradigmatically active. As a result, the traditional accounts of agential activity must be rejected. I close by suggesting a new model of agential activity.
Makin, Gideon (2000). The Metaphysicians of Meaning: Russell and Frege on Sense and Denotation. Routledge.   (Google)
Abstract: Metaphysicians of Meaning is the first book to challenge the accepted understanding of Russell's On Denoting and Frege's On Sense and Reference . Makin compares the work Russell did shortly before his famous essay "On Denoting" with the essay itself and argues that this comparison shows that the traditional view of the problem Russell was trying to solve is untenable. He then examines Frege's classic essay and argues that some of the less well-known views that Frege held have radical implications for our understanding of this essay
Moore, G. E. (1899). The nature of judgment. Mind 8 (30):176-193.   (Google | More links)
Peacocke, Christopher (1986). Thoughts: An Essay on Content. Blackwell.   (Cited by 52 | Google)
Russell, Bertrand (1910). Knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 11:108--28.   (Google)
Schiller, Aaron Allen (2007). Psychological Nominalism and the Plausibility of Sellars's Myth of Jones. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 45 (3):435-454.   (Google)
Abstract: Part of Sellars’s general attack on the Myth of the Given is his endorsement of psychological nominalism, a view that implies that awareness of our own mental states is not given but must be earned. Sellars provides an account of how such awareness might have been earned with the Myth of Jones. Such an account is important for Sellars, for without it the Given can look necessary after all. But a problem with such accounts is that they can look extremely implausible. Sellars himself seems unconcerned to make his account plausible, and so others have stepped in here. But, I argue, they have done so in ways that fail to respect his psychological nominalism. This evinces, as well as reinforces, a lack of sensitivity to the scope of Sellars’s attack on the Given, the aim of which is the dismantling of “the entire framework of givenness.” In this essay, I show how one can make Sellars’s Myth of Jones plausible, while still respecting his psychological nominalism, by seeing how Jones’s thought is governed by the norms of rationality as interpretability.
Searle, John (1983). Intentionality. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Smithies, Declan (2006). Rationality and the Subject's Point of View. Dissertation, New York University   (Google)
Thomas, Nigel J. T. (online). Attitude and image, or, what will simulation theory let us eliminate?   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Stich & Ravenscroft (1994) have argued that (contrary to most people's initial assumptions) a simulation account of folk psychology may be consistent with eliminative materialism, but they fail to bring out the full complexity or the potential significance of the relationship. Contemporary eliminativism (particularly in the Churchland version) makes two major claims: the first is a rejection of the orthodox assumption that realistically construed propositional attitudes are fundamental to human cognition; the second is the suggestion that with the advancement of scientific understanding of the mind it will be possible to entirely eliminate the mentalistic and intentional from our ontology, thus dissolving the mind-body problem. The first claim (which has been argued in detail) supplies the principal grounds for accepting the second, much more ambitious and significant, claim. Robert Gordon's (1995, 1996, 2000) radical simulation theory of "folk psychology", proposed initially (Gordon, 1986) as an alternative to "theory theory" accounts of self and interpersonal understanding, but subsequently developing into a quite general challenge to symbolic computational accounts of mind, is not merely consistent with, but actually provides considerable additional support for, the first eliminativist claim. However, although radical simulationism has no use for reified propositional attitudes, it relies on another family of mentalistic and intentional notions, including perspective taking, "seeing as", pretending, imagery, and, most centrally, imagination. It is thus inconsistent with eliminativist metaphysical ambitions. Nevertheless, from this perspective the mind-body problem is transformed. Its solution no longer depends on accounting directly for the intentionality of the attitudes, but rather on accounting for the intentionality of imagination. Although standard accounts of imagination derive its intentionality from that of the attitudes, the recently proposed "perceptual activity" theory of imagery and imagination (Thomas, 1999) can provide a direct account of the intentionality of imagination that is consistent with physicalism..
Wedgwood, Ralph (2009). The normativity of the intentional. In Ansgar Beckermann & Brian P. McLaughlin (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford University Press.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Many philosophers have claimed that the intentional is normative. (This claim is the analogue, within the philosophy of mind, of the claim that is often made within the philosophy of language, that meaning is normative.) But what exactly does this claim mean? And what reason is there for believing it? In this paper, I shall first try to clarify the content of the claim that the intentional is normative. Then I shall examine a number of the arguments that philosophers have advanced for this claim (and for the parallel claim that meaning is normative). As we shall see, many of these arguments are unsuccessful. However, I shall close by giving a sketch of what may be a successful argument for this claim
Wright, Crispin (1989). Wittgenstein's later philosophy of mind: Sensation, privacy, and intention. Journal of Philosophy 86 (11):622-634.   (Google | More links)

2.1 Propositional Attitudes

283 / 496 entries displayed

Baker, Lynne Rudder (1995). Explaining Attitudes: A Practical Approach to the Mind. Cambridge University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Explaining Attitudes offers a timely and important challenge to the dominant conception of belief found in the work of such philosophers as Dretske and Fodor. According to this dominant view beliefs, if they exist at all, are constituted by states of the brain. Lynne Rudder Baker rejects this view and replaces it with a quite different approach - practical realism. Seen from the perspective of practical realism, any argument that interprets beliefs as either brain states or states of immaterial souls is a 'non-starter'. Practical realism takes beliefs to be states of the whole persons, rather like states of health. What a person believes is determined by what a person would do, say and think in various circumstances. Thus beliefs and other attitudes are interwoven into an integrated, commonsensical conception of reality
Field, Hartry H. (2001). Truth and the Absence of Fact. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Presenting a selection of thirteen essays on various topics at the foundations of philosophy--one previously unpublished and eight accompanied by substantial new postscripts--this book offers outstanding insight on truth, meaning, and propositional attitudes; semantic indeterminacy and other kinds of "factual defectiveness;" and issues concerning objectivity, especially in mathematics and in epistemology. It will reward the attention of any philosopher interested in language, epistemology, or mathematics
Landy, David (2005). Inside doubt: On the non-identity of the theory of mind and propositional attitude psychology. Minds and Machines 15 (3-4):399-414.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Eliminative materialism is a popular view of the mind which holds that propositional attitudes, the typical units of our traditional understanding, are unsupported by modern connectionist psychology and neuroscience, and consequently that propositional attitudes are a poor scientific postulate, and do not exist. Since our traditional folk psychology employs propositional attitudes, the usual argument runs, it too represents a poor theory, and may in the future be replaced by a more successful neurologically grounded theory, resulting in a drastic improvement in our interpersonal relationships. I contend that these eliminativist arguments typically run together two distinct capacities: the folk psychological mechanisms which we use to understand one another, and scientific and philosophical guesses about the structure of those understandings. Both capacities are ontologically committed and therefore empirical. However, the commitments whose prospects look so dismal to the eliminativist, in particular the causal and logical image of propositional attitudes, belong to the guesses, and not necessarily to the underlying mechanisms. It is the commitments of traditional philosophical perspectives about the operation of our folk psychology which are contradicted by?new evidence and modeling methods in connectionist psychology. Our actual folk psychology was not clearly committed to causal, sentential propositional attitudes, and thus is not directly threatened by connectionist psychology
Ludwig, Kirk & Ray, Greg (1998). Semantics for opaque contexts. Philosophical Perspectives 12:141--66.   (Google)

2.1a The Language of Thought

73 / 86 entries displayed

Antony, Louise M. (ms). What are you thinking? Character and content in the language of thought.   (Google)
Arikha, Noga (2005). Deafness, ideas and the language of thought in the late 1600s. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 13 (2):233 – 262.   (Google | More links)
Aydede, Murat (1995). Connectionism and the language of thought. CSLI Technical Report.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Abstract: Fodor and Pylyshyn's (F&P) critique of connectionism has posed a challenge to connectionists: Adequately explain such nomological regularities as systematicity and productivity without postulating a "language of thought'' (LOT). Some connectionists declined to meet the challenge on the basis that the alleged regularities are somehow spurious. Some, like Smolensky, however, took the challenge very seriously, and attempted to meet it by developing models that are supposed to be non-classical
Aydede, Murat (1997). Language of thought: The connectionist contribution. Minds and Machines 7 (1):57-101.   (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)
Abstract:   Fodor and Pylyshyn's critique of connectionism has posed a challenge to connectionists: Adequately explain such nomological regularities as systematicity and productivity without postulating a "language of thought" (LOT). Some connectionists like Smolensky took the challenge very seriously, and attempted to meet it by developing models that were supposed to be non-classical. At the core of these attempts lies the claim that connectionist models can provide a representational system with a combinatorial syntax and processes sensitive to syntactic structure. They are not implementation models because, it is claimed, the way they obtain syntax and structure sensitivity is not "concatenative," hence "radically different" from the way classicists handle them. In this paper, I offer an analysis of what it is to physically satisfy/realize a formal system. In this context, I examine the minimal truth-conditions of LOT Hypothesis. From my analysis it will follow that concatenative realization of formal systems is irrelevant to LOTH since the very notion of LOT is indifferent to such an implementation level issue as concatenation. I will conclude that to the extent to which they can explain the law-like cognitive regularities, a certain class of connectionist models proposed as radical alternatives to the classical LOT paradigm will in fact turn out to be LOT models, even though new and potentially very exciting ones
Aydede, Murat (online). The language of thought hypothesis. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)
Abstract: 1 *Common Sense Conception of Beliefs and Other Propositional Attitudes 2 What is the Language of Thought Hypothesis? 3 Status of LOTH 4 Scope of LOTH 5 *Natural Language as Mentalese? 6 *Nativism and LOTH 7 Naturalism and LOTH
Aydede, Murat (ms). Language of thought hypothesis: State of the art.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) is an empirical thesis about thought and thinking. For their explication, it postulates a physically realized system of representations that have a combinatorial syntax (and semantics) such that operations on representations are causally sensitive only to the syntactic properties of representations. According to LOTH, thought is, roughly, the tokening of a representation that has a syntactic (constituent) structure with an appropriate semantics. Thinking thus consists in syntactic operations defined over representations. Most of the arguments for LOTH derive their strength from their ability to explain certain empirical phenomena like productivity, systematicity of thought and thinking
Barwise, Jon (1987). Unburdening the language of thought. Mind and Language 2:82-96.   (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)
Beckermann, Ansgar (1994). Can there be a language of thought? In G. White, B. Smith & R. Casati (eds.), Philosophy and the Cognitive Sciences. Proceedings of the 16th International Wittgenstein Symposium. Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: 1. Cognitive sciences in a broad sense are simply all those sciences which concern themselves with the analysis and explanation of cognitive capacities and achievements. If one speaks of _cognitive science_ in the singular, however, usually something more is meant. Cognitive science is not only characterized by a specific object of research, but also through a particular kind of explanatory paradigm, i.e. the information processing paradigm. Stillings _et. al. _for example begin their book _Cognitive Science _as follows: <blockquote> Cognitive scientists view the human mind as a complex system that receives, stores,<br> retrieves, transforms, and transmits information. (Stillings 1987: 1) </blockquote> The information processing paradigm however, leads directly to the paradigm of symbol processing, because a system can, as it seems, only receive, store and process information if it has at its disposal a system of internal representations or _symbols_, i.e. an internal language in which this information is encoded. At least this appears to be an idea which suggests itself and which Peter Hacker expresses as follows
Blumson, Ben (online). Mental maps.   (Google)
Abstract: It’s often hypothesized that the structure of mental representation is map-like rather than language-like. The possibility arises as a counterexample to the argument from the best explanation of productivity and systematicity for the Language of Thought Hypothesis – the hypothesis that mental structure is language-like. In this paper, I argue that the Map Hypothesis does not undermine the argument, because it is not in fact a genuine alternative to the Language of Thought Hypothesis
Braddon-Mitchell, David & Fitzpatrick, J. (1990). Explanation and the language of thought. Synthese 83 (1):3-29.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Cargile, James (2010). The language of thought revisited. Analysis 70 (2).   (Google)
Chalmers, David J. (1999). Is there synonymy in Ockham's mental language. In P. V. Spade (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ockham. Cambridge.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Abstract: William of Ockham's semantic theory was founded on the idea that thought takes place in a language not unlike the languages in which spoken and written communication occur. This mental language was held to have a number of features in common with everyday languages. For example, mental language has simple terms, not unlike words, out of which complex expressions can be constructed. As with words, each of these terms has some meaning, or signification; in fact Ockham held that the signification of everyday words derives precisely from the signification of mental terms. Furthermore, the meaning of a mental expression depends directly on the meaning of its constituent terms, as is the case with expressions in more familiar languages
Cole, David (2009). Jerry Fodor, lot 2: The language of thought revisited , new York: Oxford university press, 2008, X+228, $37.95, isbn 978-0-119-954877-. Minds and Machines 19 (3).   (Google)
Crane, Tim (1990). The language of thought: No syntax without semantics. Mind and Language 5 (3):187-213.   (Cited by 12 | Google | More links)
Davies, Martin (1992). Aunty's own argument for the language of thought. In Jes Ezquerro (ed.), Cognition, Semantics and Philosophy. Kluwer.   (Cited by 13 | Google)
Davies, Martin (1991). Concepts, connectionism, and the language of thought. Philosophy and connectionist theory. Lawrence Erlbaum.   (Annotation | Google)
Davies, Martin (1991). Concepts, connectionism, and the language of thought. In W Ramsey, Stephen P. Stich & D. Rumelhart (eds.), Philosophy and Connectionist Theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.   (Cited by 40 | Google)
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to demonstrate a _prima facie_ tension between our commonsense conception of ourselves as thinkers and the connectionist programme for modelling cognitive processes. The language of thought hypothesis plays a pivotal role. The connectionist paradigm is opposed to the language of thought; and there is an argument for the language of thought that draws on features of the commonsense scheme of thoughts, concepts, and inference. Most of the paper (Sections 3-7) is taken up with the argument for the language of thought hypothesis. The argument for an opposition between connectionism and the language of thought comes towards the end (Section 8), along with some discussion of the potential eliminativist consequences (Sections 9 and
Davies, Martin (1998). Language, thought, and the language of thought (aunty's own argument revisited). In P. Carruthers & J. Boucher (eds.), Language and Thought. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In this chapter, I shall be examining an argument for the language of thought hypothesis
DeWitt, Richard (1995). Vagueness, semantics, and the language of thought. Psyche 1.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Dunlop, Charles E. M. (1990). Conceptual dependency as the language of thought. Synthese 82 (2):275-96.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Egan, M. F. (1991). Propositional attitudes and the language of thought. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (September):379-88.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google)
Field, Hartry (1978). Mental representation. Erkenntnis 13 (July):9-18.   (Cited by 179 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1975). The Language of Thought. Harvard University Press.   (Cited by 1815 | Annotation | Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1987). Why there still has to be a language of thought. In Psychosemantics. MIT Press.   (Cited by 15 | Annotation | Google)
Garson, James W. (1998). Chaotic emergence and the language of thought. Philosophical Psychology 11 (3):303-315.   (Cited by 7 | Google)
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to explore the merits of the idea that dynamical systems theory (also known as chaos theory) provides a model of the mind that can vindicate the language of thought (LOT). I investigate the nature of emergent structure in dynamical systems to assess its compatibility with causally efficacious syntactic structure in the brain. I will argue that anyone who is committed to the idea that the brain's functioning depends on emergent features of dynamical systems should have serious reservations about the LOT. First, dynamical systems theory casts doubt on one of the strongest motives for believing in the LOT: principle P, the doctrine that structure found in an effect must also be found in its cause. Second, chaotic emergence is a double-edged sword. Its tendency to cleave the psychological from the neurological undermines foundations for belief in the existence of causally efficacious representations. Overall, a dynamic conception of the brain sways us away from realist conclusions about the causal powers of representations with constituent structure
Garson, James W. (2002). Evolution, consciousness, and the language of thought. In James H. Fetzer (ed.), Consciousness Evolving. John Benjamins.   (Google)
Gauker, Christopher (1998). Are there wordlike concepts too? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (1):70-71.   (Google)
Abstract: Millikan proposes that there are mapping functions through which spoken sentences represent reality. Such mappings seem to depend on thoughts that words express and on concepts as components of such thoughts, but such concepts would conflict with Millikan's other claims about concepts and language
Glock, Hans-Johann (2010). Reviews lot 2: The language of thought revisited by Jerry A. Fodor oxford university press, 2008. Philosophy 85 (1):164-167.   (Google)
Horsey, Richard (2001). Definitions: Implications for syntax, semantics, and the language of thought, by Annabel Cormack. Mind and Language 16 (3):345–349.   (Google | More links)
Johnson, Kent (2004). On the systematicity of the language of thought. Journal of Philosophy 101 (3):111-139.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Knowles, Jonathan (1998). The language of thought and natural language understanding. Analysis 58 (4):264-272.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Kuczynski, John-Michael M. (2004). Another argument against the thesis that there is a language of thought. Communication and Cognition 37 (2):83-103.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Laurence, Stephen & Margolis, Eric (1997). Regress arguments against the language of thought. Analysis 57 (1):60-66.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Leeds, Stephen (2002). Perception, transparency, and the language of thought. Noûs 36 (1):104-129.   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Levine, Joseph (1988). Demonstrating in mentalese. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 69 (September):222-240.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Losonsky, Michael (1992). Leibniz's adamic language of thought. Journal of the History of Philosophy 30 (4).   (Google)
Machery, Edouard (2005). You don't know how you think: Introspection and language of thought. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56 (3):469-485.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: recent cognitive theories into two antagonistic groups. Sententialists claim that we think in some language, while advocates of non-linguistic views of cognition deny this claim. The Introspective Argument for Sententialism is one of the most appealing arguments for sententialism. In substance, it claims that the introspective fact of inner speech provides strong evidence that our thoughts are linguistic. This article challenges this argument. I claim that the Introspective Argument for Sententialism confuses the content of our thoughts with their vehicles: while sententialism is a thesis about the vehicles of our thoughts, inner speech sentences are the content of auditory or articulatory images. The rebuttal of the introspective argument for sententialism is shown to have a general significance in cognitive science: introspection does not tell us how we think. The problem The introspective argument for sententialism The argument for the blindness of introspection thesis Objections and replies Conclusion
Markic, Olga (1999). Connectionism and the language of thought: The cross-context stability of representations. Acta Analytica 22 (22):43-57.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Markic, Olga (2001). Is language of thought a conceptual necessity? Acta Analytica 16 (26):53-60.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
McDonough, Richard (1994). Wittgenstein's reversal on the `language of thought' doctrine. Philosophical Quarterly 44 (177):482-494.   (Google | More links)
Pollock, John L. (1990). Understanding the language of thought. Philosophical Studies 58 (1-2):95-120.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Rantala, V. & Vaden, Tere (1997). Minds as connoting systems: Logic and the language of thought. Erkenntnis 46 (3):315-334.   (Google | More links)
Rescorla, Michael (2009). Cognitive maps and the language of thought. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (2).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Fodor advocates a view of cognitive processes as computations defined over the language of thought (or Mentalese). Even among those who endorse Mentalese, considerable controversy surrounds its representational format. What semantically relevant structure should scientific psychology attribute to Mentalese symbols? Researchers commonly emphasize logical structure, akin to that displayed by predicate calculus sentences. To counteract this tendency, I discuss computational models of navigation drawn from probabilistic robotics. These models involve computations defined over cognitive maps, which have geometric rather than logical structure. They thereby demonstrate the possibility of rational cognitive processes in an exclusively non-logical representational medium. Furthermore, they offer much promise for the empirical study of animal navigation.
Rey, Georges (1995). A not "merely empirical" argument for the language of thought. Philosophical Perspectives 9:201-22.   (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)
Rey, Georges (1991). Sensations in a language of thought. Philosophical Issues 1:73-112.   (Cited by 13 | Google | More links)
Rives, Bradley, Review of LOT 2: The language of thought revisited.   (Google)
Abstract: It has been over thirty years since the publication of Jerry Fodor’s landmark book The Language of Thought (LOT 1). In LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Fodor provides an update on his thoughts concerning a range of topics that have been the focus of his work in the intervening decades. The Representational Theory of Mind (RTM), the central thesis of LOT 1, remains intact in LOT 2: mental states are relations between organisms and syntactically-structured mental representations, and mental processes are computations defined over such representations. The differences between LOT 1 and LOT 2 are mostly differences of focus. Whereas LOT 1 had a number of targets—e.g. reductionism, behaviorism, empiricism, and operationalism—LOT 2 identifies “pragmatism” as the main enemy of the “Cartesian” kind of mentalism Fodor favors (pp. 11-12). Moreover, unlike LOT 1, a main aim of LOT 2 is to defend a theory of concepts that is atomistic and referentialist: lexical concepts lack structure, and their meaning is determined by their relation to the world and not by their relations to other concepts (pp. 16-20). In addition to new discussions of concepts and content, LOT 2 treats us to Fodor’s latest thoughts on compositionality, computationalism, nativism, nonconceptual content, and the causal theory of reference. Although those familiar with Fodor’s work over the last thirty years will find its main conclusions unsurprising, LOT 2 is nevertheless an exciting, breezily written book that’s full of stimulating arguments and (in standard Fodor style) immensely interesting digressions. In the Introduction, Fodor bundles together a number of distinct doctrines under “pragmatism”—e.g., that “knowing how is the paradigm cognitive state and it is prior to knowing that in the order of intentional explanation” (p. 10), and that “the distinctive function of the mind is guiding action” (p. 13). But it’s clear by Chapter 2 that his main target is “concept pragmatism,” according to which concepts are individuated by their inferential properties. Fodor’s “Cartesianism,” in contrast, has it that none of the epistemic properties of concepts are constitutive..
Rives, Bradley (2009). Lot 2: The language of thought revisited. Philosophical Psychology 22 (4):525 – 529.   (Google)
Rowlands, Mark (1994). Connectionism and the language of thought. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (2):485-503.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: In an influential critique, Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn point to the existence of a potentially devastating dilemma for connectionism (Fodor and Pylyshyn [1988]). Either connectionist models consist in mere associations of unstructured representations, or they consist in processes involving complex representations. If the former, connectionism is mere associationism, and will not be capable of accounting for very much of cognition. If the latter, then connectionist models concern only the implementation of cognitive processes, and are, therefore, not informative at the level of cognition. I shall argue that Fodor and Pylyshyn's argument is based on a crucial misunderstanding, the same misunderstanding which motivates the entire language of thought hypothesis
Rupert, Robert D. (2001). Coining terms in the language of thought: Innateness, emergence, and the lot of Cummins's argument against the causal theory of mental content. Journal of Philosophy 98 (10):499-530.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Robert Cummins argues that any causal theory of mental content (CT) founders on an established fact of human psychology: that theory mediates sensory detection. He concludes,
Rupert, Robert (2008). Causal theories of mental content. Philosophy Compass 3 (2):353–380.   (Google | More links)
Rupert, Robert (2008). Frege’s puzzle and Frege cases: Defending a quasi-syntactic solution. Cognitive Systems Research 9:76-91.   (Google)
Rupert, Robert D. (1998). On the relationship between naturalistic semantics and individuation criteria for terms in a language of thought. Synthese 117 (1):95-131.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Schiffer, Stephen R. (1987). Intentionality and the language of thought. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 87:35-55.   (Google)
Schroder, Jurgen (1998). Knowledge of rules, causal systematicity, and the language of thought. Synthese 117 (3):313-330.   (Google | More links)
Abstract:   Martin Davies' criterion for the knowledge of implicit rules, viz. the causal systematicity of cognitive processes, is first exposed. Then the inference from causal systematicity of a process to syntactic properties of the input states is examined. It is argued that Davies' notion of a syntactic property is too weak to bear the conclusion that causal systematicity implies a language of thought as far as the input states are concerned. Next, it is shown that Davies' criterion leads to a counterintuitive consequence: it groups together distributed connectionist systems with look-up tables. To avoid this consequence, a modified construal of causal systematicity is proposed and Davies' argument for the causal systematicity of thought is shown to be question-begging. It is briefly sketched how the modified construal links up with multiple dispositions of the same categorical base. Finally, the question of the causal efficacy of single rules is distinguished from the question of their psychological reality: implicit rules might be psychologically real without being causally efficacious
Schneider, Susan (2009). Lot, ctm, and the elephant in the room. Synthese 170 (2).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: According to the language of thought (LOT) approach and the related computational theory of mind (CTM), thinking is the processing of symbols in an inner mental language that is distinct from any public language. Herein, I explore a deep problem at the heart of the LOT/CTM program—it has yet to provide a plausible conception of a mental symbol
Schneider, Susan, The central system as a computational engine.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The Language of Thought program has a suicidal edge. Jerry Fodor, of all people, has argued that although LOT will likely succeed in explaining modular processes, it will fail to explain the central system, a subsystem in the brain in which information from the different sense modalities is integrated, conscious deliberation occurs, and behavior is planned. A fundamental characteristic of the central system is that it is “informationally unencapsulated” -- its operations can draw from information from any cognitive domain. The domain general nature of the central system is key to human reasoning; our ability to connect apparently unrelated concepts enables the creativity and flexibility of human thought, as does our ability to integrate material across sensory divides. The central system is the holy grail of cognitive science: understanding higher cognitive function is crucial to grasping how humans reach their highest intellectual achievements. But according to Fodor, the founding father of the LOT program and the related Computational Theory of Mind (CTM), the holy grail is out of reach: the central system is likely to be non-computational (Fodor 1983, 2000, 2008). Cognitive scientists working on higher cognitive function should abandon their efforts. Research should be limited to the modules, which for Fodor rest at the sensory periphery (2000).1 Cognitive scientists who work in the symbol processing tradition outside of philosophy would reject this pessimism, but ironically, within philosophy itself, this pessimistic streak has been very influential, most likely because it comes from the most well-known proponent of LOT and CTM. Indeed, pessimism about centrality has become assimilated into the mainstream conception of LOT. (Herein, I refer to a LOT that appeals to pessimism about centrality as the “standard LOT”). I imagine this makes the standard LOT unattractive to those philosophers with a more optimistic approach to what cognitive science can achieve..
Schneider, Susan (2009). The language of thought. In John Symons & Paco Calvo (eds.), Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology. Routledge.   (Google)
Abstract: According to the language of thought (or
Schiffer, Stephen R. (1994). The language-of-thought relation and its implications. Philosophical Studies 76 (2-3):263-85.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Schneider, Susan (2009). The nature of symbols in the language of thought. Mind and Language 24 (5):523-553.   (Google)
Abstract: The core of the language of thought program is the claim that thinking is the manipulation of symbols according to rules. Yet LOT has said little about symbol natures, and existing accounts are highly controversial. This is a major flaw at the heart of the LOT program: LOT requires an account of symbol natures to naturalize intentionality, to determine whether the brain even engages in symbol manipulations, and to understand how symbols relate to lower-level neurocomputational states. This paper provides the much-needed theory of symbols, and in doing so, alters the LOT program in significant respects
Schneider, Susan (forthcoming). The nature of primitive symbols in the language of thought. Mind and Language.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper provides a theory of the nature of symbols in the language of thought (LOT). My discussion consists in three parts. In part one, I provide three arguments for the individuation of primitive symbols in terms of total computational role. The first of these arguments claims that Classicism requires that primitive symbols be typed in this manner; no other theory of typing will suffice. The second argument contends that without this manner of symbol individuation, there will be computational processes that fail to supervene on syntax, together with the rules of composition and the computational algorithms. The third argument says that cognitive science needs a natural kind that is typed by total computational role. Otherwise, either cognitive science will be incomplete, or its laws will have counterexamples. Then, part two defends this view from a criticism, offered by both Jerry Fodor and Jesse Prinz, who respond to my view with the charge that because the types themselves are individuated
Silby, Brent (ms). Revealing the language of thought.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Smolensky, Paul (1991). Connectionism, constituency and the language of thought. In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 68 | Annotation | Google)
Sorensen, Roy A. (1991). Vagueness within the language of thought. Philosophical Quarterly 41 (165):389-413.   (Google | More links)
Stalnaker, Robert (1991). How to do semantics for the language of thought. In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 13 | Annotation | Google)
Teng, Norman Y. (1999). The language of thought and the embodied nature of language use. Philosophical Studies 94 (3):237-251.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
ter Hark, Michel (1995). Connectionism, behaviourism, and the language of thought. In Cognitive Patterns in Science and Common Sense. Amsterdam: Rodopi.   (Google)
Viger, Christopher D. (2001). Locking on to the language of thought. Philosophical Psychology 14 (2):203-215.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: I demonstrate that locking on, a key notion in Jerry Fodor's most recent theory of content, supplemented informational atomism (SIA), is cashed out in terms of asymmetric dependence, the central notion in his earlier theory of content. I use this result to argue that SIA is incompatible with the language of thought hypothesis because the constraints on the causal relations into which symbols can enter imposed by the theory of content preclude the causal relations needed between symbols for them to serve as the elements of the medium of thought
Viger, Christopher D. (2005). Learning to think: A response to the language of thought argument for innateness. Mind and Language 20 (3):313-25.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Jerry Fodor's argument for an innate language of thought continues to be a hurdle for researchers arguing that natural languages provide us with richer conceptual systems than our innate cognitive resources. I argue that because the logical/formal terms of natural languages are given a usetheory of meaning, unlike predicates, logical/formal terms might be learned without a mediating internal representation. In that case, our innate representational system might have less logical structure than a natural language, making it possible that we augment our innate representational system and improve our ability to think by learning a natural language
Vinueza, Adam (2000). Sensations and the language of thought. Philosophical Psychology 13 (3):373-392.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Abstract: I discuss two forms of the thesis that to have a sensation is to token a sentence in a language of thought-what I call, following Georges Rey, the sensational sentences thesis. One form of the thesis is a version of standard functionalism, while the other is a version of the increasingly popular thesis that for a sensation to have qualia is for it to have a certain kind of intentional content-that is, intentionalism. I defend the basic idea behind the sensational sentences thesis, and argue that the intentionalist version is either false or collapses into the standard functionalist thesis
Weiskopf, Daniel (2002). A critical review of Jerry A. Fodor's the mind doesn't work that way. Philosophical Psychology 15 (4):551 – 562.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The "New Synthesis" in cognitive science is committed to the computational theory of mind (CTM), massive modularity, nativism, and adaptationism. In The mind doesn't work that way , Jerry Fodor argues that CTM has problems explaining abductive or global inference, but that the New Synthesis offers no solution, since massive modularity is in fact incompatible with global cognitive processes. I argue that it is not clear how global human mentation is, so whether CTM is imperiled is an open question. Massive modularity also lacks some of the invidious commitments Fodor ascribes to it. Furthermore, Fodor's anti-adaptationist arguments are in tension with his nativism about the contents of modular systems. The New Synthesis thus has points worth preserving
White, Stephen L. (1982). Partial character and the language of thought. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 63 (October):347-65.   (Cited by 35 | Annotation | Google)
Wilson, Mark (2009). Review of Jerry A. Fodor, Lot 2: The Language of Thought Revisited. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (2).   (Google)
Yagisawa, Takashi (1994). Thinking in neurons: Comments on Stephen Schiffer's The Language-of-Thought Relation and its Implications. Philosophical Studies 76 (2-3):287-96.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

2.1b The Intentional Stance

Andrews, Kristin (2000). Our understanding of other minds: Theory of mind and the intentional stance. Journal of Consciousness Studies 7 (7):12-24.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Psychologists distinguish between intentional systems which have beliefs and those which are also able to attribute beliefs to others. The ability to do the latter is called having a `theory of mind', and many cognitive ethologists are hoping to find evidence for this ability in animal behaviour. I argue that Dennett's theory entails that any intentional system that interacts with another intentional system (such as vervet monkeys and chess-playing computers) has a theory of mind, which would make the distinction all but meaningless. This entailment should not be accepted; instead, Dennett's position that intentional behaviour is best predictable via the intentional stance should be rejected in favour of a pluralistic view of behaviour prediction. I introduce an additional method which humans often use to predict intentional and non-intentional behaviour, which could be called the inductive stance.
Bechtel, William P. (1985). Realism, instrumentalism, and the intentional stance. Cognitive Science 9:265-92.   (Cited by 16 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Beisecker, David (2002). Dennett and the Quest for real meaning: In defense of a myth. Philosophy in the Contemporary World 9 (1):11-18.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Bortolotti, Lisa (2003). Inconsistency and interpretation. Philosophical Explorations 6 (2):109-123.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper my purpose is to examine whether the case of inconsistent believers can offer a reason to object to theories of belief ascription that rely on a rationality constraint. I shall first illustrate how the possibility of inconsistent believers might be a challenge for the rationality constraint and then assess Davidson's influential reply to that challenge.
Bradshaw, Denny E. (1998). Patterns and descriptions. Philosophical Papers 27 (3):181-202.   (Google)
Cam, Philip (1984). Dennett on intelligent storage. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45 (December):247-62.   (Google | More links)
Clark, Andy (1990). Belief, opinion and consciousness. Philosophical Psychology 3 (1):139-154.   (Cited by 2 | Annotation | Google)
Cohen, B. (1995). Patterns lost: Indeterminism and Dennett's realism about beliefs. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 76 (1):17-31.   (Google)
Cummins, Robert E. (1981). What can be learned from brainstorms? Philosophical Topics 12:83-92.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google)
Davies, David (1995). Dennett's stance on intentional realism. Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (3):299-312.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Dennett, Daniel C. (1978). Brainstorms. MIT Press.   (Cited by 873 | Google | More links)
Dennett, Daniel C. (1971). Intentional systems. Journal of Philosophy 68 (February):87-106.   (Cited by 233 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Dennett, Daniel C. (1988). Precis of the intentional stance. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 9:13-25.   (Annotation | Google)
Dennett, Daniel C. (1991). Real patterns. Journal of Philosophy 88 (1):27-51.   (Cited by 189 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: Are there really beliefs? Or are we learning (from neuroscience and psychology, presumably) that, strictly speaking, beliefs are figments of our imagination, items in a superceded ontology? Philosophers generally regard such ontological questions as admitting just two possible answers: either beliefs exist or they don't. There is no such state as quasi-existence; there are no stable doctrines of semi-realism. Beliefs must either be vindicated along with the viruses or banished along with the banshees. A bracing conviction prevails, then, to the effect that when it comes to beliefs (and other mental items) one must be either a realist or an eliminative materialist
Dennett, Daniel C. (1990). The interpretation of texts, people and other artifacts. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (Supplement) 50:177-194.   (Cited by 41 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: I want to explore four different exercises of interpretation: (1) the interpretation of texts (or hermeneutics), (2) the interpretation of people (otherwise known as "attribution" psychology, or cognitive or intentional psychology), (3) the interpretation of other artifacts (which I shall call artifact hermeneutics), (4) the interpretation of organism design in evolutionary biology--the controversial interpretive activity known as adaptationism
Dennett, Daniel C. (1987). The Intentional Stance. MIT Press.   (Cited by 1920 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: Through the use of such "folk" concepts as belief, desire, intention, and expectation, Daniel Dennett asserts in this first full scale presentation of...
Fodor, Jerry A. & Lepore, Ernest (1993). Is intentional ascription intrinsically normative? In B. Dahlbom (ed.), Dennett and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1981). Three cheers for propositional attitudes. In Jerry A. Fodor (ed.), RePresentations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science. MIT Press.   (Cited by 15 | Annotation | Google)
Foss, Jeffrey E. (1994). On the evolution of intentionality as seen from the intentional stance. Inquiry 37 (3):287-310.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Foxall, Gordon R. (1999). The contextual stance. Philosophical Psychology 12 (1):25-46.   (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The contention that cognitive psychology and radical behaviorism yield equivalent accounts of decision making and problem solving is examined by contrasting a framework of cognitive interpretation, Dennett's intentional stance, with a corresponding interpretive stance derived from contextualism. The insistence of radical behaviorists that private events such as thoughts and feelings belong in a science of human behavior is indicted in view of their failure to provide a credible interpretation of complex human behavior. Dennett's interpretation of intentional systems is an exemplar of the interpretive stance radical behaviorism requires; a corresponding interpretive position can be based initially on a radical behaviorist view of human behavior and its determinants. This "contextual stance" is ontologically and methodologically distinct from the intentional stance over the range of explanations for which scientific psychology, cognitive or behaviorist, is responsible
Griffin, Richard (ms). The intentional stance: Developmental and neurocognitive perspectives.   (Google)
Abstract: Nowhere in the psychological sciences has the philosophy of mind had more influence than on the child development literature generally referred to as children’s ‘theory of mind.’ Developmental journals may seem to be an unlikely place to find Brentano, Frege, and Dennett alongside descriptions of referential opacity and the principle of substitutivity, but it is not at all uncommon in this literature. While the many problems and complexities of the propositional attitude literature are still hotly debated by philosophers, and often ill understood by scientists working in this area, a great deal of empirical progress has already been made. We have Dan Dennett to thank for this extraordinary dialogue between these disciplines
Haugeland, John (1993). Pattern and being. In B. Dahlbom (ed.), Dennett and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 14 | Google)
Heitner, Reese M. (2000). Is design relative or real? Dennett on intentional relativism and physical realism. Minds and Machines 10 (2):267-83.   (Google | More links)
Hornsby, Jennifer (1992). Physics, biology, and common-sense psychology. In David Charles & Kathleen Lennon (eds.), Reduction, Explanation and Realism. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Joslin, David (2006). Real realization: Dennett's real patterns versus Putnam's ubiquitous automata. Minds and Machines 16 (1):29-41.   (Google | More links)
Kenyon, Timothy A. (2000). Indeterminacy and realism. In Andrew Brook, Don Ross & David L. Thompson (eds.), Dennett's Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment. MIT Press.   (Google)
Kirk, Robert E. (1993). Indeterminacy of interpretation, idealization, and norms. Philosophical Studies 70 (2):213-223.   (Google | More links)
Lyons, William E. (1990). Intentionality and modern philosophical psychology I: The modern reduction of intentionality. Philosophical Psychology 3 (2 & 3):247-69.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: In rounded terms and modem dress a theory of intentionality is a theory about how humans take in information via the senses and in the very process of taking it in understand it and, most often, make subsequent use of it in guiding human behaviour. The problem of intentionality in this century has been the problem of providing an adequate explanation of how a purely physical causal system, the brain, can both receive information and at the same time understand it, that is, to put it even more briefly, how a brain can have semantic content. In these two articles, one in this issue of the journal and one in the next, I engage in a critical examination of the two most thoroughly canvassed approaches to the theory and problem of intentionality in philosophical psychology over the last hundred years. In the first article, entitled 'The modern reduction of intentionality, ' I examine the approach pioneered by Carnap and reaching its apotheosis in the work of Daniel Dennett. In the second article, entitled 'The return to representation, 'I examine the approach which can be traced back to the work of Noam Chomsky but which has been given its canonical treatment in the work of Jerry Fodor
McCulloch, Gregory (1990). Dennett's little grains of salt. Philosophical Quarterly 40 (158):1-12.   (Cited by 2 | Annotation | Google | More links)
McLaughlin, Brian P. & O'Leary-Hawthorne, John (1995). Dennett's logical behaviorism. Philosophical Topics 22:189-258.   (Google)
McLaughlin, Brian P. (2000). Why intentional systems theory cannot reconcile physicalism with realism about belief and desire. Protosociology 14:145-157.   (Google)
Menuge, Angus (2003). A critique of Dennett's evolutionary account of intentionality. Pcid 2.   (Google)
Millikan, Ruth G. (2000). Reading mother nature's mind. In Don Ross, Andrew Brook & David L. Thompson (eds.), Dennett's Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment. MIT Press.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: I try to focus our differences by examining the relation between what Dennett has termed "the intentional stance" and "the design stance." Dennett takes the intentional stance to be more basic than the design stance. Ultimately it is through the eyes of the intentional stance that both human and natural design are interpreted, hence there is always a degree of interpretive freedom in reading the mind, the purposes, both of Nature and of her children. The reason, or at least a reason, is that intentional interpretation is holistic, hence indeterminate, for the kinds of reasons given by Davidson and Quine. In contrast, I take the design stance to be more basic than the intentional stance. Intentional attributions express our best guesses about the locations of effects of certain kinds of natural design. And although there is often indeterminacy, ambiguity, or vagueness concerning what it is that natural selection (or learning) has selected for, these indeterminacies and vaguenesses are local, not holistic. There is reason to suppose that the better portion of Nature's purposes and the intentional states of her children are determinate in content within quite closely defined limits. I propose to defend this position as well as I can, so as to call from Dennett his own views on precisely where our paths separate (if they really do)
Mirolli, Marco (2002). A naturalistic perspective on intentionality: Interview with Daniel Dennett. Mind and Society 3 (6):1-12.   (Google)
Narayanan, Ajit (1996). The intentional stance and the imitation game. In Peter Millican & A. Clark (eds.), Machines and Thought. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Nelkin, Norton (1994). Patterns. Mind and Language 9 (1):56-87.   (Annotation | Google)
Price, Huw (1995). Psychology in perspective. In M. Michael & John O'Leary-Hawthorne (eds.), Philosophy in Mind. Kluwer.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: [email: huw@extro.su.oz.au] If recent literature is to be our guide, the main place of philosophy in the study of the mind would seem to be to determine the place of psychology in the study of the world. One distinctive kind of answer to this question begins by noting the central role of intentionality in psychology, and goes on to argue that this sets psychology apart from the natural sciences. Sometimes to be thus set apart is to be exiled, or rejected, but more often it is a protective move, intended to show that psychology is properly insulated from the reductionist demands of natural science. I am interested here in the general issue as to how this move to insulate intentional psychology should best be characterised-how to make sense of the idea that there can be a legitimate enterprise of this kind. I shall concentrate on what is perhaps the best known version of such a view, that of Daniel Dennett. I think that my conclusions apply to other versions as well, but Dennett provides a particularly accessible example
Radner, Daisie M. & Radner, Michael (1995). Cognition, natural selection, and the intentional stance. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 9 (2):109-19.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Ratcliffe, Matthew (2001). A Kantian stance on the intentional stance. Biology and Philosophy 16 (1):29-52.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Richardson, Robert C. (1980). Intentional realism or intentional instrumentalism? Cognition and Brain Theory 3:125-35.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Richard, Mark E. (1995). What isn't a belief? Philosophical Topics 22:291-318.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1987). Instrumentalism: Back from the Brink? In Lynne Rudder Baker (ed.), Saving Belief. Princeton University Press.   (Annotation | Google)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1989). Instrumental intentionality. Philosophy of Science 56 (June):303-16.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Seager, William E. (2000). Real patterns and surface metaphysics. In Andrew Brook, Don Ross & David L. Thompson (eds.), Dennett's Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment. MIT Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Naturalism is supposed to be a Good Thing. So good in fact that everybody wants to be a naturalist, no matter what their views might be1. Thus there is some confusion about what, exactly, naturalism is. In what follows, I am going to be pretty much, though not exclusively, concerned with the topics of intentionality and consciousness, which only deepens the confusion for these are two areas
Sharpe, R. A. (1989). Dennett's journey towards panpsychism. Inquiry 32 (2):233-40.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Shoham, Yoav (1991). Implementing the intentional stance. In Philosophy and AI. Cambridge: MIT Press.   (Cited by 10 | Google)
Slors, Marc V. P. (2007). Intentional systems theory, mental causation and empathic resonance. Erkenntnis 67 (2):321-336.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In the first section of this paper I argue that the main reason why Daniel Dennett’s Intentional Systems Theory (IST) has been perceived as behaviourist or antirealist is its inability to account for the causal efficacy of the mental. The rest of the paper is devoted to the claim that by emending the theory with a phenomenon called ‘empathic resonance’ (ER), it can account for the various explananda in the mental causation debate. Thus, IST + ER is a much more viable option than IST, even though IST + ER assigns a crucial role to the phenomenology of agency, a role that is incompatible with Dennett’s writings on consciousness
Slors, Marc (1996). Why Dennett cannot explain what it is to adopt the intentional stance. Philosophical Quarterly 46 (182):93-98.   (Google | More links)
Stich, Stephen P. (1980). Headaches. Philosophical Books 21:65-73.   (Annotation | Google)
Talvitie, Vesa (2003). Repressed contents reconsidered: Repressed contents and Dennett's intentional stance approach. Theoria Et Historia Scientiarum 7 (2):19-30.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Viger, Christopher D. (2000). Where do Dennett's stances stand? Explaining our kinds of minds. In Andrew Brook, Don Ross & David L. Thompson (eds.), Dennett's Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment. MIT Press.   (Google)
Weber, Marcel, Behavioral traits, the intentional stance, and biological functions.   (Google)
Abstract: It has been claimed that the intentional stance is necessary to individuate behavioral traits. This thesis, while clearly false, points to two interesting sets of problems concerning biological explanations of behavior: The first is a general in the philosophy of science: the theory-ladenness of observation. The second problem concerns the principles of trait individuation, which is a general problem in philosophy of biology. After discussing some alternatives, I show that one way of individuating the behavioral traits of an organism is by a special use of the concept of biological function, as understood in an enriched causal role (not selected effect) sense. On this view, a behavioral trait is essentially a special kind of regularity, namely a regularity that is produced by some regulatory mechanism. Regulatory mechanisms always require goal states, which can only be provided by functional considerations. As an example from actual (as opposed to folk) science, I examine the case of social behavior in nematodes. I show that the attempt to explain this phenomenon actually transformed it. This supports the view that scientific explanation does not explain an explanandum phenomenon that is given prior to the explanation; rather, the explanandum is changed by the explanation. This means that there could be a plurality of stances that have some heuristic value initially, but which will be abandoned in favor of a functional characterization eventually
Webb, Sherisse (1994). Witnessed behavior and Dennett's intentional stance. Philosophical Topics 22:457-70.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Wilkerson, William S. (1997). Real patterns and real problems: Making Dennett respectable on patterns and beliefs. Southern Journal of Philosophy 97 (4):557-70.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Yu, Paul & Fuller, Gary (1986). A critique of Dennett. Synthese 66 (March):453-76.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google | More links)

2.1c Eliminativism about Propositional Attitudes

87 / 88 entries displayed

Berm, (2006). Arguing for eliminativism. In Brian L Keeley (ed.), Paul Churchland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Bertolet, Rod (1994). Saving eliminativism. Philosophical Psychology 7 (1):87-100.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google)
Abstract: This paper contests Lynne Rudder Baker's claim to have shown that eliminative materialism is bound to fail on purely conceptual grounds. It is argued that Baker's position depends on knowing that certain developments in science cannot occur, and that we cannot know that this is so. Consequently, the sort of argument Baker provides is question-begging. For similar reasons, the confidence that the proponents of eliminative materialism have in it is misplaced
Bickle, John (1992). Revisionary physicalism. Biology and Philosophy 7 (4):411-30.   (Cited by 12 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Blunt, Paul K. (1992). A defense of folk psychology. International Philosophical Quarterly 32 (4):487-98.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Bogdan, Radu J. (1988). Mental attitudes and common sense psychology: The case against elimination. Noûs 22 (September):369-398.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Aside from brute force, there are several philosophically respectable ways of eliminating the mental. In recent years the most popular elimination strategy has been directed against our common sense or folk psychological understanding of the mental. The strategy goes by the name of eliminative materialism (or eliminativism, in short). The motivation behind this strategy seems to be the following. If common sense psychology can be construed as the principled theory of the mental, whose vocabulary and principles implicitly define what counts as mental, then eliminating the theory is eliminating its subject matter. If the theory is shown to be false, then its subject matter does not exist. If, in other words, common sense psychology can be shown to describe and explain nothing real in human cognition, then the mental itself is a fiction
Campbell, Keith (1993). What motivates eliminativism? Mind and Language 8 (2):206-210.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Chater, Nick & Oaksford, Mike (1996). The falsity of folk theories: Implications for psychology and philosophy. In W. O'Donahue & Richard F. Kitchener (eds.), The Philosophy of Psychology. Sage Publications.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Cheyne, Colin (1993). Reduction, elimination, and firewalking. Philosophy of Science 60 (2):349-357.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Churchland, Paul M. (1989). A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science. MIT Press.   (Cited by 465 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: A Neurocomputationial Perspective illustrates the fertility of the concepts and data drawn from the study of the brain and of artificial networks that model the...
Churchland, Paul M. (1981). Eliminative materialism and the propositional attitudes. Journal of Philosophy 78 (February):67-90.   (Cited by 488 | Google | More links)
Churchland, Paul M. (1993). Evaluating our self-conception. Mind and Language 8 (2):211-22.   (Cited by 13 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Churchland, Patricia S. (1980). Language, thought, and information processing. Noûs 14 (May):147-70.   (Cited by 16 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Churchland, Paul M. (1985). On the speculative nature of our self-conception. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 11:157-173.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google)
Churchland, Paul M. (2007). The evolving fortunes of eliminative materialism. In Brian P. McLaughlin & Jonathan D. Cohen (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.   (Google)
Churchland, Paul M. (1993). Theory, taxonomy, and methodology: A reply to Haldane's Understanding Folk. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 67:313-19.   (Annotation | Google)
Clark, Andy (1996). Dealing in futures: Folk psychology and the role of representations in cognitive science. In Robert N. McCauley (ed.), The Churchlands and Their Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 7 | Google)
Clark, Andy (1993). The varieties of eliminativism: Sentential, intentional and catastrophic. Mind and Language 8 (2):223-233.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Cling, Andrew (1990). Disappearance and knowledge. Philosophy of Science 57 (2):226-47.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Cling, Andrew (1989). Eliminative materialism and self-referential inconsistency. Philosophical Studies 56 (May):53-75.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Cling, Andrew (1991). The empirical virtues of belief. Philosophical Psychology 4:303-23.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google)
Foss, Jeffrey E. (1985). A materialist's misgivings about eliminative materialism. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 11:105-33.   (Annotation | Google)
Fricker, Elizabeth (1993). The threat of eliminativism. Mind and Language 8 (2):253-281.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Garzon, Francisco Calvo (2001). Can we turn a blind eye to eliminativism? International Journal of Philosophical Studies 9 (4):485-498.   (Google)
Gibson, Roger (1995). A note on Boghossian's master argument. In Contents. Atascadero: Ridgeview.   (Google | More links)
Graham, George & Horgan, Terence E. (1994). Southern fundamentalism and the end of philosophy. Philosophical Issues 5:219-247.   (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)
Greenwood, John D. (1992). Against eliminative materialism: From folk psychology to volkerpsychologie. Philosophical Psychology 5 (4):349-68.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Abstract: In this paper it is argued that we would not be logically obliged or rationally inclined to reject the ontology of contentful psychological states postulated by folk psychology even if the explanations advanced by folk psychology turned out to be generally inaccurate or inadequate. Moreover, it is argued that eliminativists such as Paul Churchland do not establish that folk psychological explanations are, or are likely to prove, generally inaccurate or inadequate. Most of Churchland's arguments—based upon developments within connectionist neuroscience—only cast doubt upon the adequacy of 'sentential' theories of cognitive processing, not upon scientifically developed forms of folk psychological explanation of behavior, such as those offered by contemporary social psychology. Finally, it is noted that Churchland's brand of eliminativism rests upon a crude reductive criterion of theoretical adequacy that has little to recommend it, and suggested that the recognized theoretical limitations of contemporary social psychology may be precisely due to its historical commitment to this reductive criterion
Greenwood, John D. (1991). Reasons to believe. In John D. Greenwood (ed.), The Future of Folk Psychology. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 8 | Annotation | Google)
Haldane, John J. (1993). Theory, realism and common sense: A reply to Paul Churchland. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 93:321-327.   (Google)
Haldane, John J. (1988). Understanding folk. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 62:222-46.   (Cited by 9 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Hannan, Barbara (1993). Don't stop believing: The case against eliminative materialism. Mind and Language 8 (2):165-179.   (Cited by 9 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Hannan, Barbara (1990). `Non-scientific realism' about propositional attitudes as a response to eliminativist arguments. Behavior and Philosophy 18:21-31.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Henderson, David K. & Horgan, Terence E. (2004). What does it take to be a true believer?: Against the opulent ideology of eliminative materialism. In Christina E. Erneling & David Martel Johnson (eds.), Mind As a Scientific Object. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Henderson, David & Horgan, Terry (2004). What does it take to be a true believer? In Christina E. Erneling & David Martel Johnson (eds.), Mind As a Scientific Object: Between Brain and Culture. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Eliminative materialism, as William Lycan (this volume) tells us, is materialism plus the claim that no creature has ever had a belief, desire, intention, hope, wish, or other “folk-psychological” state. Some contemporary philosophers claim that eliminative materialism is very likely true. They sketch certain potential scenarios, for the way theory might develop in cognitive science and neuroscience, that they claim are fairly likely; and they maintain that if such
Hermes, Charles M. (2006). The overdetermination argument against eliminativism. Southwest Philosophy Review 22 (1):113-119.   (Google)
Horgan, Terence E. (1987). Cognition is real. Behaviorism 15:13-25.   (Google)
Horst, Steven (1995). Eliminativism and the ambiguity of `belief'. Synthese 104 (1):123-45.   (Cited by 5 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Horgan, Terence E. & Woodward, James F. (1985). Folk psychology is here to stay. Philosophical Review 94 (April):197-225.   (Cited by 51 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Horgan, Terence E. & Graham, George (1991). In defense of southern fundamentalism. Philosophical Studies 62 (May):107-134.   (Cited by 16 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Horgan, Terence E. (1993). The austere ideology of folk psychology. Mind and Language 8 (2):282-297.   (Cited by 11 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Horgan, Terence E. & Henderson, David K. (2005). What does it take to be a true believer? Against the opulent ideology of eliminative materialism. In Christina E. Erneling & D. Johnson (eds.), Mind As a Scientific Object. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Hunter, Geoffrey (1995). The churchlands' eliminative materialism. Philosophical Investigations 18 (1):13-30.   (Google)
Jackson, Frank & Pettit, Philip (1993). Folk belief and commonplace belief. Mind and Language 8 (2):298-305.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Jackson, Frank & Pettit, Philip (1990). In defense of folk psychology. Philosophical Studies 59 (1):31-54.   (Cited by 32 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: It turned out that there was no phlogiston, no caloric fluid, and no luminiferous ether. Might it turn out that there are no beliefs and desires? Patricia and Paul Churchland say yes} We say no. In part one we give our positive argument for the existence of beliefs and desires
Keeley, Brian L. (2006). Paul Churchland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This collection offers an introduction to Churchland's work, as well as a critique of some of his most famous philosophical positions.
Kincaid, Harold (1990). Eliminativism and methodological individualism. Philosophy of Science 57 (1):141-148.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Kitcher, P. S. (1984). In defense of intentional psychology. Journal of Philosophy 81 (February):89-106.   (Cited by 13 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Lahav, Ran (1992). The amazing predictive power of folk psychology. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 70 (1):99-105.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Livingston, Kenneth R. (1996). The neurocomputational mind meets normative epistemology. Philosophical Psychology 9 (1):33-59.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: The rapid development of connectionist models in computer science and of powerful computational tools in neuroscience has encouraged eliminativist materialist philosophers to propose specific alternatives to traditional mentalistic theories of mind. One of the problems associated with such a move is that elimination of the mental would seem to remove access to ideas like truth as the foundations of normative epistemology. Thus, a successful elimination of propositional or sentential theories of mind must not only replace them for purposes of our psychology, it must also replace them for purposes of the evaluation of our theories and explanations, psychological and otherwise. This paper briefly reviews eliminativist arguments for doubting the correctness of sentential accounts of explanation, understanding, and normative evaluation. It then considers Paul Churchland's (1989) proposed alternative norms, which are framed neurocomputationally. The alternative is found wanting in several specific ways. The arguments for eliminating propositionally-based norms are then re-examined and it is suggested that the need for wholesale elimination is overstated. A clear gap in the traditional epistemological story is identified, however, and a more modest set of norms is proposed as a way of filling this gap, rather than as a way of entirely replacing the traditional framework
Lockie, Robert (2003). Transcendental arguments against eliminativism. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 54 (4):569-589.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Eliminativism was targeted by transcendental arguments from the first. Three responses to these arguments have emerged from the eliminativist literature, the heart of which is that such arguments are question-begging. These responses are shown to be incompatible with the position, eliminativism, they are meant to defend. Out of these failed responses is developed a general transcendental argument against eliminativism (the "Paradox of Abandonment"). Eliminativists have anticipated this argument, but their six different attempts to counter it are shown to be separately inadequate, mutually incompatible, and, again, incompatible with the position that they are seeking to defend.
Lycan, William G. (2005). A particularly compelling refutation of eliminative materialism. In D. M. Johnson & C. E. Erneling (eds.), The Mind As a Scientific Object: Between Brain and Culture. Oup.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The 1960s saw heated discussion of Eliminative Materialism in regard to sensations and their phenomenal features. Thus directed, Eliminative Materialism is materialism or physicalism plus the distinctive and truly radical thesis that there have never occurred any sensations; no one has ever experienced a sensation. This view attracted few adherents(!), though to this day some philosophers are Eliminativists with respect to various alleged phenomenal features of sensations
Malone, Michael E. (1994). On assuming other folks have mental states. Philosophical Investigations 17 (1):37-52.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Melnyk, Andrew (1996). Testament of a recovering eliminativist. Philosophy of Science 63 (3):S185-S193.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Nelson, Mark T. (1991). Eliminative materialism and substantive commitments. International Philosophical Quarterly (March) 39 (March):39-49.   (Google)
O'Brien, Gerard (1987). Eliminative materialism and our psychological self-knowledge. Philosophical Studies 52 (July):49-70.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Philipse, Herman (1998). Shifting position? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (4):885-892.   (Google | More links)
Philipse, Herman (1997). The end of plasticity. Inquiry 40 (3):291-306.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Paul Churchland has become famous for holding three controversial and interrelated doctrines which he put forward in early papers and in his first book. Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (1979): eliminative materialism, the doctrine of the plasticity of perception, and a general network theory of language. In his latest book, The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul (1995), Churchland aims to make some results of connectionist neuroscience available to the general public and explores the philosophical and social consequences that neuroscience is likely to have. I argue that these results of neuroscience refute the three doctrines that Churchland advocated in his earlier works. Yet youthful dreams do not die easily and Churchland is reluctant to relinquish his early views
Pitman, Michael M. (2003). Eliminative materialism and the integrity of science. South African Journal of Philosophy 22 (3):207-219.   (Google | More links)
Pojman, Paul (1994). Are beliefs and experiences candidates for elimination? Dialogue 37 (1):11-14.   (Google)
Ramsey, William; Stich, Stephen P. & Garon, J. (1991). Connectionism, eliminativism, and the future of folk psychology. In William Ramsey, Stephen P. Stich & D. Rumelhart (eds.), Philosophy and Connectionist Theory. Lawrence Erlbaum.   (Cited by 85 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Ramsey, William (1990). Where does the self-refutation objection take us? Inquiry 33 (December):453-65.   (Annotation | Google)
Reppert, Victor (1992). Eliminative materialism, cognitive suicide, and begging the question. Metaphilosophy 23 (4):378-92.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Reppert, Victor (1991). Ramsey on eliminativism and self-refutation. Inquiry 34 (4):499-508.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google)
Resnick, P. (1994). Intentionality is phlogiston. In Eric Dietrich (ed.), Thinking Computers and Virtual Persons. Academic Press.   (Google)
Richards, G. (1996). On the necessary survival of folk psychology. In W. O'Donahue & Richard F. Kitchener (eds.), The Philosophy of Psychology. Sage Publications.   (Google)
Rockwell, Teed, Beyond eliminative materialism: Some unnoticed implications of Paul Churchland's pragmatic pluralism.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Paul Churchland's epistemology contains a tension between two positions, which I will call pragmatic pluralism and eliminative materialism. Pragmatic pluralism became predominant as Churchland's epistemology became more neurocomputationally inspired, which saved him from the skepticism implicit in certain passages of the theory of reduction he outlined in Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind. However, once he replaces eliminativism with a neurologically inspired pragmatic pluralism, Churchland 1) cannot claim that folk psychology might be a false theory, in any significant sense 2) cannot claim that the concepts of Folk psychology might be empty of extension and lack reference. 3) cannot sustain Churchland's criticism of Dennett's "intentional stance" . 4) cannot claim to be a form of scientific realism, in the sense of believing that what science describes is somehow realer that what other conceptual systems describe
Roe, John H. (1992). Revisionary materialism: A critique of Stich. Conference 3 (2):67-75.   (Google)
Rosenberg, A. (1991). How is eliminative materialism possible? In R. Bogdan (ed.), Mind and Common Sense. Cambridge University Press.   (Annotation | Google)
Rosenberg, A. (1999). Naturalistic epistemology for eliminative materialists. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (2):335-358.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1988). Cognitive suicide. In Robert H. Grimm & D. D. Merrill (eds.), Contents of Thought. University of Arizona Press.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1993). Eliminativism and an argument from science. Mind and Language 8 (2):180-188.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1987). The threat of cognitive suicide. In Lynne Rudder Baker (ed.), Saving Belief. Princeton University Press.   (Annotation | Google)
Saidel, Eric (1992). What price neurophilosophy? Philosophy of Science Association 1:461-68.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Schouten, Maurice K. D. & de Jong, Huib L. (1998). Defusing eliminative materialism: Reference and revision. Philosophical Psychology 11 (4):489-509.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
Abstract: The doctrine of eliminative materialism holds that belief-desire psychology is massively referentially disconnected. We claim, however, that it is not at all obvious what it means to be referentially (dis)connected. The two major accounts of reference both lead to serious difficulties for eliminativism: it seems that elimination is either impossible or omnipresent. We explore the idea that reference fixation is a much more local, partial, and context-dependent process than was supposed by the classical accounts. This pragmatic view suggests that elimination is not the prime model for understanding the complex relations between the mind and brain sciences, and that we have little ground for concluding that in general psychological kinds do not exist. We suggest that reference changes are better seen as continuous rather than completely eliminative
Schwartz, J. (1991). Reduction, elimination, and the mental. Philosophy of Science 58 (June):203-20.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Smith, Joseph Wayne (1982). Two recent self-referential arguments. Auslegung 9:333-346.   (Google)
Sterelny, Kim (1993). Refuting eliminative materialism on the cheap? Mind and Language 8 (2):306-15.   (Google | More links)
Stich, Stephen P. (1991). Do true believers exist? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 65:229-44.   (Cited by 7 | Annotation | Google)
Stich, Stephen P. (1996). Deconstructing the mind. In Deconstructing the Mind. Oxford University Press, 1996.   (Cited by 93 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Over the last two decades, debates over the viability of commonsense psychology have been center stage in both cognitive science and the philosophy of mind. Eliminativists have argued that advances in cognitive science and neuroscience will ultimately justify a rejection of our "folk" theory of the mind, and of its ontology. In the first half of this book Stich, who was at one time a leading advocate of eliminativism, maintains that even if the sciences develop in the ways that eliminativists foresee, none of the arguments for ontological elimination are tenable. Rather than being resolved by science, he contends, these ontological disputes will be settled by a pragmatic process in which social and political considerations have a major role to play. In later chapters, Stich argues that the widespread worry about "naturalizing" psychological properties is deeply confused, since there is no plausible account of what naturalizing requires on which the failure of the naturalization project would lead to eliminativism. He also offers a detailed analysis of the many different notions of folk psychology to be found in philosophy and psychology, and argues that simulation theory, which purports to be an alternative to folk psychology, is not supported by recent experimental findings
Stich, Stephen P. (1992). What is a theory of mental representation? Mind 101 (402):243-61.   (Cited by 48 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Stoljar, Natalie (1988). Churchland's eliminativism. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 66 (December):489-497.   (Google | More links)
Tait, William W. (2002). The myth of the mind. Topoi 21 (1-2):65-74.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Of course, I do not mean by the title of this paper to deny the existence of something called
Taylor, Kenneth A. (1994). How not to refute eliminative materialism. Philosophical Psychology 7 (1):101-125.   (Annotation | Google)
Abstract: This paper examines and rejects some purported refutations of eliminative materialism in the philosophy of mind: a quasi-transcendental argument due to Jackson and Pettit (1990) to the effect that folk psychology is “peculiarly unlikely” to be radically revised or eliminated in light of the developments of cognitive science and neuroscience; and (b) certain straight-out transcendental arguments to the effect that eliminativism is somehow incoherent (Baker, 1987; Boghossian, 1990). It begins by clarifying the exact topology of the dialectical space in which debates between eliminativist and anti-eliminativist ought to be framed. I claim that both proponents and opponents of eliminativism have been insufficiently attentive to the range of dialectical possibilities. Consequently, the debate has not, in fact, been framed within the correct dialectical setting. I then go onto to show how inattentiveness to the range of dialectical possibilities undermines both transcendental and quasi-transcendental arguments against eliminativism. In particular, I argue that the quasi-transcendentalist overestimates the degree to which folk psychology can be insulated from the advance of neuroscience and cognitive science just in virtue of being a functional theory. I argue further that transcendental arguments are fallacious and do not succeed against even the strongest possible form of eliminativism. Finally, I argue that that transcendental arguments are irrelevant. Even if such arguments do succeed against a certain'very strong form of eliminativism, they remain complete non-starters against certain weaker forms of eliminativism. And I argue that if any of these weaker forms is true, folk psychology is in trouble enough to vindicate Paul Ckurchland's claim that our common sense psychological framework is “a radically false and misleading conception of the causes of human behavior and the nature of cognitive activity”
Tomberlin, James E. (1994). Whither southern fundamentalism? Philosophical Issues 5.   (Google)
Trout, J. D. (1991). Belief attribution in science: Folk psychology under theoretical stress. Synthese 87 (June):379-400.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Waskan, Jonathan A. (2003). Folk psychology and the gauntlet of irrealism. Southern Journal of Philosophy 41 (4):627-656.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Wright, C. (1995). Can there be a rationally compelling argument for anti-realism about ordinary ("folk") psychology? Philosophical Issues 6:197-221.   (Google | More links)
Wright, Crispin (1993). Eliminative materialism: Going concern or passing fancy? Mind and Language 8 (2):316-326.   (Cited by 1 | Google)

2.1d Propositional Attitudes, Misc

64 / 66 entries displayed

Anderson, C. Anthony (ed.) (1990). Propositional Attitudes: The Role of Content in Logic, Language, and Mind. Stanford: CSLI.   (Cited by 24 | Google | More links)
Antony, Louise M. (2001). Brain states with attitude. In Anthonie W. M. Meijers (ed.), Explaining Beliefs. Csli.   (Google)
Armstrong, David M. (1975). Beliefs and desires as causes of actions: A reply to Donald Davidson. Philosophical Papers 4 (May):1-7.   (Google)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (2002). Attitudes in action: A causal account. Manuscrito 25:47-78.   (Google)
Abstract: This article aims to vindicate the commonsensical view that what we think affects what we do. In order to show that mental properties like believing, desiring and intending are causally explanatory, I propose a nonreductive, materialistic account that identifies beliefs and desires by their content, and that shows how differences in the contents of beliefs and desires can make causal differences in what we do
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1995). Explaining Attitudes. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 75 | Google | More links)
Balaguer, Mark (1998). Attitudes without propositions. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (4):805-26.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Barnes, Gerald W. (1977). Some remarks on belief and desire. Philosophical Review 86 (July):340-349.   (Google | More links)
Bealer, George (1998). Propositions. Mind 107 (425):1-32.   (Cited by 16 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Recent work in philosophy of language has raised significant problems for the traditional theory of propositions, engendering serious skepticism about its general workability. These problems are, I believe, tied to fundamental misconceptions about how the theory should be developed. The goal of this paper is to show how to develop the traditional theory in a way which solves the problems and puts this skepticism to rest. The problems fall into two groups. The first has to do with reductionism, specifically attempts to reduce propositions to extensional entities-either extensional functions or sets. The second group concerns problems of fine grained content-both traditional 'Cicero'/'Tully' puzzles and recent variations on them which confront scientific essentialism. After characterizing the problems, I outline a non-reductionist approach-the algebraic approach-which avoids the problems associated with reductionism. I then go on to show how the theory can incorporate non-Platonic (as well as Platonic) modes of presentation. When these are implemented nondescriptively, they yield the sort of fine-grained distinctions which have been eluding us. The paper closes by applying the theory to a cluster of remaining puzzles, including a pair of new puzzles facing scientific essentialism
Ben-Yami, Hanoch (1997). Against characterizing mental states as propositional attitudes. Philosophical Quarterly 47 (186):84-89.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Bennett, Jonathan (1991). Analysis without noise. In R. Bogdan (ed.), Mind and Common Sense. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google)
Boër, Steven E. (1994). Propositional attitudes and formal ontology. Synthese 98 (2).   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper develops — within an axiomatic theory of properties, relations, and propositions which accords them well-defined existence and identity conditions — a sententialist-functionalist account of belief as a symbolically mediated relation to a special kind of propositional entity, theproxy-encoding abstract proposition. It is then shown how, in terms of this account, the truth conditions of English belief reports may be captured in a formally precise and empirically adequate way that accords genuinely semantic status to familiar opacity data
Clark, Austen (1994). Beliefs and desires incorporated. Journal of Philosophy 91 (8):404-25.   (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Suppose we admit for the sake of argument that "folk" explanations of human behavior--explanations in terms of beliefs and desires--sometimes succeed. They sometimes enable us to understand and predict patterns of motion that otherwise would remain unintelligible and unanticipated. Is the only explanation for such success that folk psychology is a viable proto-scientific theory of human psychology? I shall describe an analysis which yields a negative answer to that question. It was suggested by an observation and an analogy, both of which may initially seem remote from the topic at hand
Clark, Andy (1991). Radical ascent. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 65:211-27.   (Cited by 2 | Annotation | Google)
David, Marian (2002). Content essentialism. Acta Analytica 17 (28):103-114.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Davies, David (1995). Davidson, indeterminacy, and measurement. Acta Analytica 10 (14):37-56.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Davies, David (1998). On gauging attitudes. Philosophical Studies 90 (2):129-54.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Davidson, Donald (1989). What is present to the mind? In The Mind of Donald Davidson. Netherlands: Rodopi.   (Cited by 37 | Google | More links)
Davidson, Donald (1991). What is present to the mind. Philosophical Issues 1:197-213.   (Cited by 37 | Google | More links)
De Clercq, Rafael (2006). Presentism and the Problem of Cross-Time Relations. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2):386-402.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Presentism is the view that only present entities exist. Recently, several authors have asked the question whether presentism is able to account for cross-time relations, i.e., roughly, relations between entities existing at different times. In this paper I claim that this question is to be answered in the affirmative. To make this claim plausible, I consider four types of cross-time relation and show how each can be accommodated without difficulty within the metaphysical framework of presentism.
Devitt, Michael (1984). Thoughts and their ascription. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 9:385-420.   (Google)
Egan, M. F. (1989). What's wrong with the syntactic theory of mind. Philosophy of Science 56 (December):664-74.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Elugardo, Reinaldo (2001). Brain states, causal explanation, and the attitudes. In Explaining Beliefs: Lynne Rudder Baker and Her Critics. Stanford: CSLI Publications.   (Google)
Falk, Arthur E. (2004). Desire and Belief: Introduction to Some Recent Philosophical Debates. Hamilton Books, University Press of America.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: This work examines the nature of what philosophers call de re mental attitudes, paying close attention to the controversies over the nature of these and allied...
Falk, Arthur (2004). Desire and Belief: Introduction to Some Philosophical Debates. University Press of America.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: First published in 2004, this book is a rigorous textbook on the metaphysics of the mind for advanced students of philosophy, covering the background they need to understand the debates and bringing them to the frontiers of current research. It is also a monograph on the nature of de re and de se states of mind, incorporating material the author published in journals. The short file you will see is only a gateway to more than two dozen other files which are rewrites of the book
Feit, Neil (2006). The doctrine of propositions, internalism, and global supervenience. Philosophical Studies 131 (2):447-457.   (Google | More links)
Feldman, Richard H. (1986). Davidson's theory of propositional attitudes. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 16 (December):693-712.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Goldstein, Irwin (1981). Cognitive pleasure and distress. Philosophical Studies 39 (January):15-23.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Explaining pleasure's 'intentional object', I argue that a person is pleased about something when his thoughts about that thing cause him to feel pleased. Bernard Williams, Irving Thalberg, and Gilbert Ryle, who reject this analysis, are discussed.
Green, Mitchell S. (1999). Attitude ascription's affinity to measurement. International Journal Of Philosophical Studies 7 (3):323-348.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The relation between two systems of attitude ascription that capture all the empirically significant aspects of an agents thought and speech may be analogous to that between two systems of magnitude ascription that are equivalent relative to a transformation of scale. If so, just as an objects weighing eight pounds doesnt relate that object to the number eight (for a different but equally good scale would use a different number), similarly an agents believing that P need not relate her to P (for a different but equally adequate interpretive scheme could use a different proposition). In either case the only reality picked out by any system of ascription is what is common to all equivalent rivals. By emphasizing some contrasts between decision theory and belief-desire psychology, it is argued that if attitude ascription is appropriately analogous to measurement then not only is being related to a proposition an artifact of the system of representation chosen, so are belief and desire
Hieronymi, Pamela (2006). Controlling attitudes. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (1):45-74.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Abstract: I hope to show that, although belief is subject to two quite robust forms of agency, "believing at will" is impossible; one cannot believe in the way one ordinarily acts. Further, the same is true of intention: although intention is subject to two quite robust forms of agency, the features of belief that render believing less than voluntary are present for intention, as well. It turns out, perhaps surprisingly, that you can no more intend at will than believe at will
Hill, Christopher S. (1988). Intentionality, folk psychology, and reduction. In Herbert R. Otto & James A. Tuedio (eds.), Perspectives On Mind. Dordrecht: Kluwer.   (Google)
Humberstone, I. L. (1992). Direction of fit. Mind 101 (401):59-83.   (Cited by 34 | Google | More links)
Jacquette, Dale (1990). Intentionality and Stich's theory of brain sentence syntax. Philosophical Quarterly 40 (159):169-82.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Jackman, Henry (online). Truth, rationality, and humanity.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: When we interpret someone in terms of their beliefs and desires, we are doing something other than merely describing them, but it is far from clear what this something else is. As Dennett puts it, while there is a growing consensus about the "not-purely-descriptive nature of intentional attribution," there remains considerable disagreement over which norms govern the play of this "dramatic interpretation game." This paper will discuss three candidates for specifying the content of these norms, truth, rationality and humanity. It will argue that while truth has frequently been taken to be the least plausible candidate, once the regulative rather than constitutive status of these norms are recognized, it turns out to be the best one. It will then close with a discussion of the 'indirect' role that rationality constraints can still be seen to play in a theory of belief
Kissine, Mikhail (2007). Direction of fit. Logique Et Analyse 198 (57):113-128.   (Google)
MacKenzie, J. S. (1916). Laws of thought. Mind 25 (99):289-307.   (Google | More links)
Margolis, Joseph (1977). Cognitive agents, mental states, and internal representation. Behaviorism 5:63-74.   (Google)
Matthews, Robert J. (1994). The measure of mind. Mind 103 (410):131-46.   (Cited by 18 | Annotation | Google | More links)
McEvoy, Mark (2003). A defense of propositional functionalism. Journal of Philosophical Research 28:421-436.   (Google)
Millikan, Ruth G. (1986). Thoughts without laws: Cognitive science with content. Philosophical Review 95 (January):47-80.   (Cited by 48 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Montague, Michelle (2007). Against propositionalism. Noûs 41 (3):503–518.   (Google | More links)
Morton, Adam (1988). The explanatory depth of propositional attitudes. Philosophical Perspectives 2:67-80.   (Google)
Moser, Paul K. (1990). Physicalism and intentional attitudes. Behavior and Philosophy 18:33-41.   (Google)
Muskens, Reinhard (1993). Propositional Attitudes. In R.E. Asher & J.M.Y. Simpson (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Pergamon Press.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Verbs such as know, believe, hope, fear, regret and desire are commonly taken to express an attitude that one may bear towards a proposition and are therefore called verbs of propositional attitude. Thus in (1) below the agent Cathy is reported to have a certain attitude
Peacocke, Christopher (1983). Between instrumentalism and brain-writing. In Christopher Peacocke (ed.), Sense and Content. Oxford University Press.   (Annotation | Google)
Pelczar, Michael W. (2007). Forms and objects of thought. Linguistics and Philosophy 30 (1):97-122.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: It is generally assumed that if it is possible to believe that p without believing that q, then there is some difference between the object of the thought that p and the object of the thought that q. This assumption is challenged in the present paper, opening the way to an account of epistemic opacity that improves on existing accounts, not least because it casts doubt on various arguments that attempt to derive startling ontological conclusions from seemingly innocent epistemic premises
Perry, John (1986). Circumstantial attitudes and benevolent cognition. In Jeremy Butterfield (ed.), Language, Mind and Logic. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Abstract: From: _Language, Mind and Logic_, edited by Jeremy Butter?eld. 123
Possin, Kevin (1986). The case against Stich's syntactic theory of mind. Philosophical Studies 49 (May):405-18.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Pratt, Ian (1993). Analysis and the attitudes. In Steven J. Wagner & Richard Warner (eds.), Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal. University of Notre Dame Press.   (Google)
Recanati, Francois (2000). Opacity and the attitudes. In A. Orenstein & Petr Kotatko (eds.), Knowledge, Language and Logic: Questions for Quine.   (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)
Rechtin, Lisbeth & Todd, William L. (1974). Propositional attitudes and self-reference. Philosophia 4 (April-July):271-295.   (Google | More links)
Richard, Mark E. (1990). Propositional Attitudes: An Essay on Thoughts and How We Ascribe Them. New York: Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 172 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This book makes a stimulating contribution to the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. It begins with a spirited defense of the view that propositions are structured and that propositional structure is "psychologically real." The author then develops a subtle view of propositions and attitude ascription. The view is worked out in detail with attention to such topics as the semantics of conversations, iterated attitude ascriptions, and the role of propositions as bearers of truth. Along the way important issues in the philosophy of mind are addressed
Robbins, Philip (2004). To structure, or not to structure? Synthese 139 (1):55-80.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Rooney, Margaret M. (1980). What do we hope for: Some puzzles involving propositional hoping. Grazer Philosophische Studien 11:75-92.   (Google)
Ross, Don (1986). Stich, Fodor and the status of belief. Eidos 5 (December):119-141.   (Google)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1994). Attitudes as nonentities. Philosophical Studies 76 (2-3):175-203.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Saidel, Eric (1998). Beliefs, desires, and the ability to learn. American Philosophical Quarterly 35 (1):21-37.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Schroeder, Timothy (2006). Propositional attitudes. Philosophy Compass 1 (1):65-73.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Schwartz, J. (1992). Propositional attitude psychology as an ideal type. Topoi 11 (1):5-26.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Sher, George A. (1977). Armstrong and the interdependence of the mental. Philosophical Quarterly 27 (July):227-235.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Smith, D. M. (1994). Toward a perspicuous characterization of intentional states. Philosophical Studies 74 (1):103-20.   (Google | More links)
Stalnaker, Robert (1984). Inquiry. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 415 | Google)
Stich, Stephen P. (1984). Relativism, rationality, and the limits of intentional ascription. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.   (Google)
Poland, Jeffrey S. & Von Eckardt, Barbara (2000). In defense of the standard view. Protosociology 14:312-331.   (Google)
Zaitchik, Alan (1981). Reply to professor Fodor on physicalism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 42 (December):294-295.   (Google)

2.2 Content Internalism and Externalism

Harman, Gilbert (1988). Wide functionalism. In Stephen Schiffer & Susan Steele (eds.), Cognition and Representation. Westview Press.   (Google)
Nelkin, Norton (1997). Consciousness and the origins of thought. Mind and Language 12 (2):178–180.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This book offers a comprehensive and broadly rationalist theory of the mind which continually tests itself against experimental results and clinical data. Taking issue with Empiricists who believe that all knowledge arises from experience and that perception is a non-cognitive state, Norton Nelkin argues that perception is cognitive, constructive, and proposition-like. Further, as against Externalists who believe that our thoughts have meaning only insofar as they advert to the world outside our minds, he argues that meaning is determined 'in the head'. Finally, he offers an account of how we acquire some of our most basic concepts, including the concept of the self and that of other minds

2.2a Is Content in the Head?

Brown, J. (1998). Natural kind terms and recognitional capacities. Mind 107 (426):275-303.   (Cited by 23 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The main contribution of this paper is a new account of how a community may introduce a term for a natural kind in advance of knowing the correct scientific account of that kind. The account is motivated by the inadequacy of the currently dominant accounts of how a community may do this, namely those proposed by Kripke and by Putman. Their accounts fail to deal satisfactorily with the facts that (1) typically, an item that instantiates one natural kind instantiates several - 'the higher-level natural kinds problem', and (2) natural kinds often occur in nature in impure form - 'the composition problem' .On the account I propose, a term for a natural kind gains its reference by being associated with a recognitional capacity for that kind. I show how members of a scientifically ignorant community could have a recognitional capacity for a natural kind, say gold, as opposed to a certain kind of appearance, for instance the appearance that gold actually has. I argue that members of such a community can have recognitional capacities for particular natural kinds despite the actual or possible existence of duplicate kinds, e.g. water. After developing the account in detail, I show how it can deal with the two problems faced by Kripke's and Putnam's problem. The case of natural kind terms is crucial to the central debate in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind about whether we can refer non-descriptively to objects and kinds in the world. I take the account I propose to be a non-descriptive account of linguistic reference to natural kinds that can be used to support externalism in the philosophy of mind
Brueckner, Anthony L. (2003). Contents just aren't in the head. Erkenntnis 58 (1):1-6.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Bruns, M. & Soldati, Gianfranco (1997). Object-dependent and property-dependent concepts. Dialectica 48 (3-4):185-208.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Brueckner, Anthony L. (1995). The characteristic thesis of anti-individualism. Analysis 55 (3):146-48.   (Cited by 7 | Google)
Burge, Tyler (1982). Other bodies. In Andrew Woodfield (ed.), Thought and Object. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 94 | Annotation | Google)
Butler, Keith (1998). Internal Affairs: Making Room for Psychosemantic Internalism. Kluwer.   (Cited by 8 | Annotation | Google)
Campbell, John (1982). Extension and psychic state: Twin earth revisited. Philosophical Studies 42 (June):67-90.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Chomsky, Noam A. (2003). Internalist explorations. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Cited by 11 | Google)
Christensen, Carleton B. (2001). Escape from twin earth: Putnam's 'logic' of natural kind terms. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 9 (2):123-150.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Many still seem confident that the kind of semantic theory Putnam once proposed for natural kind terms is right. This paper seeks to show that this confidence is misplaced because the general idea underlying the theory is incoherent. Consequently, the theory must be rejected prior to any consideration of its epistemological, ontological or metaphysical acceptability. Part I sets the stage by showing that falsehoods, indeed absurdities, follow from the theory when one deliberately suspends certain devices Putnam built into it , presumably in order to block such entailments. Part II then raises the decisive issue of at what cost these devices do the job they need to do. It argues that - apart from possessing no other motivation than their capacity to block the consequences derived in Part I - they only fulfil this blocking function if they render the theory unable to deal with fiction and related 'make-believe' activities. Part III indicates the affinity Putnam's account has with the classically 'denotative' view of meaning, and thus how its weaknesses may be seen as a variant of the classical weakness of 'denotative' approaches. It concludes that the theory is a conceptual muddle
Crane, Tim (1991). All the difference in the world. Philosophical Quarterly 41 (January):1-25.   (Cited by 25 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Cummins, Robert E. (1991). Methodological reflections on belief. In R. Bogdan (ed.), Mind and Common Sense. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 6 | Annotation | Google)
Davis, Steven (2003). Arguments for externalism. In Maria J. Frapolli & E. Romero (eds.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind. Csli.   (Google)
Devitt, Michael (2001). A shocking idea about meaning. Revue Internationale de Philosophie 55 (218):471-494.   (Google)
Devitt, Michael (1990). Meanings just ain't in the head. In George S. Boolos (ed.), Meaning and Method: Essays in Honor of Hilary Putnam. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 17 | Annotation | Google)
Dretske, Fred (1993). The nature of thought. Philosophical Studies 70 (2):185-99.   (Cited by 17 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Endicott, Ronald P. (forthcoming). Multiple realizability. In Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Multiple realizability is a key issue in debates over the nature of mind and reduction in the sciences. The subject consists of two parts:
Farkas, Katalin (2003). Does twin earth rest on a mistake? Croatian Journal of Philosophy 3 (8):155-169.   (Google)
Farkas, Katalin (2008). Phenomenal intentionality without compromise. The Monist 91 (2):273-93.   (Google)
Abstract: In recent years, several philosophers have defended the idea of phenomenal intentionality: the intrinsic directedness of certain conscious mental events which is inseparable from these events’ phenomenal character. On this conception, phenomenology is usually conceived as narrow, that is, as supervening on the internal states of subjects, and hence phenomenal intentionality is a form of narrow intentionality. However, defenders of this idea usually maintain that there is another kind of, externalistic intentionality, which depends on factors external to the subject. We may ask whether this concession to content externalism is obligatory. In this paper, I shall argue that it isn’t. I shall suggest that if one is convinced that narrow phenomenal intentionality is legitimate, there is nothing stopping one from claiming that all intentionality is narrow.
Farkas, Katalin (2006). Semantic internalism and externalism. In Ernest Lepore & Barry C. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Abstract: Abstract: This paper introduces and analyses the doctrine of externalism about semantic content; discusses the Twin Earth argument for externalism and the assumptions behind it, and examines the question of whether externalism about content is compatible with a privileged knowledge of meanings and mental contents.
Farkas, Katalin (2008). The Subject's Point of View. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Descartes's philosophy has had a considerable influence on the modern conception of the mind, but many think that this influence has been largely negative. The main project of The Subject's Point of View is to argue that discarding certain elements of the Cartesian conception would be much more difficult than critics seem to allow, since it is tied to our understanding of basic notions, including the criteria for what makes someone a person, or one of us. The crucial feature of the Cartesian view defended here is not dualism--which is not adopted--but internalism. Internalism is opposed to the widely accepted externalist thesis, which states that some mental features constitutively depend on certain features of our physical and social environment. In contrast, this book defends the minority internalist view, which holds that the mind is autonomous, and though it is obviously affected by the environment, this influence is merely contingent and does not delimit what is thinkable in principle. Defenders of the externalist view often present their theory as the most thoroughgoing criticism of the Cartesian conception of the mind; Katalin Farkas offers a defence of an uncompromising internalist Cartesian conception
Farkas, Katalin (2003). What is externalism? Philosophical Studies 112 (3):187-208.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The content of the externalist thesis about the mind depends crucially on how we define the distinction between the internal and the external. According to the usual understanding, the boundary between the internal and the external is the skull or the skin of the subject. In this paper I argue that the usual understanding is inadequate, and that only the new understanding of the external/internal distinction I suggest helps us to understand the issue of the compatibility of externalism and privileged access
Fisher, Justin C. (2007). Why nothing mental is just in the head. Nous 41 (2):318-334.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Mental internalists hold that an individuals mental features at a given time supervene upon what is in that individuals head at that time. While many people reject mental internalism about content and justification, mental internalism is commonly accepted regarding such other mental features as rationality, emotion-types, propositional-attitude-types, moral character, and phenomenology. I construct a counter-example to mental internalism regarding all these features. My counter-example involves two creatures: a human and an alien from Pulse World. These creatures environments, behavioral dispositions and histories are such that it is intuitively clear that they are mentally quite different, even while they are, for a moment, exactly alike with respect to whats in their heads. I offer positive reasons for thinking that the case I describe is indeed possible. I then consider ways in which mental internalists might attempt to account for this case, but conclude that the only plausible option is to reject mental internalism and to adopt a particular externalist alternative a history-oriented version of teleo-functionalism
Floyd, Juliet (2005). Putnam's 'the meaning of meaning': Externalism in historical context. In Yemima Ben-Menahem (ed.), Hilary Putnam (Contemporary Philosophy in Focus). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (Google | More links)
Frances, Bryan (ms). A philosophically inexpensive introduction to twin-earth.   (Google)
Abstract: I say that it’s philosophically inexpensive because I think it is more convincing than any other Twin-Earth thought experiment in that it sidesteps many of the standard objections to the usual thought experiments. I also briefly discuss narrow contents and give an analysis of Putnam’s original argument
Frances, Bryan (online). Twin earth thought experiments.   (Google)
Abstract: Suppose that you had always had a physical twin, Chris, who on a different planet went through life having physical characteristics, sensory experiences, utterances, and brain processes exactly the same as yours in every physical and sensory respect. Chris
Gavran, Ana (2004). Tim Crane on the internalism-externalism debate. Croatian Journal of Philosophy 4 (11):207-218.   (Google)
Green, Mitchell S. (2000). The status of supposition. Noûs 34 (3):376–399.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: According to many forms of Externalism now popular in the Philosophy of Mind, the contents of our thoughts depend in part upon our physical or social milieu.1 These forms of Externalism leave unchallenged the thesis that the ~non-factive! attitudes we bear towards these contents are independent of physical or social milieu. This paper challenges that thesis. It is argued here that publicly forwarding a content as a supposition for the sake of argument is, under conditions not themselves guaranteeing the existence of that state, sufficient for occupancy of the intentional state of supposing that content. Because a saying may literally create an intentional state, whether one is in such a state does not depend solely upon how things are within one’s skin. Rather, even leaving content fixed, the attitude borne toward that content depends in part upon what norms are in force in one’s milieu
Horowitz, Amir (2001). Contents just are in the head. Erkenntnis 54 (3):321-344.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Horowitz, Amir (2005). Externalism, the environment, and thought-tokens. Erkenntnis 63 (1):133-138.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Horowitz, Amir (1995). Putnam, Searle, and externalism. Philosophical Studies 81 (1):27-69.   (Cited by 2 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Hyde, William H. (1981). On meaning the micro-state. Philosophical Investigations 4:25-34.   (Google)
Koethe, John L. (1992). And they ain't outside the head either. Synthese 90 (1):27-53.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Korman, Daniel Z. (2006). What externalists should say about dry earth. Journal of Philosophy 103 (10):503-520.   (Google)
Abstract: Dry earth seems to its inhabitants (our intrinsic duplicates) just as earth seems to us, that is, it seems to them as though there are rivers and lakes and a clear, odorless liquid flowing from their faucets. But, in fact, this is an illusion; there is no such liquid anywhere on the planet. I address two objections to externalism concerning the nature of the concept that is expressed by the word 'water' in the mouths of the inhabitants of dry earth. Gabriel Segal presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the application conditions of the concept, and Paul Boghossian presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the complexity of the concept. I show that, in both cases, the externalist may occupy the horn of his choice without departing from either the letter or spirit of externalism
Lau, Joe (online). Externalism about mental content. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Abstract: Externalism with regard to mental content says that in order to have certain types of intentional mental states (e.g. beliefs), it is necessary to be related to the environment in the right way
Liz, Manuel (2003). Intentional states: Individuation, explanation, and supervenience. In Maria J. Frapolli & E. Romero (eds.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind. Csli.   (Google)
Longworth, Guy (2003). Where should we look for the mind? Think 5.   (Google)
Ludwig, Kirk A. (1996). Duplicating thoughts. Mind and Language 11 (1):92-102.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Ludlow, Peter (2003). Externalism, logical form, and linguistic intentions. In Alex Barber (ed.), Epistemology of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Ludwig, Kirk A. (1993). Externalism, naturalism, and method. Philosophical Issues 4:250-264.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Mandelkar, S. (1991). An argument against the externalist account of psychological content. Philosophical Psychology 4:375-82.   (Annotation | Google)
McCulloch, Gregory (1992). The spirit of twin earth. Analysis 52 (3):168-174.   (Cited by 2 | Annotation | Google)
McGilvray, James A. (1998). Meanings are syntactically individuated and found in the head. Mind and Language 13 (2):225-280.   (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)
McGlone, Michael (forthcoming). Putnam on What Isn't in the Head. Philosophical Studies.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” Putnam argues, among other things, that “‘meanings’ just ain’t in the head”. Putnam’s central arguments in favor of this conclusion are unsound. The arguments in question are the famous intra‐world Twin Earth arguments, given on pages 223‐ 227 of the article in question.
McKinsey, Michael (1991). The internal basis of meaning. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 72 (June):143-69.   (Cited by 11 | Annotation | Google)
Mundale, Jennifer & Bechtel, William P. (online). Multiple realizability revisited.   (Google)
Abstract: The claim of the multiple realizability of mental states by brain states has been a major feature of the dominant philosophy of mind of the late 20th century. The claim is usually motivated by evidence that mental states are multiply realized, both within humans and between humans and other species. We challenge this contention by focusing on how neuroscientists differentiate brain areas. The fact that they rely centrally on psychological measures in mapping the brain and do so in a comparative fashion undercuts the likelihood that, at least within organic life forms, we are likely to find cases of multiply realized psychological functions
Owens, Joseph (2003). Anti-individualism, indexicality, and character. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Owens, Joseph (1983). Functionalism and the propositional attitudes. Noûs 17 (November):529-49.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Pelczar, Michael (forthcoming). Content internalism about indexical thought. American Philosophical Quarterly.   (Google)
Abstract: Properly understood, content internalism is the thesis that any difference between the representational contents of two individuals' mental states reduces to a difference in those individuals' intrinsic properties. Some of the strongest arguments against internalism turn on the possibility for two "doppelgangers" –- perfect physical and phenomenal duplicates -– to differ with respect to the contents of those of their mental states that they can express using terms such as "I," "here," and "now." In this paper, I grant the stated possibility, but deny that it poses any threat to internalism. Despite their similarities, doppelgangers differ in some of their intrinsic properties, and it is to such intrinsic differences that differences of indexical content reduce.
Putnam, Hilary (1975). The meaning of 'meaning'. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7:131-193.   (Cited by 1506 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Robinson, Howard M. (2003). Some externalist strategies and their problems. Croatian Journal of Philosophy 3 (7):21-34.   (Google)
Rosenberg, Alex (2001). On multiple realization: Comments and criticism and the special sciences. Journal of Philosophy XCVIII ( 7.   (Google)
Schroeter, Laura (2007). Illusion of transparency. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (4):597 – 618.   (Google)
Abstract: It's generally agreed that, for a certain a class of cases, a rational subject cannot be wrong in treating two elements of thought as co-referential. Even anti-individualists like Tyler Burge agree that empirical error is impossible in such cases. I argue that this immunity to empirical error is illusory and sketch a new anti-individualist approach to concepts that doesn't require such immunity
Schroeter, Laura (2008). Why be an anti-individualist? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (1):105-141.   (Google)
Abstract: Anti-individualists claim that concepts are individuated with an eye to purely external facts about a subject's environment about which she may be ignorant or mistaken. This paper offers a novel reason for thinking that anti-individualistic concepts are an ineliminable part of commonsense psychology. Our commitment to anti-individualism, I argue, is ultimately grounded in a rational epistemic agent's commitment to refining her own representational practices in the light of new and surprising information about her environment. Since anti-individualism is an implicit part of responsible epistemic practices, we cannot abandon it without compromising our own epistemic agency. The story I tell about the regulation of one's own representational practices yields a new account of the identity conditions for anti-individualistic concepts
Searle, John R. (1983). Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 1571 | Google | More links)
Abstract: John Searle's Speech Acts (1969) and Expression and Meaning (1979) developed a highly original and influential approach to the study of language. But behind both works lay the assumption that the philosophy of language is in the end a branch of the philosophy of the mind: speech acts are forms of human action and represent just one example of the mind's capacity to relate the human organism to the world. The present book is concerned with these biologically fundamental capacities, and, though third in the sequence, in effect it provides the philosophical foundations for the other two. Intentionality is taken to be the crucial mental phenomenon, and its analysis involves wide-ranging discussions of perception, action, causation, meaning, and reference. In all these areas John Searle has original and stimulating views. He ends with a resolution of the 'mind-body' problem
Shapiro, Lawrence A. (2005). Can psychology be a unified science? Philosophy of Science 72 (5):953-963.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Jaegwon Kim has argued that if psychological kinds are multiply realizable then no single psychological theory can describe regularities ranging over psychological states. Instead, psychology must be fractured, with human psychology covering states realized in the human way, martian psychology covering states realized in the martian way, and so on. I show that even if one accepts the principles that motivate Kim
Silvers, Stuart (2003). Individualism, internalism, and wide supervenience. In Maria J. Frapolli & E. Romero (eds.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind. Csli.   (Google)
Sosa, Ernest (1993). Abilities, concepts, and externalism. In John Heil & Alfred R. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google)
Sosa, Ernest (1991). Between internalism and externalism. Philosophical Issues 1:179-195.   (Google | More links)
Stalnaker, Robert (1993). Twin earth revisited. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 63:297-311.   (Cited by 8 | Annotation | Google)
Stoneham, Tom (2003). Temporal externalism. Philosophical Papers 32 (1):97-107.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
van Brakel, Jaap (2005). On the inventors of XYZ. Foundations of Chemistry 7 (1):57-84.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper I try to make as much sense aspossible of, first, the extensive philosophicalliterature concerned with the status of `Wateris H2O' and, second, the implications ofPutnam's invention of Twin Earth, anotherpossible world stipulated to be just like Earth, except that water is XYZ, notH2O
Wikforss, Asa Maria (2005). Naming natural kinds. Synthese 145 (1):65-87.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper discusses whether it can be known a priori that a particular term, such as water, is a natural kind term, and how this problem relates to Putnams claim that natural kind terms require an externalist semantics. Two conceptions of natural kind terms are contrasted: The first holds that whether water is a natural kind term depends on its a priori knowable semantic features. The second
Wilson, Robert A. (2002). Individualism. In Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Yalowitz, Steven (2002). Individualism, normativity, and the epistemology of understanding. Philosophical Studies 102 (1):43-92.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Zemach, Eddy M. (1976). Putnam's theory on the reference of substance terms. Journal of Philosophy 73 (March):116-27.   (Cited by 24 | Annotation | Google | More links)

2.2b Social Externalism

Antony, Michael V. (1993). Social relations and the individuation of thought. Mind 102 (406):247-61.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Bach, Kent (1988). Burge's new thought experiment: Back to the drawing room. Journal of Philosophy 85 (February):88-97.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (2007). Social externalism and first-person authority. Erkenntnis 67 (2).   (Google)
Abstract: Social Externalism is the thesis that many of our thoughts are individuated in part by the linguistic and social practices of the thinker’s community. After defending Social Externalism and arguing for its broad application, I turn to the kind of defeasible first-person authority that we have over our own thoughts. Then, I present and refute an argument that uses first-person authority to disprove Social Externalism. Finally, I argue briefly that Social Externalism—far from being incompatible with first-person authority—provides a check on first-personal pronouncements and thus saves first-person authority from being simply a matter of social convention and from collapsing into the subjectivity of “what seems right is right.”
Benejam, A. (2003). Thought experiments and semantic competence. In Maria J. Frapolli & E. Romero (eds.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind. Csli.   (Google)
Bridges, Jason (2006). Davidson's transcendental externalism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (2):290-315.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: One of the chief aims of Donald Davidson
Brown, Jessica (2000). Against temporal externalism. Analysis 60 (2):178-188.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Brueckner, Anthony L. (2001). Defending Burge's thought experiment. Erkenntnis 55 (3):387-391.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Burge, Tyler (2003). Davidson and forms of anti-individualism: Reply to Hahn. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Burge, Tyler (2003). Descartes, bare concepts, and anti-individualism: Reply to Normore. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Burge, Tyler (1979). Individualism and the mental. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4:73-122.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google)
Burge, Tyler (1986). Intellectual norms and foundations of mind. Journal of Philosophy 83 (December):697-720.   (Cited by 68 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Burge, Tyler (2003). Psychology and the environment: Reply to Chomsky. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Burge, Tyler (2003). Replies from Tyler Burge. In Maria J. Frapolli & E. Romero (eds.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind: Essays on Tyler Burge. University of Chicago Press.   (Google)
Burge, Taylor (2003). Thought experiments: Reply to Donnellan. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Burge, Tyler (2003). The indexical strategy: Reply to Owens. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Collins, John M. (2006). Temporal externalism, natural kind terms, and scientifically ignorant communities. Philosophical Papers 35 (1):55-68.   (Google | More links)
Loewer, Barry (2009). Why is there anything except physics? Synthese 170 (2).   (Google)
Abstract: In the course of defending his view of the relation between the special sciences and physics from Jaegwon Kim’s objections Jerry Fodor asks “So then, why is there anything except physics?” By which he seems to mean to ask if physics is fundamental and complete in its domain how can there be autonomous special science laws. Fodor wavers between epistemological and metaphysical understandings of the autonomy of the special sciences. In my paper I draw out the metaphysical construal of his view and argue that while in a sense it answers Fodor’s question it is immensely implausible
Davis, Andrew (2005). Social externalism and the ontology of competence. Philosophical Explorations 8 (3):297-308.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Social externalism implies that many competences are not personal assets separable from social and cultural environments but complex states of affairs involving individuals and persisting features of social reality. The paper explores the consequences for competence identity over time and across contexts, and hence for the predictive role usually accorded to competences
Elugardo, Reinaldo (1993). Burge on content. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (2):367-84.   (Cited by 11 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Forbes, Graeme R. (1987). A dichotomy sustained. Philosophical Studies 51 (March):187-211.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Frapolli, Maria J. & Romero, E. (eds.) (2003). Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind: Essays on Tyler Burge. University of Chicago Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Frances, Bryan (1999). On the explanatory deficiencies of linguistic content. Philosophical Studies 93 (1):45-75.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Abstract: The Burge-Putnam thought experiments have generated the thesis that beliefs are not fixed by the constitution of the body. However, many philosophers have thought that if this is true then there must be another content-like property. Even if the contents of our attitudes such as the one in ‘believes that aluminum is a light metal’, do not supervene on our physical makeups, nevertheless people who are physical duplicates must be the same when it comes to evaluating their rationality and explaining their actions. I argue that the considerations motivating this view are best handled with just the ordinary ‘that’-clause contents.
Millikan, Ruth G. (1999). Historical kinds and the "special sciences". Philosophical Studies 95 (1-2):45-65.   (Cited by 49 | Google | More links)
Gauker, Christopher (1991). Mental content and the division of epistemic labour. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (September):302-18.   (Google | More links)
Gauker, Christopher (2003). Social externalism and linguistic communication. In Maria J. Frapolli & E. Romero (eds.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind: Essays on Tyler Burge. CSLI.   (Google)
Abstract: According to the expressive theory of communication, the primary function of language is to enable speakers to convey the content of their thoughts to hearers. According to Tyler Burge's social externalism, the content of a person's thought is relative to the way words are used in his or her surrounding linguistic community. This paper argues that Burge's social externalism refutes the expressive theory of communication.
Georgalis, Nicholas (2003). Burge's thought experiment: Still in need of defense. Erkenntnis 58 (2):267-273.   (Google | More links)
Georgalis, N. (1999). Rethinking Burge's thought experiment. Synthese 118 (2):145-64.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Green, Mitchell S. (2000). The status of supposition. Noûs 34 (3):376–399.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: According to many forms of Externalism now popular in the Philosophy of Mind, the contents of our thoughts depend in part upon our physical or social milieu.1 These forms of Externalism leave unchallenged the thesis that the ~non-factive! attitudes we bear towards these contents are independent of physical or social milieu. This paper challenges that thesis. It is argued here that publicly forwarding a content as a supposition for the sake of argument is, under conditions not themselves guaranteeing the existence of that state, sufficient for occupancy of the intentional state of supposing that content. Because a saying may literally create an intentional state, whether one is in such a state does not depend solely upon how things are within one’s skin. Rather, even leaving content fixed, the attitude borne toward that content depends in part upon what norms are in force in one’s milieu
Grimaltos, Tobies (2003). Terms and content. In Maria J. Frapolli & E. Romero (eds.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind. Csli.   (Google)
Hahn, Martin & Ramberg, B. (eds.) (2003). Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Hahn, Martin (2003). When swampmen get arthritis: "Externalism" in Burge and Davidson. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Haugeland, John (2004). Social cartesianism. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Google)
Jackman, Henry (2000). Deference and self-knowledge. Southwest Philosophy Review 16 (1):171-180.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: It has become increasingly popular to suggest that non-individualistic theories of content undermine our purported a priori knowledge of such contents because they entail that we lack the ability to distinguish our thoughts from alternative thoughts with different contents. However, problems relating to such knowledge of 'comparative' content tell just as much against individualism as non-individualism. Indeed, the problems presented by individualistic theories of content for self-knowledge are at least, if not more, serious than those presented by non-individualistic theories. Consequently, considerations of self-knowledge give one no reason to embrace individualism. If anything, they give one reason to reject it
Jackman, Henry (1998). Individualism and interpretation. Southwest Philosophy Review 14 (1):31-38.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Abstract: 'Interpretational' accounts of meaning are frequently treated as incompatible with accounts stressing language's 'social' character. However, this paper argues that one can reconcile interpretational and social accounts by distinguishing "methodological" from "ascriptional" individualism. While methodological individualism requires only that the meaning of one's terms ultimately be grounded in facts about oneself, ascriptional individualism requires that the meaning of one's terms be independent of how others use theirs. Interpretational accounts are committed only to methodological individualism, while arguments for languages social character are best understood as attacks on ascriptional individualism. As a result, one can recognize language's social character and still be an interpretationalist
Jackman, Henry (1996). Semantic Norms and Temporal Externalism. Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Abstract: There has frequently been taken to be a tension, if not an incompatibility, between "externalist" theories of content (which allow the make-up of one's physical environment and the linguistic usage of one's community to contribute to the contents of one's thoughts and utterances) and the "methodologically individualist" intuition that whatever contributes to the content of one's thoughts and utterances must ultimately be grounded in facts about one's own attitudes and behavior. In this dissertation I argue that one can underwrite such externalist theories within a methodologically individualistic framework by understanding semantic norms in terms of the need to reach, for each of one's terms, a type of "equilibrium." Each speaker's commitment to making her _own_ beliefs and applications consistent allows one to incorporate these 'external' factors into the contents of their thoughts and utterances in a way that remains methodologically individualistic. Methodologically individualistic accounts are typically taken to be unable to incorporate 'external' factors such as the world's physical make-up or communal usage because of arguments suggesting that the individual's own beliefs and usage underdetermine or even misidentify what, according to externalist accounts, they mean by their terms. These arguments, however, only seem plausible if one presupposes a comparatively impoverished conception of the individual's beliefs. The beliefs a speaker associates with a given term extend far beyond the handful of sentences they would produce if asked to list such beliefs. In particular, speakers have an implicit, but rich, understanding of their language, their world, and the relation between them. Speakers typically understand languages as shared temporally extended practices about which they can be, both individually and collectively, mistaken. Once this conception of language is taken into account, the ascriptions which purportedly forced 'non-individualistic' conceptions of content upon us (particularly ascriptions which seemed to tie what we meant to social use rather than our own beliefs) turn out to be ultimately grounded in the individual's own beliefs. Indeed, our self-conception does much more than merely underwrite 'non-individualistic' ascriptions..
Jackman, Henry (2005). Temporal externalism and our ordinary linguistic practices. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (3):365-380.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Temporal externalists argue that ascriptions of thought and utterance content can legitimately re?ect contingent conceptual developments that are only settled after the time of utterance. While the view has been criticized for failing to accord with our
Jackman, Henry (2006). Temporal externalism, constitutive norms, and theories of vagueness. In Tomas Marvan (ed.), What Determines Content? The Internalism/Externalism Dispute. Cambridge Scholars Press.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Our concept of truth is governed by two principles. The
Jackman, Henry (2005). Temporal externalism, deference, and our ordinary linguistic practice. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (3):365-380.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Temporal externalists argue that ascriptions of thought and utterance content can legitimately reflect contingent conceptual developments that are only settled after the time of utterance. While the view has been criticized for failing to accord with our
Jackman, Henry (1999). We live forwards but understand backwards: Linguistic practices and future behavior. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 80 (2):157-177.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Ascriptions of content are sensitive not only to our physical and social environment, but also to unforeseeable developments in the subsequent usage of our terms. This paper argues that the problems that may seem to come from endorsing such 'temporally sensitive' ascriptions either already follow from accepting the socially and historically sensitive ascriptions Burge and Kripke appeal to, or disappear when the view is developed in detail. If one accepts that one's society's past and current usage contributes to what one's terms mean, there is little reason not to let its future usage to do so as well
Lewis, Harry A. (1985). Content and community. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 59:177-196.   (Google)
Liu, Jeeloo (2002). Physical externalism and social externalism: Are they really compatible? Journal of Philosophical Research 27:381-404.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: Putnam and Burge have been viewed as launching a joint attack on individualism, the view that the content of one's psychological state is determined by what is in the head . Putnam argues that meanings are not in the head while Burge argues that beliefs are not in the head either, and both have come up with convincing arguments against individualism. It is generally conceived that Putnam's view is a version of physical externalism, which argues that factors in the physical environment play a role in determining the meanings of natural kind terms. Burge, on the other hand, is regarded as following up Putnam's argument to bring in factors in the social environment for the determination of belief. Burge's view has been commonly referred to as 'social externalism.' The general consensus in the field is that physical externalism and social externalism are compatible views. Furthermore, both Putnam and Burge seem to endorse each other’s position for the most part. In this paper, however, I shall argue against this general view to show that the two theories are deep down incompatible
Ludlow, Peter (1995). Social externalism and memory: A problem? Acta Analytica 10 (14):69-76.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Ludlow, Peter (1995). Social externalism, self-knowledge, and memory. Analysis 55 (3):157-59.   (Cited by 18 | Google)
Ludwig, Kirk A. (ms). The myth of social content.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Abstract: Social externalism is the view that the contents of a person's propositional attitudes are logically determined at least in part by her linguistic community's standards for the use of her words. If social externalism is correct, its importance can hardly be overemphasized. The traditional Cartesian view of psychological states as essentially first personal and non-relational in character, which has shaped much theorizing about the nature of psychological explanation, would be shown to be deeply flawed
Onof, Christian & Marsh, Leslie (2008). Introduction to the special issue “perspectives on social cognition”. Cognitive Systems Research 9 (1-2).   (Google)
Abstract: No longer is sociality the preserve of the social sciences, or ‘‘culture’’ the preserve of the humanities or anthropology. By the same token, cognition is no longer the sole preserve of the cognitive sciences. Social cognition (SC) or, sociocognition if you like, is thus a kaleidoscope of research projects that has seen exponential growth over the past 30 or so years.
Marqueze, J. (2003). On orthodox and heterodox externalisms. In Maria J. Frapolli & E. Romero (eds.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind. Csli.   (Google)
McKinsey, Michael (1993). Curing folk psychology of arthritis. Philosophical Studies 70 (3):323-36.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Tyler Burge's (1979) famous thought experiment concerning 'arthritis' is commonly assumed to show that all ascriptions of content to beliefs and other attitudes are dependent for their truth upon facts about the agent's social and linguistic environment. It is also commonly claimed that Burge's argument shows that Putnam's (1975) result regarding natural kind terms applies to all general terms whatever, and hence shows that all such terms have wide meanings.1 But I wish to show here, first, that neither Burge's initial thought experiment nor a second type of example that Burge describes supports either of these conclusions. Second, I will identify the proper conclusion to draw from Burge's discussion and show that this conclusion does not really pose a serious problem for individualism about the mental. And finally, I will argue that Burge's discussion does not in fact provide a conclusive reason for believing its proper conclusion
Millikan, Ruth G. (2003). In defense of public language. In Louise M. Antony & H. Hornstein (eds.), Chomsky and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Normore, Calvin G. (2003). Burge, Descartes, and us. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Nordby, Halvor (2005). Davidson on social externalism. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (1):88-94.   (Google | More links)
Nordby, Halvor (2004). Incorrect understanding and concept possession. Philosophical Explorations 7 (1):55-70.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Tyler Burge has argued that an incorrect understanding of a word can be sufficient for possessing the concept the word literally expresses. His well-known 'arthritis' case involves a patient who understands 'arthritis' incorrectly, but who nevertheless, according to Burge, possesses the concept arthritis. Critics of Burge have objected that there is an alternative concept that best matches the patient's understanding and that this, therefore, is the patient's concept. The paper first argues that Burge's response to this objection is unconvincing. A better response is then developed. It is argued that there is no alternative concept that matches the incorrect understanding, since the patient thinks he has a partial understanding. This, together with points about ordinary psychological explanation and modes of presentations of concepts, establish that it is impossible to undermine Burge's social externalism by appealing to the idea that an alternative concept matches the incorrect understanding
Pagin, Peter (2006). Intersubjective externalism. In T. Marvan (ed.), What Determines Content? The Internalism/Externalism Dispute. Cambridge Scholar Press.   (Google)
Abstract: in T. Marvan (ed) What Determines Content? The Internalism/Externalism Dispute, Cambridge Scholar Press, Newcastle upon Tyne, 39-54, 2006
Pitt, David (ms). The Burgean intuitions.   (Google)
Putnam, Hilary (1987). Meaning, other people, and the world. In Representation and Reality. MIT Press.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Sawyer, Sarah (2003). Conceptual errors and social externalism. Philosophical Quarterly 53 (211):265-273.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Verheggen, Claudine (2006). How social must language be? Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 36 (2):203-219.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Wikforss, Asa Maria (2004). Externalism and incomplete understanding. Philosophical Quarterly 54 (215):287-294.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Wikforss, Asa Maria (2001). Social externalism and conceptual errors. Philosophical Quarterly 51 (203):217-31.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Ever since Putnam and Burge launched their respective attacks on individualist accounts of meaning the individualist has felt squeezed for space.1 Very little maneuvering room, it seems, is left for the philosopher who wants to deny that meaning and mental content depend on the speaker's social environment. One option, popular amongst individualists, is to grant that reference is socially determined but argue that there is nevertheless a notion of meaning or content that can be understood individualistically. That is, the individualist can opt for a
Woodfield, Andrew (1998). Social externalism and conceptual diversity. In John M. Preston (ed.), Thought and Language. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Woodfield, Andrew (1982). Thought and the social community. Inquiry 25 (December):435-50.   (Cited by 6 | Annotation | Google)
Yalowitz, Steven (1999). Davidson's social externalism. Philosophia 27 (1-2):99-136.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)

2.2c Externalism and Psychological Explanation

Arjo, D. (1996). Sticking up for oedipus: Fodor on intentional generalizations and broad content. Mind and Language 11 (3):231-45.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Bach, Kent (1982). "De re" belief and methodological solipsism. In Andrew Woodfield (ed.), Thought And Object: Essays On Intentionality. Clarendon Press.   (Cited by 21 | Google)
Buller, David J. (1997). Individualism and evolutionary psychology (or: In defense of "narrow" functions). Philosophy of Science 64 (1):74-95.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Millikan and Wilson argue, for different reasons, that the essential reference to the environment in adaptationist explanations of behavior makes (psychological) individualism inconsistent with evolutionary psychology. I show that their arguments are based on misinterpretations of the role of reference to the environment in such explanations. By exploring these misinterpretations, I develop an account of explanation in evolutionary psychology that is fully consistent with individualism. This does not, however, constitute a full-fledged defense of individualism, since evolutionary psychology is only one explanatory paradigm among many in psychology
Buller, David J. (1992). "Narrow"-mindedness breeds inaction. Behavior and Philosophy 20 (1):59-70.   (Google)
Burge, Tyler (1986). Individualism and psychology. Philosophical Review 95 (January):3-45.   (Cited by 186 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Burge, Tyler (1982). Two thought experiments reviewed. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 23 (July):284-94.   (Cited by 16 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Corazza, Eros (1994). Perspectival thoughts and psychological generalizations. Dialectica 48 (3-4):307-36.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Crawford, Sean (1998). In defence of object-dependent thoughts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 98 (2):201-210.   (Google | More links)
Crawford, Sean (2003). Relational properties, causal powers and psychological laws. Acta Analytica 18 (30-31):193-216.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper argues that Twin Earth twins belong to the same psychological natural kind, but that the reason for this is not that the causal powers of mental states supervene on local neural structure. Fodor’s argument for this latter thesis is criticized and found to rest on a confusion between it and the claim that Putnamian and Burgean type relational psychological properties do not affect the causal powers of the mental states that have them. While it is true that Putnamian and Burgean type relational psychological properties do not affect causal powers, it is false that no relational psychological properties do. Examples of relational psychological properties that do affect causal powers are given and psychological laws are sketched that subsume twins in virtue of them instantiating these relational properties rather than them sharing the narrow contents of their thoughts
Davies, Martin (1986). Individualism and supervenience: Externality, psychological explanation, and narrow content. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 263:263-283.   (Google)
Dretske, Fred (2001). Where is the mind? In Anthonie W. M. Meijers (ed.), Explaining Beliefs. Csli.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Dretske, Fred (1992). What isn't wrong with folk psychology. Metaphilosophy 23 (1-2):1-13.   (Cited by 8 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Egan, Frances (1991). Must psychology be individualistic? Philosophical Review 100 (April):179-203.   (Cited by 18 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1982). Cognitive science and the twin-earth problem. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 23 (April):98-118.   (Cited by 23 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1980). Methodological solipsism as a research strategy in cognitive psychology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3:63-109.   (Cited by 225 | Annotation | Google)
Frances, Bryan (1999). On the explanatory deficiencies of linguistic content. Philosophical Studies 93 (1):45-75.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Abstract: The Burge-Putnam thought experiments have generated the thesis that beliefs are not fixed by the constitution of the body. However, many philosophers have thought that if this is true then there must be another content-like property. Even if the contents of our attitudes such as the one in ‘believes that aluminum is a light metal’, do not supervene on our physical makeups, nevertheless people who are physical duplicates must be the same when it comes to evaluating their rationality and explaining their actions. I argue that the considerations motivating this view are best handled with just the ordinary ‘that’-clause contents.
Gauker, Christopher (1987). Mind and chance. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17 (September):533-52.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Globus, Gordon G. (1984). Can methodological solipsism be confined to psychology? Cognition and Brain Theory 7:233-46.   (Annotation | Google)
Hardcastle, Valerie Gray (1997). [Explanation] is explanation better. Philosophy of Science 64 (1):154-60.   (Google | More links)
Jacob, Pierre (online). Belief attribution and rationality: A dilemma for Jerry Fodor.   (Google | More links)
Jacob, Pierre (2002). Can mental content explain behavior? In Languages of the Brain.   (Google | More links)
Jacob, Pierre (1993). Externalism and the explanatory relevance of broad content. Mind and Language 8 (1):131-156.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Kitcher, P. S. (1985). Narrow taxonomy and wide functionalism. Philosophy of Science 52 (March):78-97.   (Cited by 13 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Kobes, Bernard W. (1989). Semantics and psychological prototypes. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 70 (March):1-18.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google)
Losonsky, Michael (1995). Emdedded systems vs. individualism. Minds and Machines 5 (3):357-71.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract:   The dispute between individualism and anti-individualism is about the individuation of psychological states, and individualism, on some accounts, is committed to the claim that psychological subjects together with their environments do not constitute integrated computational systems. Hence on this view the computational states that explain psychological states in computational accounts of mind will not involve the subject''s natural and social environment. Moreover, the explanation of a system''s interaction with the environment is, on this view, not the primary goal of computational theorizing. Recent work in computational developmental psychology (by A. Karmiloff-Smith and J. Rutkowska) as well as artificial agents or embedded artificial systems (by L.P. Kaelbling, among others) casts doubt on these claims. In these computational models, the environment does not just trigger and sustain input for computational operations, but some computational operations actually involve environmental structures
Macdonald, Cynthia (1995). Anti-individualism and psychological explanation. In C. Macdonald (ed.), Philosophy of Psychology: Debates on Psychological Explanation. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Google)
Macdonald, Cynthia (1992). Weak externalism and psychological reduction. In David Charles & Kathleen Lennon (eds.), Reduction, Explanation and Realism. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Maloney, J. Christopher (1985). Methodological solipsism reconsidered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology. Philosophy of Science 52 (September):451-69.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Marras, Ausonio (1985). The churchlands on methodological solipsism and computational psychology. Philosophy of Science 52 (June):295-309.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google | More links)
McClamrock, Ron (1995). Existential Cognition: Computational Minds in the World. University of Chicago Press.   (Cited by 88 | Google | More links)
Abstract: While the notion of the mind as information-processor--a kind of computational system--is widely accepted, many scientists and philosophers have assumed that this account of cognition shows that the mind's operations are characterizable independent of their relationship to the external world. Existential Cognition challenges the internalist view of mind, arguing that intelligence, thought, and action cannot be understood in isolation, but only in interaction with the outside world. Arguing that the mind is essentially embedded in the external world, Ron McClamrock provides a schema that allows cognitive scientists to address such long-standing problems in artificial intelligence as the "frame" problem and the issue of "bounded" rationality. Extending this schema to cover progress in other studies of behavior, including language, vision, and action, McClamrock reinterprets the importance of the organism/environment distinction. McClamrock also considers the broader philosophical question of the place of mind in the world, particularly with regard to questions of intentionality, subjectivity, and phenomenology. With implications for philosophy, cognitive and computer science, AI, and psychology, this book synthesizes state-of-the-art work in philosophy and cognitive science on how the mind interacts with the world to produce thoughts, ideas, and actions
McClamrock, Ron (1991). Methodological individualism considered as a constitutive principle of scientific inquiry. Philosophical Psychology 4:343-54.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
Abstract: The issue of methodological solipsism in the philosophy of mind and psychology has received enormous attention and discussion in the decade since the appearance Jerry Fodor's "Methodological Solipsism" [Fodor 1980]. But most of this discussion has focused on the consideration of the now infamous "Twin Earth" type examples and the problems they present for Fodor's notion of "narrow content". I think there is deeper and more general moral to be found in this issue, particularly in light of Fodor's more recent defense of his view in Psychosemantics [Fodor 1987]. Underlying this discussion are questions about the nature and plausibility of the claim that scientific explanation should observe a constraint of methodological individualism . My goal in what follows is to bring out this more general problem in Fodor's "internalist" account of the mental
Molyneux, Bernard (2007). Primeness, internalism and explanatory generality. Philosophical Studies 135 (2).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Williamson (2000) [Knowledge and its Limits, Oxford: Oxford University Press] argues that attempts to substitute narrow mental states or narrow/environmental composites for broad and factive mental states will result in poorer explanations of behavior. I resist Williamson
Neander, Karen (ms). The narrow and the normative.   (Google)
Noonan, Harold W. (1984). Methodological solipsism: A reply to Morris. Philosophical Studies 48 (September):285-290.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Noonan, Harold W. (1990). Object-dependent thoughts and psychological redundancy. Analysis 50 (January):1-9.   (Cited by 8 | Google)
Noonan, Harold W. (1993). Object-dependent thoughts: A case of superficial necessity but deep contingency? In John Heil & Alfred R. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 9 | Annotation | Google)
Noonan, Harold W. (1986). Russellian thoughts and methodological solipsism. In Jeremy Butterfield (ed.), Language, Mind, and Logic. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 9 | Google)
Owens, Joseph (1994). Psychological externalism and psychological explanation. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (4):921-928.   (Google | More links)
Paprzycka, Katarzyna (2002). False consciousness of intentional psychology. Philosophical Psychology 15 (3):271-295.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Abstract: According to explanatory individualism, every action must be explained in terms of an agent's desire. According to explanatory nonindividualism, we sometimes act on our desires, but it is also possible for us to act on others' desires without acting on desires of our own. While explanatory nonindividualism has guided the thinking of many social scientists, it is considered to be incoherent by most philosophers of mind who insist that actions must be explained ultimately in terms of some desire of the agent. In the first part of the paper, I show that some powerful arguments designed to demonstrate the incoherence of explanatory nonindividualism fail. In the second part of the paper, I offer a nonindividualist explanation of the apparent obviousness of belief-desire psychology. I argue that there are two levels of the intelligibility of our actions. On the more fundamental (explanatory) level, the question "Why did the agent do something?" admits a variety of folk-psychological categories. But there is another (formation-of-self) level, at which the same question admits only of answers that ultimately appeal only to the agent's own desires. Explanatory individualism results from the confusion of the two levels
Patterson, Sarah (1991). Individualism and semantic development. Philosophy of Science 58 (March):15-35.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Patterson, Sarah (1990). The explanatory role of belief ascriptions. Philosophical Studies 59 (3):313-32.   (Cited by 11 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Peacocke, Christopher (1993). Externalist explanation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 67:203-30.   (Cited by 17 | Annotation | Google)
Perry, John (1998). Broadening the mind. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (1):223-231.   (Google | More links)
Pettit, Philip (1986). Broad-minded explanation and psychology. In Philip Pettit & John McDowell (eds.), Subject, Thought and Context. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 11 | Google)
Petrie, Bradford (1990). Nonautonomous psychology. Southern Journal of Philosophy 28:539-59.   (Annotation | Google)
Rives, Bradley (2009). Concept cartesianism, concept pragmatism, and Frege cases. Philosophical Studies 144 (2).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper concerns the dialectal role of Frege Cases in the debate between Concept Cartesians and Concept Pragmatists. I take as a starting point Christopher Peacocke’s argument that, unlike Cartesianism, his ‘Fregean’ Pragmatism can account for facts about the rationality and epistemic status of certain judgments. I argue that since this argument presupposes that the rationality of thoughts turn on their content, it is thus question-begging against Cartesians, who claim that issues about rationality turn on the form, not the content, of thoughts. I then consider Jerry Fodor’s argument that ‘modes of presentation’ are not identical with Fregean senses, and argue that explanatory considerations should leads us to reject his ‘syntactic’ treatment of Frege cases. Rejecting the Cartesian treatment of Frege cases, however, is not tantamount to accepting Peacocke’s claim that reasons and rationality are central to the individuation of concepts. For I argue that we can steer a middle course between Fodor’s Cartesianism and Peacocke’s Pragmatism, and adopt a form of Pragmatism that is constrained by Fregean considerations, but at the same time denies that concepts are constitutively tied to reasons and rationality
Rowlands, Mark (1995). Against methodological solipsism: The ecological approach. Philosophical Psychology 8 (1):5-24.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Abstract: This paper argues that an ecological approach to psychology of the sort advanced by J. J. Gibson provides a coherent and powerful alternative to the computational, information-processing, paradigm. The paper argues for two principles. Firstly, one cannot begin to understand what internal information processing an organism must accomplish until one understands what information is available to the organism in its environment. Secondly, an organism can process information by acting on or manipulating physical structures in its environment. An attempt is made to show how these principles can be extended to cognition as a whole. It is suggested that these principles may have a foundation in evolutionary biology
Rowlands, Mark (1991). Towards a reasonable version of methodological solipsism. Mind and Language 6:39-57.   (Google | More links)
Russow, Lilly-Marlene (1987). Stich on the foundations of cognitive psychology. Synthese 70 (March):401-413.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Sawyer, Sarah (2006). The role of object-dependent content in psychological explanation. Teorema 25 (1):181-192.   (Google)
Segal, Gabriel (1989). The return of the individual. Mind 98 (January):39-57.   (Cited by 22 | Google | More links)
Sterelny, Kim (1990). Animals and individualism. In Philip P. Hanson (ed.), Information, Language and Cognition. University of British Columbia Press.   (Google)
Stecker, Robert A.; Adams, Max F. & Fuller, Gary (1999). Object dependent thoughts, perspectival thoughts, and psychological generalization. Dialectica 53 (1):47-59.   (Google)
Stich, Stephen P. (1978). Autonomous psychology and the belief/desire thesis. The Monist 61 (October):573-91.   (Cited by 41 | Annotation | Google)
Tuomela, Raimo (1989). Methodological solipsism and explanation in psychology. Philosophy of Science 56 (March):23-47.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Wakefield, Jerome C. (2002). Broad versus narrow content in the explanation of action: Fodor on Frege cases. Philosophical Psychology 15 (2):119-33.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: A major obstacle to formulating a broad-content intentional psychology is the occurrence of ''Frege cases'' - cases in which a person apparently believes or desires Fa but not Fb and acts accordingly, even though "a" and "b" have the same broad content. Frege cases seem to demand narrow-content distinctions to explain actions by the contents of beliefs and desires. Jerry Fodor ( The elm and the expert: Mentalese and its semantics , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994) argues that an explanatorily adequate broad-content psychology is nonetheless possible because Frege cases rarely occur in intentional-explanatory contexts, and they are not systematically linked to intentional laws in a way that demands intentional explanation. Thus, he claims, behaviors associated with Frege cases can be considered ceteris-paribus exceptions to broad-content intentional laws without significantly decreasing the explanatory power of intentional psychology. I argue that Frege cases are plentiful and systematically linked to intentional laws in a way that requires intentional explanation, specifically in the explanation of why certain actions are not performed. Consequently, Frege-case behaviors cannot be construed as ceteris-paribus exceptions to intentional laws without significantly eroding the explanatory power of intentional psychology and reducing the rationality of the agent. Fodor thus fails to save broad-content psychology from the prima facie objections against it based on Frege cases
Wallace, J. & Mason, H. E. (1990). On some thought experiments about mind and meaning. In C. Anthony Anderson & Joseph Owens (eds.), Propositional Attitudes. Csli.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Wilson, Robert A. (1994). Causal depth, theoretical appropriateness, and individualism in psychology. Philosophy of Science 61 (1):55-75.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)
Wilson, Robert A. (1995). Cartesian Psychology and Physical Minds: Individualism and the Sciences of the Mind. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 58 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This book offers the first sustained critique of individualism in psychology, a view that has been the subject of debate between philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Tyler Burge for many years. The author approaches individualism as an issue in the philosophy of science and by discussing issues such as computationalism and the mind's modularity he opens the subject up for non-philosophers in psychology and computer science. Professor Wilson carefully examines the most influential arguments for individualism and identifies the main metaphysical assumptions underlying them. Since the topic is so central to the philosophy of mind, a discipline generating enormous research and debate at present, the book has implications for a very broad range of philosophical issues including the naturalisation of intentionality, psychophysical supervenience, the nature of mental causation, and the viability of folk psychology
Wilson, Robert A. (2004). Recent work on individualism in the social, behavioural, and biological sciences. Biology and Philosophy 19 (3):397-423.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The social, behavioral, and a good chunk of the biological sciences concern the nature of individual agency, where our paradigm for an individual is a human being. Theories of economic behavior, of mental function and dysfunction, and of ontogenetic development, for example, are theories of how such individuals act, and of what internal and external factors are determinative of that action. Such theories construe individuals in distinctive ways
Wilson, Robert A. (2000). Some problems for alternative individualism. Philosophy of Science 67 (4):671-679.   (Google | More links)

2.2d Externalism and Mental Causation

Adams, Frederick R. (1993). Fodor's modal argument. Philosophical Psychology 6 (1):41-56.   (Google)
Abstract: What we do, intentionally, depends upon the intentional contents of our thoughts. For about ten years Fodor has argued that intentional behavior causally depends upon the narrow intentional content of thoughts (not broad). His main reason is a causal powers argument—brains of individuals A and B may differ in broad content, but, if A and B are neurophysically identical, their thoughts cannot differ in causal power, despite differences in broad content. Recently Fodor (Fodor, 1991) presents a new 'modal' version of this causal powers argument. I argue that Fodor's argument (in old or new dress) is a non sequitur. It neither establishes the existence of narrow content nor the need for a content other than broad content to explain intentional behavior
Barrett, J. (1997). Individualism and the cross-contexts test. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 78 (3):242-60.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Jerry Fodor has defended the claim that psychological theories should appeal to narrow rather than wide intentional properties. One of his arguments relies upon the cross contexts test, a test that purports to determine whether two events have the same causally relevant properties. Critics have charged that this test is too weak, since it counts certain genuinely explanatory relational properties in science as being causally irrelevant. Further, it has been claimed, the test is insensitive to the fact that special scientific laws allow for exceptions which do not undermine those laws. This paper refines the cross contexts test to meet these objections while still allowing it to play its role in Fodor
Braun, David M. (1991). Content, causation, and cognitive science. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (December):375-89.   (Cited by 6 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Burge, Tyler (1989). Individuation and causation in psychology. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 707 (4):303-22.   (Cited by 24 | Annotation | Google)
Burge, Tyler (1995). Intentional properties and causation. In C. Macdonald & Graham F. Macdonald (eds.), Philosophy of Psychology: Debates About Psychological Explanation. Blackwell.   (Cited by 6 | Annotation | Google)
Burge, Tyler (1993). Mind-body causation and explanatory practice. In John Heil & Alfred R. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 76 | Annotation | Google)
Burge, Tyler (1995). Reply: Intentional properties and causation. In C. Macdonald (ed.), Philosophy of Psychology: Debates on Psychological Explanation. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Butler, Keith (1996). Content, causal powers, and context. Philosophy of Science 63 (1):105-14.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Christensen, D. (1992). Causal powers and conceptual connections. Analysis 52 (3):163-8.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google)
Dardis, Anthony B. (2002). Individualism and the new logical connections argument. Croatian Journal of Philosophy 2 (4):83-102.   (Google)
de Muijnck, Wim (2002). Causation by relational properties. Grazer Philosophische Studien 65 (1):123-137.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In discussions on mental causation and externalism, it is often assumed that extrinsic, or relational, properties cannot have causal efficacy. In this paper I argue that this assumption is based on a category mistake, in that causal efficacy (dependence among events or states of affairs) is confused with causal influence (persistence of and interaction among objects). I then argue that relational properties are indeed causally efficacious, which I explain with the help of Dretske's notion of a 'structuring cause'
Figdor, Carrie (2009). Semantic externalism and the mechanics of thought. Minds and Machines 19 (1):1-24.   (Google)
Abstract: I review a widely accepted argument to the conclusion that the contents of our beliefs, desires and other mental states cannot be causally efficacious in a classical computational model of the mind. I reply that this argument rests essentially on an assumption about the nature of neural structure that we have no good scientific reason to accept. I conclude that computationalism is compatible with wide semantic causal efficacy, and suggest how the computational model might be modified to accommodate this possibility
Fodor, Jerry A. (1991). A modal argument for narrow content. Journal of Philosophy 88 (1):5-26.   (Cited by 43 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Garcia-Carpintero, Manuel (1994). The supervenience of mental content. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 68:117-135.   (Cited by 5 | Annotation | Google)
Guichard, Lex (1995). The causal efficacy of propositional attitudes. In Cognitive Patterns in Science and Common Sense. Amsterdam: Rodopi.   (Google)
Heil, John & Mele, Alfred R. (1991). Mental causes. American Philosophical Quarterly 28 (January):61-71.   (Cited by 8 | Annotation | Google)
Jacob, Pierre (1992). Externalism and mental causation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 66:203-19.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google)
Jacob, Pierre (1993). Externalism and the explanatory relevance of broad content. Mind and Language 8 (1):131-156.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Klein, M. (1996). Externalism, content, and causation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96:159-76.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Lalor, Brendan J. (1997). It is what you think: Intentional potency and anti-individualism. Philosophical Psychology 10 (2):165-78.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: In this paper I argue against the worried view that intentional properties might be epiphenomenal. In naturalizing intentionality we ought to reject both the idea that causal powers of intentional states must supervene on local microstructures, and the idea that local supervenience justifies worries about intentional epiphenomenality since our states could counterfactually lack their intentional properties and yet have the same effects. I contend that what's wrong with even the good guys (e.g. Dennett, Dretske, Allen) is that they implicitly grant that causal powers supervene locally. Finally, I argue that once we see the truth of an anti-individualism which sees cognition as a fundamentally embedded activity, it becomes clear both that granting local supervenience is granting too much, and that intentional properties do work that mere neurological properties could never do. I also suggest how a transcendental argument for intentional potency might go
Lin, Martin (online). Against wide causation.   (Google)
Abstract: It is commonly held that the content of an agents propositional attitudes play a causal role in generating her actions. It is also commonly held that the content of a mental state is at least partially determined by the relations that an agents internal states bear to her history and environment. But can these two claims peacefully coexist? It seems that they cannot, for relations to history and environment cannot be causally relevant. It makes no di?erence whether the coin dropped into the vending machine was pressed at the mint or in the counterfeiters workshop; its intrinsic features alone determine its e?ect on the vending machine. Causal powers are narrow, whereas content appears to be wide
Ludwig, Kirk A. (1993). Causal relevance and thought content. Philosophical Quarterly 43 (176):334-53.   (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)
McGinn, Colin (1991). Conceptual causation. Mind 100:525-46.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Montgomery, Richard (1995). Non-cartesian explanations meet the problem of mental causation. Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (2):221-41.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Newman, Anthony (2006). The burning barn fallacy in defenses of externalism about mental content. Journal of Philosophical Research 31:37-57.   (Google)
Noordhof, Paul (1999). Causation by content? Mind and Language 14 (3):291-320.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Owens, Joseph (1993). Content, causation, and psychophysical supervenience. Philosophy of Science 60 (2):242-61.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Peacocke, Christopher (1993). Externalist explanation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 67:203-30.   (Cited by 17 | Annotation | Google)
Robb, David & Heil, John (online). Mental Causation. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   (Google)
Abstract: Worries about mental causation are prominent in contemporary discussions of the mind and human agency. Originally, the problem of mental causation was that of understanding how a mental substance (thought to be immaterial) could interact with a material substance, a body. Most philosophers nowadays repudiate immaterial minds, but the problem of mental causation has not gone away. Instead, focus has shifted to mental properties. How could mental properties be causally relevant to bodily behavior? How could something mental qua mental cause what it does? After looking at the traditional Problem of Interaction, we survey various versions of the property-based problem and look at proposed solutions to them.
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1994). Content and context. Philosophical Perspectives 8:17-32.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Russow, L. M. (1993). Fodor, Adams, and causal properties. Philosophical Psychology 6 (1):57-61.   (Google)
Saidel, Eric (1994). Content and causal powers. Philosophy of Science 61 (4):658-65.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Segal, Gabriel & Sober, Elliott (1991). The causal efficacy of content. Philosophical Studies 63 (July):1-30.   (Cited by 32 | Google | More links)
Seymour, Daniel (1993). Some of the difference in the world: Crane on intentional causation. Philosophical Quarterly 44 (170):83-89.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Shea, Nicholas (2003). Does externalism entail the anomalism of the mental? Philosophical Quarterly 53 (211):201-213.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In ‘Mental Events’ Donald Davidson argued for the anomalism of the mental on the basis of the operation of incompatible constitutive principles in the mental and physical domains. Many years later, he has suggested that externalism provides further support for the anomalism of the mental. I examine the basis for that claim. The answer to the question in the title will be a qualified ‘Yes’. That is an important result in the metaphysics of mind and an interesting consequence of externalism
Sturgeon, Scott (1994). Good reasoning and cognitive architecture. Mind and Language 9 (1):88-101.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google | More links)
van Gulick, Robert (1989). Metaphysical arguments for internalism and why they don't work. In Stuart Silvers (ed.), ReRepresentation. Kluwer.   (Cited by 8 | Annotation | Google)
Vasilyev, Vadim V. (2006). Brain and consciousness: Exits from the labyrinth. Social Sciences 37 (2):51-66.   (Google)
Walsh, Denis M. (1999). Alternative individualism. Philosophy of Science 66 (4):628-648.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Warren, Dona (1999). Externalism and causality: Simulation and the prospects for a reconciliation. Mind and Language 14 (1):154-176.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Wilson, Robert A. (1993). Against A Priori arguments for individualism. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 74 (1):60-79.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google)
Wilson, Robert A. (1992). Individualism, causal powers, and explanation. Philosophical Studies 68 (2):103-39.   (Cited by 7 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Yablo, Stephen (1997). Wide causation. Philosophical Perspectives 11 (11):251-281.   (Cited by 25 | Google | More links)

2.2e Externalism and the Theory of Vision

Burge, Tyler (1986). Individualism and psychology. Philosophical Review 95 (January):3-45.   (Cited by 186 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Butler, Keith (1996). Content, computation, and individualism in vision theory. Analysis 56 (3):146-54.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Butler, Keith (1996). Individualism and Marr's computational theory of vision. Mind and Language 11 (4):313-37.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Cain, M. J. (2000). Individualism, twin scenarios and visual content. Philosophical Psychology 13 (4):441-463.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper I address an important question concerning the nature of visual content: are the contents of human visual states and experiences exhaustively fixed or determined (in the non-causal sense) by our intrinsic physical properties? The individualist answers this question affirmatively. I will argue that such an answer is mistaken. A common anti-individualist or externalist tactic is to attempt to construct a twin scenario involving humanoid duplicates who are embedded in environments that diverge in such a way that it appears to be necessary to attribute divergent contents to their respective visual states. In the first half of the paper I discuss some of the twin scenarios that are prominent in the literature and argue that they fail to undermine individualism. Indeed I argue that due to important facts about our internal workings, a convincing externalist twin scenario involving humanoid protagonists cannot be constructed. However, I argue that such a result does not conclusively establish an individualist thesis and that in order to settle the question at issue it is necessary to construct an independently motivated theory of visual content. I attempt to do this in the second half of the paper by developing a theory at the core of which is the idea that the contents of our visual states and experiences are determined by the causal powers vis-
Davies, Martin (1991). Individualism and perceptual content. Mind 100 (399):461-84.   (Cited by 27 | Google | More links)
Egan, Frances (1996). Intentionality and the theory of vision. In Kathleen Akins (ed.), Perception. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Egan, Frances (1992). Individualism, computation, and perceptual content. Mind 101 (403):443-59.   (Cited by 25 | Google | More links)
Francescotti, Robert M. (1991). Externalism and Marr's theory of vision. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (June):227-38.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Kitcher, P. S. (1988). Marr's computational theory of vision. Philosophy of Science 55 (March):1-24.   (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)
Kroustallis, Basileios (2006). Content individuation in Marr's theory of vision. Journal of Mind and Behavior 27 (1):57-71.   (Google)
Morton, P. (1993). Supervenience and computational explanation in vision theory. Philosophy of Science 60 (1):86-99.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Patterson, Sarah (1996). Success-orientation and individualism in the theory of vision. In Kathleen Akins (ed.), Perception. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Segal, Gabriel (1991). Defence of a reasonable individualism. Mind 100 (399):485-94.   (Cited by 20 | Google | More links)
Segal, Gabriel (1989). Seeing what is not there. Philosophical Review 97 (April):189-214.   (Cited by 31 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Shapiro, Lawrence A. (1997). A clearer vision. Philosophy of Science 64 (1):131-53.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Shapiro, Lawrence A. (1993). Content, kinds, and individualism in Marr's theory of vision. Philosophical Review 102 (4):489-513.   (Cited by 9 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Shapiro, Lawrence A. (1997). Junk representations. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (3):345-361.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Many philosophers and psychologists who approach the issue of representation from a computational or measurement theoretical perspective end up having to deny the possibility of junk representations?representations present in an organism's head but that enter into no psychological processes or produce no behaviour. However, I argue, a more functional perspective makes the possibility of junk representations intuitively quite plausible?so much so that we may wish to question those views of representation that preclude the possibility of junk representations. I explore some of the reasons we should care about the possibility of junk representations and conclude with some speculation about whether junk representations are in fact present in our heads
Silverberg, Arnold (2006). Chomsky and Egan on computational theories of vision. Minds and Machines 16 (4):495-524.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr
Wright, Wayne (online). Individualism, behavior, and Marr's theory of vision.   (Google)

2.2f Externalism and Computation

Andler, Daniel (1995). Can we knock off the shackles of syntax? Philosophical Issues 6:265-270.   (Google | More links)
Aydede, Murat (2000). Computation and intentional psychology. Dialogue 39 (2):365-379.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: The relation between computational and intentional psychology has always been a vexing issue. The worry is that if mental processes are computational, then these processes, which are defined over symbols, are sensitive solely to the non-semantic properties of symbols. If so, perhaps psychology could dispense with adverting in its laws to intentional/semantic properties of symbols. Stich, as is well-known, has made a great deal out of this tension and argued for a purely "syntactic" psychology by driving a wedge between a semantic individuation of symbol tokens and their narrow functional individuation. If the latter can be carried out, he claimed, we do not need semantic typing. I argue that since a narrow functional individuation cannot type-identify symbol tokens across organisms, a semantic account of typing must be the only option given that interpersonal physical individuation of tokens is not to be taken seriously
Bontly, Thomas D. (1998). Individualism and the nature of syntactic states. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (4):557-574.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Abstract: It is widely assumed that the explanatory states of scientific psychology are type-individuated by their semantic or intentional properties. First, I argue that this assumption is implausible for theories like David Marr's [1982] that seek to provide computational or syntactic explanations of psychological processes. Second, I examine the implications of this conclusion for the debate over psychological individualism. While most philosophers suppose that syntactic states supervene on the intrinsic physical states of information-processing systems, I contend they may not. Syntatic descriptions must be adequately constrained, and the most plausible such constraints appeal to a system's teleological function or design and hence to its history. As a result, physical twins may not realize the same syntactic states
Butler, Keith (1998). Content, computation, and individuation. Synthese 114 (2):277-92.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The role of content in computational accounts of cognition is a matter of some controversy. An early prominent view held that the explanatory relevance of content consists in its supervenience on the the formal properties of computational states (see, e.g., Fodor 1980). For reasons that derive from the familiar Twin Earth thought experiments, it is usually thought that if content is to supervene on formal properties, it must be narrow; that is, it must not be the sort of content that determines reference and truth-conditions. An interesting alternative to this view has recently been proposed by Egan (1995). According to Egan, the explanatory role of content is such that contents must in general be broad to be explanatorily relevant. But Egan’s view involves a non-realist interpretation of content assignments. I will argue here that this non-realism about contents is undermotivated. A realist variation on her view of the explanatory role of content, however, would survive this criticism. This realist variation, I suggest, shares with the views of other commentators on Marr’s theory (e.g., Burge 1986; Shapiro 1993; forthcoming) certain commitments concerning the supervenience base of visual contents and processes. I will argue, however, that these commitments beg important questions regarding the individuation of cognitive states and processes. I conclude, contrary to Burge and Shapiro, that Marr’s theory does not favor anti-individualism.
Egan, Frances (1995). Computation and content. Philosophical Review 104 (2):181-203.   (Cited by 20 | Google | More links)
Egan, Frances (1999). In defence of narrow mindedness. Mind and Language 14 (2):177-94.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Horowitz, Amir (2007). Computation, external factors, and cognitive explanations. Philosophical Psychology 20 (1):65-80.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Computational properties, it is standardly assumed, are to be sharply distinguished from semantic properties. Specifically, while it is standardly assumed that the semantic properties of a cognitive system are externally or non-individualistically individuated, computational properties are supposed to be individualistic and internal. Yet some philosophers (e.g., Tyler Burge) argue that content impacts computation, and further, that environmental factors impact computation. Oron Shagrir has recently argued for these theses in a novel way, and gave them novel interpretations. In this paper I present a conception of computation in cognitive science that takes Shagrir's conception as its starting point, but further develops it in various directions and strengthens it. I argue that the explanatory role of computational properties emerges from the idea that syntactical properties and the relevant external factors presented by cognitive systems compose wide computational properties. I also elaborate upon the notion of content that is in play, and argue that it is contents of the kind that are ascribed by transparent interpretations of content ascriptions that impact computation. This fact enables the thesis that external factors impact computation to rebuff the challenge which concerns the claim that psychology must be individualistic
Jacobson-Horowitz, Hilla (2004). Syntax, semantics, and intentional aspects. Philosophical Papers 33 (1):67-95.   (Google | More links)
Kazez, J. R. (1994). Computationalism and the causal role of content. Philosophical Studies 75 (3):231-60.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Kobes, Bernard W. (1990). Individualism and artificial intelligence. Philosophical Perspectives 4:429-56.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Miscevic, Nenad (1996). Computation, content, and cause. Philosophical Studies 82 (2):241-63.   (Google)
Miščević, Nenad (1996). Computation, content and cause. Philosophical Studies 82 (2):241-263.   (Google | More links)
Peacocke, Christopher (1999). Computation as involving content: A response to Egan. Mind and Language 14 (2):195-202.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Peacocke, Christopher (1995). Content, computation, and externalism. Philosophical Issues 6:227-264.   (Cited by 24 | Google | More links)
Schneider, Susan (2005). Direct reference, psychological explanation, and Frege cases. Mind and Language 20 (4):423-447.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In this essay I defend a theory of psychological explanation that is based on the joint commitment to direct reference and computationalism. I offer a new solution to the problem of Frege Cases. Frege Cases involve agents who are unaware that certain expressions corefer (e.g. that 'Cicero' and 'Tully' corefer), where such knowledge is relevant to the success of their behavior, leading to cases in which the agents fail to behave as the intentional laws predict. It is generally agreed that Frege Cases are a major problem, if not the major problem, that this sort of theory faces. In this essay, I hope to show that the theory can surmount the Frege Cases
Seager, William E. (1992). Thought and syntax. Philosophy of Science Association 1992:481-491.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Shagrir, Oron (2001). Content, computation and externalism. Mind 110 (438):369-400.   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The paper presents an extended argument for the claim that mental content impacts the computational individuation of a cognitive system (section 2). The argument starts with the observation that a cognitive system may simultaneously implement a variety of different syntactic structures, but that the computational identity of a cognitive system is given by only one of these implemented syntactic structures. It is then asked what are the features that determine which of implemented syntactic structures is the computational structure of the system, and it is contended that these features are certain aspects of mental content. The argument helps (section 3) to reassess the thesis known as computational externalism, namely, the thesis that computational theories of cognition make essential reference to features in the individual's environment. It is suggested that the familiar arguments for computational externalism?which rest on thought experiments and on exegesis of Marr's theories of vision?are unconvincing, but that they can be improved. A reconstruction of the visex/audex thought experiment is offered in section 3.1. An outline of a novel interpretation of Marr's theories of vision is presented in section 3.2. The corrected arguments support the claim that computational theories of cognition are intentional. Computational externalism is still pending, however, upon the thesis that psychological content is extrinsic

2.2g Externalism and Self-Knowledge

Baker, Lynne Rudder (2007). Social externalism and first-person authority. Erkenntnis 67 (2).   (Google)
Abstract: Social Externalism is the thesis that many of our thoughts are individuated in part by the linguistic and social practices of the thinker’s community. After defending Social Externalism and arguing for its broad application, I turn to the kind of defeasible first-person authority that we have over our own thoughts. Then, I present and refute an argument that uses first-person authority to disprove Social Externalism. Finally, I argue briefly that Social Externalism—far from being incompatible with first-person authority—provides a check on first-personal pronouncements and thus saves first-person authority from being simply a matter of social convention and from collapsing into the subjectivity of “what seems right is right.”
Bar-On, Dorit (2004). Externalism and self-knowledge: Content, use, and expression. Noûs 38 (3):430-55.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Suppose, as I stare at a glass in front of me, I say or think: There
Beebee, Helen (2002). Transfer of warrant, begging the question, and semantic externalism. Philosophical Quarterly 51 (204):356-74.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Beebee, Helen (2001). Transfer of warrant, begging the question and semantic externalism. Philosophical Quarterly 51 (204):356-374.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Bernecker, Sven (1996). Davidson on first-person authority and externalism. Inquiry 39 (1):121-39.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
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Abstract: This paper argues that Sosa’s virtue perspectivism fails to combine satisfactorily internalist and externalist features in a single theory. Internalism and externalism are reconciled at the price of creating a Gettier problem at the level of “reflective” or second-order knowledge. The general lesson to be learned from the critique of virtue perspectivism is that internalism and externalism cannot be combined by bifurcating justification and knowledge into an object-level and a meta-level and assigning externalism and internalism to different levels
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Abstract: Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use
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Abstract: Controversy continues to attach to the question whether an externalism about mental content is compatible with a traditional doctrine of privileged self-knowledge. By an externalism about mental content, I mean the view that what concepts our thoughts involve may depend not only on facts that are internal to us, but on facts about our environment. It is worth emphasizing, if only because it is still occasionally misperceived, that this thesis is supposed to apply at the level of sense and not merely at that of reference: what concepts we think in terms of -- and not just what they happen to pick out -- is said by the externalist to depend upon environmental facts. By a traditional doctrine of privileged self-knowledge, I mean the view that we are able to know, without the benefit of empirical investigation, what our thoughts are in our own case. Suppose I entertain a thought that I would express with the sentence `Water is wet'. According to the traditional doctrine, I can know without empirical investigation (a) that I am entertaining a thought; (b) that it has a particular conceptual content, and (c) that its content is that water is wet
Brewer, Bill (2000). Externalism and A Priori knowledge of empirical facts. In Christopher Peacocke & Paul A. Boghossian (eds.), New Essays on the A Priori. Oxfordo.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Abstract: I want to discuss the possibility of combining a so-called
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Abstract: I want to discuss the possibility of combining a so-called
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Abstract: By exploiting a concept called ways of believing, I offer a plausible reformulation of the doctrine of privileged access. This reformulation will provide us with a defense of compatibilism, the view that content externalism and privileged access are compatible.
Davies, Martin (2000). Externalism, architecturalism, and epistemic warrant. In C. Wright, B. Smith & C. Macdonald (eds.), Knowing Our Own Minds. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 47 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper addresses a problem about epistemic warrant. The problem is posed by philosophical arguments for externalism about the contents of thoughts, and similarly by philosophical arguments for architecturalism about thinking, when these arguments are put together with a thesis of first person authority. In each case, first personal knowledge about our thoughts plus the kind of knowledge that is provided by a philosophical argument seem, together, to open an unacceptably ‘non-empirical’ route to knowledge of empirical facts. Furthermore, this unwelcome prospect of transferring a ‘non-empirical’ warrant from premises about our own mental states and about philosophical theory to a conclusion about external environment or internal architecture seems to depend upon little more than the possibility of knowledge by inference. (The use of the scare-quoted term ‘non-empirical’ is explained a couple of paragraphs further on.)
Davies, Martin (2000). Externalism and armchair knowledge. In Paul A. Boghossian & Christopher Peacocke (eds.), New Essays on the A Priori. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 21 | Google | More links)
Abstract: [I]f you could know a priori that you are in a given mental state, and your being in that state conceptually or logically implies the existence of external objects, then you could know a priori that the external world exists. Since you obviously _can
Davies, Martin (2003). Externalism, self-knowledge and transmission of warrant. In Maria J. Frapolli & E. Romero (eds.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind. Csli.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Abstract: Externalism about some mental property, M, is the thesis that whether a person (or other physical being) has M depends, not only on conditions inside the person
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Abstract: A central question in contemporary epistemology concerns whether content externalism threatens a common doctrine about privileged access. If the contents of a subject
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Falvey, Kevin (2003). Memory and knowledge of content. In Susana Nuccetelli (ed.), New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge. MIT Press.   (Google)
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Farkas, Katalin (2006). Semantic internalism and externalism. In Ernest Lepore & Barry C. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Abstract: Abstract: This paper introduces and analyses the doctrine of externalism about semantic content; discusses the Twin Earth argument for externalism and the assumptions behind it, and examines the question of whether externalism about content is compatible with a privileged knowledge of meanings and mental contents.
Farkas, Katalin (2008). The Subject's Point of View. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Descartes's philosophy has had a considerable influence on the modern conception of the mind, but many think that this influence has been largely negative. The main project of The Subject's Point of View is to argue that discarding certain elements of the Cartesian conception would be much more difficult than critics seem to allow, since it is tied to our understanding of basic notions, including the criteria for what makes someone a person, or one of us. The crucial feature of the Cartesian view defended here is not dualism--which is not adopted--but internalism. Internalism is opposed to the widely accepted externalist thesis, which states that some mental features constitutively depend on certain features of our physical and social environment. In contrast, this book defends the minority internalist view, which holds that the mind is autonomous, and though it is obviously affected by the environment, this influence is merely contingent and does not delimit what is thinkable in principle. Defenders of the externalist view often present their theory as the most thoroughgoing criticism of the Cartesian conception of the mind; Katalin Farkas offers a defence of an uncompromising internalist Cartesian conception
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Abstract: The content of the externalist thesis about the mind depends crucially on how we define the distinction between the internal and the external. According to the usual understanding, the boundary between the internal and the external is the skull or the skin of the subject. In this paper I argue that the usual understanding is inadequate, and that only the new understanding of the external/internal distinction I suggest helps us to understand the issue of the compatibility of externalism and privileged access
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Gerken, Mikkel (2009). Conceptual equivocation and epistemic relevance. Dialectica 63 (2):117-132.   (Google)
Abstract: Much debate has surrounded "switching" scenarios in which a subject's reasoning is said to exhibit the fallacy of equivocation ( Burge 1988 ; Boghossian 1992, 1994 ). Peter Ludlow has argued that such scenarios are "epistemically prevalent" and, therefore, epistemically relevant alternatives ( Ludlow 1995a ). Since a distinctive feature of the cases in question is that the subject blamelessly engages in conceptual equivocation, we may label them 'equivocational switching cases'. Ludlow's influential argument occurs in a discussion about compatibilism with regards to anti-individualism (or content externalism) and self-knowledge. However, the issue has wide-reaching consequences for many areas of epistemology. Arguably, the claim that equivocational switching cases are epistemically relevant may bear on the epistemology of inference, testimony, memory, group rationality and belief revision. Ludlow's argument proceeds from a now well-known "down to Earth" switching-case of a subject, Biff, who travels between the US and the UK. I argue that Ludlow's case-based argument fails to support the general claim that conceptual equivocational switching cases are prevalent and epistemically relevant. Thus, the discussion addresses the basis of some poorly understood issues regarding the epistemological consequences of anti-individualism. Simultaneously, the discussion is broadened from the narrow focus on self-knowledge. Finally, the critical discussion serves as the basis for some general reflections on epistemic relevance and the epistemic risks associated with conceptual equivocation. Specifically, I suggest that philosophy is an area where the risk of conceptual equivocation is extraordinarily high
Gertler, Brie (2004). We can't know a priori that H2O exists. But can we know a priori that water does? Analysis 64 (1):44-47.   (Google | More links)
Gibbons, John (1996). Externalism and knowledge of content. Philsophical Review 105 (3):287-310.   (Cited by 17 | Google | More links)
Gibbons, John (2001). Externalism and knowledge of the attitudes. Philosophical Quarterly 51 (202):13-28.   (Google | More links)
Glock, H. J. & Preston, John M. (1995). Externalism and first-person authority. The Monist 78 (4):515-33.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Goldberg, Sanford C. (2003). Anti-individualism, conceptual omniscience, and skepticism. Philosophical Studies 116 (1):53-78.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Given anti-individualism, a subjectmight have a priori (non-empirical)knowledge that she herself is thinking thatp, have complete and exhaustiveexplicational knowledge of all of the conceptscomposing the content that p, and yetstill need empirical information (e.g.regarding her embedding conditions and history)prior to being in a position to apply herexhaustive conceptual knowledge in aknowledgeable way to the thought that p. This result should be welcomed byanti-individualists: it squares with everythingthat compatibilist-minded anti-individualistshave said regarding e.g. the compatibility ofanti-individualism and basic self-knowledge;and more importantly it contains the crux of aresponse to McKinsey-style arguments againstanti-individualism
Goldberg, Sanford C. (2007). Anti-individualism, content preservation, and discursive justification. Nos 41 (2):178�203.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Most explorations of the epistemic implications of Semantic Anti- Individualism (SAI) focus on issues of self-knowledge (first-person au- thority) and/or external-world skepticism. Less explored has been SAIs implications forthe epistemology of reasoning. In this paperI argue that SAI has some nontrivial implications on this score. I bring these out by reflecting on a problem first raised by Boghossian (1992). Whereas Boghos- sians main interest was in establishing the incompatibility of SAI and the a priority of logical abilities (Boghossian 1992: 22), I argue that Boghossians argument is better interpreted as pointing to SAIs implications for the na- ture of discursive justification
Goldberg, Sanford C. (2002). Belief and its linguistic expression: Toward a belief box account of first-person authority. Philosophical Psychology 1 (1):65-76.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper I characterize the problem of first-person authority as it confronts the proponent of the belief box conception of belief, and I develop the groundwork for a belief box account of that authority. If acceptable, the belief box account calls into question (by undermining a popular motivation for) the thesis that first-person authority is not to be traced to a truth-tracking relation between first-person opinions themselves and the beliefs which they are about
Goldberg, Sanford C. (2006). Brown on self-knowledge and discriminability. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (3):301�314.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In her recent book Anti-Individualism and Knowledge, Jessica Brown has presented a novel answer to the self-knowledge achievement problem facing the proponent of anti-individualism. She argues that her answer is to be preferred to the traditional answer (based on Burge, 1988a). Here I present three objections to the claim that her proposed answer is to be preferred. The significance of these objections lies in what they tell us about the nature of the sort of knowledge that is in dispute. Perhaps the most important lesson I draw from this discussion is that, given the nature of knowledge of one's own thoughts, discriminability (from relevant alternatives) is not a condition on knowledge as such
Goldberg, Sanford C. (2002). Do anti-individualistic construals of propositional attitudes capture the agent's conception? Noûs 36 (4):597-621.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Burge 1986 presents an argument for anti-individualism about the proposi- tional attitudes. On the assumption that such attitudes are
Goldberg, Sanford C. (2000). Externalism and authoritative knowledge of content: A new incompatibilist strategy. Philosophical Studies 100 (1):51-79.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Abstract: A typical strategy of those who seek to show that externalism is compatible with authoritative knowledge of content is to show that externalism does nothing to undermine the claim that all thinkers can at any time form correct and justi?ed self-ascriptive judgements concerning their occurrent thoughts. In reaction, most incompat- ibilists have assumed the burden of denying that externalism is compatible with this claim about self-ascription. Here I suggest another way to attack the compatibilist strategy. I aim to show that forming a justi?ed true self-ascriptive judgement about one
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Goldberg, Sanford C. (2003). On our alleged A Priori knowledge that water exists. Analysis 63 (1):38-41.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Goldberg, Sanford C. (2004). Review of Maria Frapolli (ed.), Esther Romero (ed.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind: Essays on Tyler Burge. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2004 (1).   (Google)
Goldberg, Sanford C. (1997). Self-ascription, self-knowledge, and the memory argument. Analysis 57 (3):211-19.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Abstract: is tendentious. (Throughout this paper I shall refer to this claim as
Goldberg, Sanford C. (2005). The dialectical context of Boghossian's memory argument. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 35 (1):135-48.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Abstract: Externalism1 is the thesis that some propositional attitudes depend for their individuation on features of the thinker’s (social and/or physical) environment. The doctrine of self-knowledge of thoughts is the thesis that for all thinkers S and occurrent thoughts that p, S has authoritative and non-empirical knowledge of her thought that p. A much-discussed question in the literature is whether these two doctrines are compatible. In this paper I attempt to respond to one argument for an incompatibilist conclusion, Boghossian’s 1989 ‘Memory Argument.’
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Goldberg, Sanford C. (1999). The relevance of discriminatory knowledge of content. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 80 (2):136-56.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 80:2, 136-56 (June 1999)
Goldberg, Sanford C. (2003). What do you know when you know your own thoughts? In Susana Nuccetelli (ed.), New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge. MIT Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
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Goldberg, Sanford C. (2000). Word-ambiguity, world-switching, and semantic intentions. Analysis 60 (267):260-264.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Greco, John (2004). Externalism and skepticism. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
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Abstract: The argument known as the 'McKinsey Recipe' tries to establish the incompatibility of semantic externalism (about natural kind concepts in particular) and _a priori _self- knowledge about thoughts and concepts by deriving from the conjunction of these theses an absurd conclusion, such as that we could know _a priori _that water exists. One reply to this argument is to distinguish two different readings of 'natural kind concept': (i) a concept which _in fact _denotes a natural kind, and (ii) a concept which _aims_ to denote a natural kind. Paul Boghossian has argued, using a _Dry Earth _scenario, that this response fails, claiming that the externalist cannot make sense of a concept aiming, but failing, to denote a natural kind. In this paper I argue that Boghossian's argument is flawed. Borrowing machinery from two-dimensional semantics, using the notion of 'considering a possible world as actual', I claim that we can give a determinate answer to Boghossian's question: which concept would 'water' express on Dry Earth?
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Heil, John (1988). Privileged access. Mind 98 (April):238-51.   (Cited by 33 | Google | More links)
Hohwy, Jakob (2002). Privileged self-knowledge and externalism: A contextualist approach. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 83 (3):235-52.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Hymers, Michael (1997). Realism and self-knowledge: A problem for Burge. Philosophical Studies 86 (3):303-325.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Jackman, Henry (2000). Deference and self-knowledge. Southwest Philosophy Review 16 (1):171-180.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: It has become increasingly popular to suggest that non-individualistic theories of content undermine our purported a priori knowledge of such contents because they entail that we lack the ability to distinguish our thoughts from alternative thoughts with different contents. However, problems relating to such knowledge of 'comparative' content tell just as much against individualism as non-individualism. Indeed, the problems presented by individualistic theories of content for self-knowledge are at least, if not more, serious than those presented by non-individualistic theories. Consequently, considerations of self-knowledge give one no reason to embrace individualism. If anything, they give one reason to reject it
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Jackman, Henry (web). Incompatibility arguments and semantic self-knowledge. Southwest Philosophy Review.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: There has been much discussion recently of what has been labeled the
Jacob, Pierre (ms). Is self-knowledge compatible with externalism?   (Google | More links)
Kennedy, Matthew (forthcoming). Naive Realism, Privileged Access, and Epistemic Safety. Nous.   (Google)
Abstract: Working from a naïve-realist perspective, I examine first-person knowledge of one’s perceptual experience. I outline a naive-realist theory of how subjects acquire knowledge of the nature of their experiences, and I argue that naive realism is compatible with moderate, substantial forms of first-person privileged access. A more general moral of my paper is that treating “success” states like seeing as genuine mental states does not break up the dynamics that many philosophers expect from the phenomenon of knowledge of the mind.
Klaas, (2002). Externalism, Memory, and Self-Knowledge. Erkenntnis 56:297-317.   (Google)
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Korman, Daniel Z. (2006). What externalists should say about dry earth. Journal of Philosophy 103 (10):503-520.   (Google)
Abstract: Dry earth seems to its inhabitants (our intrinsic duplicates) just as earth seems to us, that is, it seems to them as though there are rivers and lakes and a clear, odorless liquid flowing from their faucets. But, in fact, this is an illusion; there is no such liquid anywhere on the planet. I address two objections to externalism concerning the nature of the concept that is expressed by the word 'water' in the mouths of the inhabitants of dry earth. Gabriel Segal presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the application conditions of the concept, and Paul Boghossian presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the complexity of the concept. I show that, in both cases, the externalist may occupy the horn of his choice without departing from either the letter or spirit of externalism
Korman, Daniel Z. (2006). What Externalists Should Say About Dry Earth. The Journal of Philosophy 103:503-520.   (Google)
Abstract: Dry earth seems to its inhabitants (our intrinsic duplicates) just as earth seems to us, that is, it seems to them as though there are rivers and lakes and a clear, odorless liquid flowing from their faucets. But, in fact, this is an illusion; there is no such liquid anywhere on the planet. I address two objections to externalism concerning the nature of the concept that is expressed by the word ‘water’ in the mouths of the inhabitants of dry earth. Gabriel Segal presents a dilemma for the externalist concering the application conditions of the concept, and Paul Boghossian presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the complexity of the concept. I show that, in both cases, the externalist may occupy the horn of his choice without departing from either the letter or spirit of externalism.
Kraay, Klaas J. (2002). Externalism, memory, and self-knowledge. Erkenntnis 56 (3):297-317.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Externalism holds that the individuation of mental content depends on factors external to the subject. This doctrine appears to undermine both the claim that there is a priori self-knowledge, and the view that individuals have privileged access to their thoughts. Tyler Burge’s influential inclusion theory of self-knowledge purports to reconcile externalism with authoritative self-knowledge. I first consider Paul Boghossian’s claim that the inclusion theory is internally inconsistent. I reject one line of response to this charge, but I endorse another. I next suggest, however, that the inclusion theory has little explanatory value
Langsam, Harold (2002). Externalism, self-knowledge, and inner observation. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (1):42-61.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Larkin, William S. (1999). Brute error with respect to content. Philosophical Studies 94 (1-2):159-71.   (Google | More links)
Larkin, William S. (ms). Burge on our privileged access to the external world.   (Google)
Larkin, William S. (ms). Concepts and introspection: An externalist defense of inner sense.   (Google)
Larkin, William S. (online). Comments on Pryor's “externalism about content and McKinsey-style reasoning”.   (Google)
Abstract: I. Pryor on McKinsey:
A. Pryor’s Version of McKinsey-style Reasoning
1. Given authoritative self-knowledge, I can usually tell the contents of my own thoughts just by introspection.
So
I can know the following claim on the basis of reflection alone:
McK-1: I am thinking a thought with the content _water puts out fires_
Larkin, William S. (2000). Content skepticism. Southwest Philosophy Review 18 (1):33-43.   (Google)
Abstract: Skeptical theses in general claim that we cannot know what we think we know. Content skepticism in particular claims that we cannot know the contents of our own occurrent thoughtsat least not in the way we think we can. I argue that an externalist account of content does engender a mild form of content skepticism but that the condition is no real cause for concern. Content externalism forces us to reevaluate some of our assumptions about introspective knowledge, but it is compatible with privileged access and the distinctive epistemic character of introspective judgments
Larkin, William S. (online). Content skepticism and reliable self-knowledge.   (Google)
Abstract: Sub-Thesis 1: We should be contingent reliabilists to avoid the threat of an unacceptably strong content skeptical thesis posed by content externalism and the possibility of twin thoughts. The predominant strategy for resisting this threat has been to rely on the claim that introspective self-attributions are immune to brute error; but this claim is problematic from a naturalistic standpoint
Larkin, William S. (online). Twin earth, dry earth, and knowing the width of Water.   (Google)
Larkin, William S. (online). Twin earth, dry earth, and brains in vats.   (Google)
Larkin, Willian (ms). The non-apriority of concept width.   (Google)
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Loar, Brian (1998). Is there a good epistemological argument against concept-externalism. Philosophical Issues 9:213-217.   (Google | More links)
Ludlow, Peter & Martin, N. (1998). Externalism and Self-Knowledge. Csli.   (Cited by 36 | Google)
Ludlow, Peter (1995). Externalism, self-knowledge, and the prevalence of slow-switching. Analysis 55 (1):45-49.   (Cited by 15 | Annotation | Google)
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Ludlow, Peter (1995). Social externalism and memory: A problem? Acta Analytica 10 (14):69-76.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
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Abstract: Externalism in the philosophy of mind has been thought by many to pose a serious threat to the claim that subjects are in general authoritative with regard to certain of their own intentional states.1 In a series of papers, Tyler Burge (1985_a_, 1985_b_, 1988, 1996) has argued that the distinctive entitlement or right that subjects have to self- knowledge in certain cases is compatible with externalism, since that entitlement is environmentally neutral, neutral with respect to the issue of the individuation dependence of subjects' intentional states on factors beyond their bodies. His reason is that whereas externalism—the view that certain intentional states of persons are individuation-dependent on objects and/or phenomena external to their bodies—is a metaphysical thesis, authoritative self-knowledge is an epistemological matter. This being so, there is no reason to suppose that the two need conflict with one another
Macdonald, C. (1995). Externalism and first-person authority. Synthese 104 (1):99-122.   (Cited by 5 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Majors, Brad & Sawyer, Sarah (2005). The epistemological argument for content externalism. Noûs 39 (1):257-280.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Malatesti, Luca (ms). Externalism and the knowledge of mental states.   (Google)
Manley, David (2007). Safety, Content, Apriority, Self-knowledge. The Journal of Philosophy 104:403-23.   (Google)
Abstract: This essay motivates a revised version of the epistemic condition of safety and then employs the revision to (i) challenge the traditional conceptions of apriority, (ii) refute 'strong privileged access', and (iii) resolve a well-known puzzle about externalism and self-knowledge
McCulloch, Gregory (1999). Content externalism and cartesian scepticism: A reply to Brueckner. In Transcendental Arguments: Problems and Prospects. Oxford: Clarendon Press.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
McKinsey, Michael (1991). Anti-individualism and privileged access. Analysis 51 (January):9-16.   (Cited by 86 | Annotation | Google)
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McKinsey, Michael (1994). Accepting the consequences of anti-individualism. Analysis 54 (2):124-8.   (Cited by 14 | Annotation | Google)
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McKinsey, Michael (2007). Externalism and privileged access are inconsistent. In Brian P. McLaughlin & Jonathan D. Cohen (eds.), Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.   (Google)
McKinsey, Michael (2002). Forms of externalism and privileged access. Philosophical Perspectives 16:199-224.   (Cited by 12 | Google | More links)
McKinsey, Michael (2002). On knowing our own minds. Philosophical Quarterly 52 (206):107-16.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This is an anthology of ?fteen papers concerning various philosophical problems related to the topic of self-knowledge. All but one of the papers were previously unpublished, and all but two are descendants of presentations at a conference on self-knowledge held at the University of St Andrews in 1995. The collection
McKinsey, Michael (2003). Transmission of warrant and closure of apriority. In Susana Nuccetelli (ed.), New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge. MIT Press.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Abstract: In my 1991 paper, AAnti-Individualism and Privileged Access,@ I argued that externalism in the philosophy of mind is incompatible with the thesis that we have privileged , nonempirical access to the contents of our own thoughts.1 One of the most interesting responses to my argument has been that of Martin Davies (1998, 2000, and Chapter _ above) and Crispin Wright (2000 and Chapter _ above), who describe several types of cases to show that warrant for a premise does not always transmit to a known deductive consequence of that premise, and who contend that this fact under-mines my argument for incompatibilism. I will try to show here that the Davies/Wright point about transmission of warrant does not adversely affect my argument
McKinsey, Michael (2001). The semantic basis of externalism. In J. Campbell, M.O. Rourke & David Shier (eds.), Meaning and Truth. New York: Seven Bridges Press.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Abstract: 1. The primary evidence and motivation for externalism in the philosophy of mind is provided by the semantic facts that support direct reference theories of names, indexi- cal pronouns, and natural kind terms. But many externalists have forgotten their sem- antic roots, or so I shall contend here. I have become convinced of this by a common reaction among externalists to the main argument of my 1991 paper AAnti-Individual- ism and Privileged Access.@ In that argument, I concluded that externalism is incompat- ible with the principle that we can have privileged, non-empirical knowledge of the contents of our own thoughts. The reaction in question amounts to a dismissive denial of one of my argument=s main premises. This premise, which I defended at length in the paper, is that an externalist thesis regarding a cognitive property should hold that possession of the property by a person _logically_, or _conceptually_, implies the existence of objects external to that person
McLaughlin, Brian P. & Tye, Michael (1998). Externalism, twin earth, and self-knowledge. In C. Macdonald, Peter K. Smith & C. Wright (eds.), Knowing Our Own Minds: Essays in Self-Knowledge. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 27 | Google)
McLaughlin, Brian P. & Tye, Michael (1998). Is content-externalism compatible with privileged access? Philosophical Review 107 (3):349-380.   (Cited by 22 | Google | More links)
McLaughlin, Brian P. (2001). Introspecting thoughts. Facta Philosophica 3:77-84.   (Google)
McLaughlin, Brian P. (2003). McKinsey's challenge, warrant transmission, and skepticism. In Susana Nuccetelli (ed.), New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge. MIT Press.   (Cited by 7 | Google)
McLaughlin, Brian P. (2004). Of Ebbs's puzzle. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Google)
McLaughlin, Brian P. (2000). Self-knowledge, externalism, and skepticism. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 74 (74):93-118.   (Cited by 7 | Google)
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Miller, Richard W. (1997). Externalist self-knowledge and the scope of the a priori. Analysis 57 (1):67-74.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)
Moya, Carlos J. (1998). Boghossian's reduction of compatibilism. Philosophical Issues 9:243-251.   (Google | More links)
Moya, Carlos J. (2003). Externalism, inclusion, and knowledge of content. In Maria J. Frapolli & E. Romero (eds.), Meaning, Basic Self-Knowledge, and Mind. Csli.   (Google)
Nagasawa, Yujin (2002). Externalism and the memory argument. Dialectica 56 (4):335-46.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Nagasawa, Yujin (2000). 'Very-slow-switching' and memory (a critical note on Ludlow's paper). Acta Analytica 15 (25):173-175.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
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Noonan, P. (2004). Against absence-dependent thoughts. Analysis 64 (1):92-93.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Noonan, Harold W. (2000). McKinsey-brown survives. Analysis 60 (268):353-356.   (Google | More links)
Noordhof, Paul (2004). Outsmarting the McKinsey-brown argument? Analysis 64 (1):48-56.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Externalists about mental content are supposed to face the following dilemma. Either they must give up the claim that we have privileged access to our own mental states or they must allow that we have privileged access to the world. The dilemma is posed in its most precise form through the McKinsey-Brown argument (McKinsey 1991; Brown 1995). Over the years since it was ?rst published in 1991, our understanding of the precise character of the premisses which constitute the argument has been re?ned. It is based on three claims (where A partially serves to characterise the content of some belief state for which Externalism is true and E is some proposition about the external world)
Noordhof, Paul (2005). The transmogrification of a posteriori knowledge: Reply to Brueckner. Analysis 65 (285):88-89.   (Google | More links)
Nuccetelli, Susana (2001). Is self-knowledge an entitlement? And why should we care? Southern Journal of Philosophy 39 (1):143-155.   (Google)
Nuccetelli, Susana (2003). Knowing that one knows what one is talking about. In Susana Nuccetelli (ed.), New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge. MIT Press.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Nuccetelli, Susana (ed.) (2003). New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge. MIT Press.   (Cited by 25 | Google)
Abstract: This book shows that the debate over the compatibility of externalism and self-knowledge has led to the investigation of a variety of topics, including the a...
Nuccetelli, Susana (1999). What anti-individualist cannot know A Priori. Analysis 59 (1):48-51.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Owens, David J. (2003). Externalis, Davidson, and knowledge of comparative content. In Susana Nuccetelli (ed.), New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Owens, David J. & McLaughlin, Brian P. (2000). Self-knowledge, externalism and scepticism: II--David Owens, scepticisms: Descartes and Hume. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 74 (74):119-142.   (Google)
Owens, David (2000). Self-knowledge, externalism and scepticism, II. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 74 (1):119–142.   (Google | More links)
Parent, T. (2007). Infallibilism about self-knowledge. Philosophical Studies 133 (3):411-424.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Descartes held the view that a subject has infallible beliefs about the contents of her thoughts. Here, I first examine a popular contermporary defense of this claim, given by Burge, and find it lacking. I then offer my own defense appealing to a minimal thesis about the compositionality of thoughts. The argument has the virtue of refraining from claims about whether thoughts are “in the head;” thus, it is congenial to both internalists and externalists. The considerations here also illuminate how a subject may have epistemicially priviledged and a priori beliefs about her own thoughts
Peacocke, Christopher (1996). Entitlement, self-knowledge, and conceptual redeployment. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Sociey 96:117-58.   (Cited by 26 | Google)
Phillips, Ian (online). Reflections on externalism and self-knowledge.   (Google)
Abstract: In the mid-nineties a large number of philosophers (most famously, Michael McKinsey, Jessica Brown and Paul Boghossian) raised and discussed a certain form of challenge to externalism. In Boghossian
Pritchard, Duncan & Kallestrup, Jesper (2004). An argument for the inconsistency of content externalism and epistemic internalism. Philosophia 31 (3-4):345-354.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Whereas a number of recent articles have focussed upon whether the thesis of content externalism is compatible with a certain sort of knowledge that is gained via first-person authority,1 far less attention has been given to the relationship that this thesis bears to the possession of knowledge in general and, in particular, its relation to internalist and externalist epistemologies. Nevertheless, although very few actual arguments have been presented to this end, there does seem to be a shared suspicion that content externalism must be incompatible with epistemic internalism. In a recent and influential paper, however, James Chase has challenged this conventional wisdom by offering a subtle defence of the view that content externalism and epistemic internalism are, in fact, compatible after all.2 Our aim here is twofold. First, to show that Chase is only able to achieve this result because he focuses upon the internalist conception of justification, rather than knowledge. Second, to formulate one prima facie argument which shows that an internalist conception of knowledge is incompatible with an externalist conception of content, an argument which, moreover, is not touched by Chase
Pritchard, Duncan (2003). McDowell on reasons, externalism and scepticism. European Journal of Philosophy 11 (3):273-294.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Abstract: At the very least, externalists about content will accept something like the following claim
Pritchard, Duncan (2002). McKinsey paradoxes, radical skepticism, and the transmission of knowledge across known entailments. Synthese 130 (2):279-302.   (Cited by 12 | Google | More links)
Pryor, James (web). Externalism about content and McKinsey-style reasoning. In S C. Goldberg (ed.), Internalism and Externalism in Semantics and Epistemology. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: (revisions posted 12/5/2006) to appear in Internalism and Externalism in Semantics and Epistemology, ed. by Sanford Goldberg (to be published by Oxford in 2006 or 2007) Michael McKinsey formulated an argument that raises a puzzle about the relation between externalism about content and our introspective awareness of content. The puzzle goes like this: it seems like I can know the contents of my thoughts by introspection alone; but philosophical reflection tells me that the contents of those thoughts are externalist, and so I couldn
Puhl, Klaus (1994). Davidson on intentional content and self-knowledge. In Language, Mind, and Epistemology: On Donald Davidson's Philosophy. Dordrecht: Kluwer.   (Google)
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Sawyer, Sarah (1999). Am externalist account of introspectve knowledge. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 4 (4):358-78.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The Content Sceptic argues that a subject could not have introspective knowledge of a thought whose content is individuated widely. This claim is incorrect, relying on the tacit assumption that introspective knowledge differs significantly from other species of knowledge. The paper proposes a reliabilist model for understanding introspective knowledge according to which introspective knowledge is simply another species of knowledge, and according to which claims to introspective knowledge are not, as suggested by the Content Sceptic, defeated by the mere possibility of error. This way of understanding introspective knowledge affords a robust theory of privileged access consistent with semantic externalism
Sawyer, Sarah (2004). Absences, presences, and sufficient conditions. Analysis 64 (4):354-57.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Sawyer, Sarah (2002). In defense of Burge's thesis. Philosophical Studies 107 (2):109-28.   (Google | More links)
Sawyer, Sarah (1998). Privileged access to the world. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (4):523-533.   (Cited by 20 | Google | More links)
Sawyer, Sarah (2003). Sufficient absences. Analysis 63 (3):202-8.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Sawyer, Sarah & Majors, Brad (2005). The epistemological argument for content externalism. Philosophical Perspectives 19:257-280.   (Google)
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Smith, Andrew F. (2003). Semantic externalism, authoritative self-knowledge, and adaptation to slow switching. Acta Analytica 18 (30-31):71-87.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: I here argue against the viability of Peter Ludlow’s modified version of Paul Boghossian’s argument for the incompatibility of semantic externalism and authoritative self-knowledge. Ludlow contends that slow switching is not merely actual but is, moreover, prevalent; it can occur whenever we shift between localized linguistic communities. It is therefore quite possible, he maintains, that we undergo unwitting shifts in our mental content on a regular basis. However, there is good reason to accept as plausible that despite their prevalence we are in fact able to readily adapt to such switches, as well as to the shifts in mental content that accompany them. The prevalence of slow switching between linguistic communities does not then necessarily entail incompatibility after all
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Abstract: ism is compatible with privileged access. it is in some sense direct, or that it is non-
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Abstract: Starting in the middle -- Epistemic possibilities and the knowledge argument -- Locating ourselves in the world -- Notes on models of self-locating belief -- Phenomenal and epistemic indistinguishability -- Acquaintance and essence -- Knowing what one is thinking -- After the fall.
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Abstract: Most current theories of meaning and mental content accept externalism. One of its forceful exponents is Ruth Garrett Millikan. She argues that externalism leads to the abandonment of "the last myth of the given", that is, of the idea that identity of meaning and mental content is somehow unproblematically given to us, and that we can easily recognize the sameness of meaning and mental content. If one refuses such a "mythical" giveness or meaning rationalism, one has to admit that there is no logical possibility known a priori . The paper tries to show that even if one abandons meaning rationalism one can still hold that there are logical possibilities known a priori . The claim is defended by arguing that a priori knowledge is not completely independent from experience and does not demand the absolute transparency of meaning from the first-person point of view. A priori knowledge requires only a priori justification, that is, such a justification that is based merely on relations between meanings or contents
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Abstract: The development of the semantic externalism in the 1970s was followed by a debate on the compatibility of externalism and self-knowledge. Boghossian’s memory argument is one of the most important arguments against the compatibilist view. However, some compatibilists attack Boghossian’s argument by pointing out that his understanding of memory is internalistic. Ludlow and others developed the externalist view of memory to defend the compatibility of externalism and self-knowledge. However, the externalist view of memory undermines the epistemic status of memory since it gives memory a burden that is too heavy for it to carry. This paper argues that only if we take the content of memory to be narrow and take that of self-knowledge to be wide and replace Cartesian self-knowledge with contextually constrained self-knowledge, can the compatibility of externalism and self-knowledge be effectively defended
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Vahid, Hamid (2003). Externalism, slow switching and privileged self-knowledge. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (2):370-388.   (Google | More links)
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Warfield, Ted A. (1995). Knowing the world and knowing our minds. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (3):525-545.   (Cited by 24 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Warfield, Ted A. (1992). Privileged self-knowledge and externalism are compatible. Analysis 52 (4):232-37.   (Cited by 12 | Annotation | Google)
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Abstract: The question of whether externalism about mental content is compatible with privileged access is a question of ongoing concern within philosophy of mind. Some philosophers think that Tyler Burge's early work on what he calls "basic self-knowledge" shows that externalism and privileged access are compatible. I critically assess this claim, arguing that Burge's work does not establish the compatbility thesis
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Abstract: The definitive version of this article is published in Philosophical Books 48.3 July 2007 pp. 233-240 by Blackwell Publishing, and is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com
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2.2h Narrow Content

Adams, Frederick R. & Fuller, Gary (1992). Names, contents, and causes. Mind and Language 7 (3):205-21.   (Cited by 8 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Adams, Frederick R.; Drebushenko, David; Fuller, Gary & Stecker, Robert A. (1990). Narrow content: Fodor's folly. Mind and Language 5:213-29.   (Cited by 10 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Adams, Frederick R. (1993). Reply to Russow's Fodor, Adams and Causal Properties. Philosophical Psychology 6 (1):63-65.   (Google)
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Antony, Louise M. (ms). What are you thinking? Character and content in the language of thought.   (Google)
Arnold, Dan (2009). Svasamvitti as methodological solipsism: Narrow content and the problem of intentionality in buddhist philosophy of mind. In Mario D'Amato, Jay L. Garfield & Tom J. F. Tillemans (eds.), Pointing at the Moon: Buddhism, Logic, Analytic Philosophy. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Aydede, Murat (1997). Has Fodor really changed his mind on narrow content? Mind and Language 12 (3-4):422-58.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Abstract: ABSTRACT. In his latest book, The Elm and the Expert (1994), Fodor notoriously rejects the notion of narrow content as superfluous. He envisions a scientific intentional psychology that adverts only to broad content properties in its explanations. I argue that Fodor's change in view is only apparent and that his previous position (1985-1991) is extensionally equivalent to his "new" position (1994). I show that, despite what he says narrow content is for in his (1994), Fodor himself has previously never appealed to the notion of narrow content in explaining Frege cases and cases involving the so-called deferential concepts. And for good reason: his notion of narrow content (1985-91) couldn't explain them. The only apparent change concerns his treatment of Twin Earth cases. However, I argue that the notion of broad content that his purely informational semantics delivers is, in some interesting sense, equivalent to the mapping notion of narrow content he officially gave up. For his pure informational semantics fails to avoid assigning disjunctive content to twins, since nomic covariations take care not only actual but also counterfactual contexts into account. I show that none of the attempts made by Fodor to block this consequence of his theory works. The present notion of broad content he now operates with is therefore in a position to take over all the important jobs that his previous notion of narrow content could do
Bach, Kent (1996). Content: Wide vs. narrow. In Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: narrow content as a function from context to wide content.)
Bernier, Paul (1993). Narrow content, context of thought, and asymmetric dependence. Mind and Language 8 (3):327-42.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Biro, John I. (1992). In defense of social content. Philosophical Studies 67 (3):277-93.   (Annotation | Google)
Block, Ned (1995). Ruritania revisited. Philosophical Issues 6:171-187.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Block, Ned (1991). What narrow content is not. In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 29 | Annotation | Google)
Boër, Steven E. (2001). A slim book about narrow content. Gabriel M. A. Segal. Mind 110 (440).   (Google)
Braun, David M. (2002). Cognitive significance, attitude ascriptions, and ways of believing propositions. Philosophical Studies 108 (1-2):65-81.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Branquinho, Joao (1999). The problem of cognitive dynamics. Grazer Philosophische Studien Grazen 56:2-15.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper is devoted to an examination of some aspects of the central issue of Cognitive Dynamics, the issue about the conditions under which intentional mental states may persist over time. I discuss two main sorts of approach to the topic: the directly referential approach, which I take as best represented in David Kaplan?s views, and the neo-Fregean approach, which I take as best represented in Gareth Evans?s views. The upshot of my discussion is twofold. On the one hand, I argue that both Kaplan?s account and Evans?s account are on the whole defective (for different sorts of reason, of course); even though there are features of each of those views which seem to me to be along the right lines. On the other, and in spite of that, I claim that a broadly Fregean theory is still to be preferred since by positing semantically efficacious modes of presentation it is clearly better equipped to deal adequately with some important phenomena in the area. In particular, I argue that the notion of a memory-based demonstrative mode of presentation of an object (a spatio-temporal particular, a region in space, a period of time, etc.) turns out to be indispensable for the purpose of accounting for the persistence of an important range of mental states with propositional content over time
Brown, Curtis (1993). Belief states and narrow content. Mind and Language 8 (3):343-67.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Brogaard, Berit, Centered worlds and the content of perception: Short version.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: 0. Relativistic Content In standard semantics, propositional content, whether it be the content of utterances or mental states, has a truth-value relative only to a possible world. For example, the content of my utterance of ‘Jim is sitting now’ is true just in case Jim is sitting at the time of utterance in the actual world, and the content of my belief that Alice will give a talk tomorrow is true just in case Alice will give a talk on the day following the occurrence of my belief state in the actual world. Let us call propositional content which has a truth-value relative only to a possible world ‘non-relativistic content’. Non-relativistic content can be treated as either structured or unstructured. On the unstructured-content view, non-relativistic content is a set of possible worlds and bears the truth-value true just in case the actual world is a member of that set. For example, the content of my utterance of ‘Jim is working now’ at time t is the set of worlds in which Jim is working at t, and this content is true just in case the actual world is among those worlds. On the structured-content view, non-relativistic content is a set or conglomeration of properties and/or objects, where properties are features which objects possess regardless of who considers or observes them and regardless of when they are being considered or observed. Such properties are said to be (or represent) functions from possible worlds to extensions. Relative to a possible world they determine a set of objects instantiating the property. For example, relative to the actual world the property of being human determines the set of actual humans. Not all content is non-relativistic. Let us say that propositional content is relativistic just in case it possesses a truth-value only relative to a centered world. A centered world is a possible world in which an individual and a time are marked, where the marked individual..
Chalmers, David J. (2002). The components of content. In David J. Chalmers (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 46 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: [[This paper appears in my anthology _Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings_ (Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 608-633. It is a heavily revised version of a paper first written in 1994 and revised in 1995. Sections 1, 7, 8, and 10 are similar to the old version, but the other sections are quite different. Because the old version has been widely cited, I have made it available (in its 1995 version) at http://consc.net/papers/content95.html
Chalmers, David (manuscript). The components of content (1995 version). .   (Google)
Abstract: (1) Is content in the head? I believe that water is wet. My twin on Twin Earth, which is just like Earth except that H2O is replaced by the superficially identical XYZ, does not. His thoughts concern not water but twin water: I believe that water is wet, but he believes that twin water is wet. It follows that that what a subject believes is not wholly determined by the internal state of the believer. Nevertheless, the cognitive similarities between me and my twin are striking. Is there some wholly internal aspect of content that we might share?
Chalmers, David J. (2003). The nature of narrow content. Philosophical Issues 13 (1):46-66.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Abstract: A content of a subject's mental state is narrow when it is determined by the subject's intrinsic properties: that is, when any possible intrinsic duplicate of the subject has a corresponding mental state with the same content. A content of a subject's mental state is..
Cheng, Kam-Yuen (2002). Narrow content and historical accounts: Can Fodor live without them? Journal of Philosophical Research 27:101-113.   (Google)
Crawford, Sean (2003). Relational properties, causal powers and psychological laws. Acta Analytica 18 (30-31):193-216.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper argues that Twin Earth twins belong to the same psychological natural kind, but that the reason for this is not that the causal powers of mental states supervene on local neural structure. Fodor’s argument for this latter thesis is criticized and found to rest on a confusion between it and the claim that Putnamian and Burgean type relational psychological properties do not affect the causal powers of the mental states that have them. While it is true that Putnamian and Burgean type relational psychological properties do not affect causal powers, it is false that no relational psychological properties do. Examples of relational psychological properties that do affect causal powers are given and psychological laws are sketched that subsume twins in virtue of them instantiating these relational properties rather than them sharing the narrow contents of their thoughts
Davies, Martin (1986). Externality, psychological explanation, and narrow content. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 60:263-83.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google)
Davies, Martin (1986). Individualism and supervenience: Externality, psychological explanation, and narrow content. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 263:263-283.   (Google)
Dennett, Daniel C. (1983). Beyond belief. In Andrew Woodfield (ed.), Thought and Object. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 58 | Annotation | Google)
Devitt, Michael (1990). The narrow representational theory of mind. In William G. Lycan (ed.), Mind and Cognition. Blackwell.   (Cited by 27 | Annotation | Google)
Field, Hartry (1990). "Narrow" aspects of intentionality and the information-theoretic approach to content. In Enrique Villanueva (ed.), Information, Semantics, and Epistemology. Blackwell.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1991). A modal argument for narrow content. Journal of Philosophy 88 (1):5-26.   (Cited by 43 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1986). Individualism and supervenience. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 60:235-262.   (Cited by 7 | Annotation | Google)
Frances, Bryan (ms). A philosophically inexpensive introduction to twin-earth.   (Google)
Abstract: I say that it’s philosophically inexpensive because I think it is more convincing than any other Twin-Earth thought experiment in that it sidesteps many of the standard objections to the usual thought experiments. I also briefly discuss narrow contents and give an analysis of Putnam’s original argument
Frances, Bryan (1999). On the explanatory deficiencies of linguistic content. Philosophical Studies 93 (1):45-75.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Abstract: The Burge-Putnam thought experiments have generated the thesis that beliefs are not fixed by the constitution of the body. However, many philosophers have thought that if this is true then there must be another content-like property. Even if the contents of our attitudes such as the one in ‘believes that aluminum is a light metal’, do not supervene on our physical makeups, nevertheless people who are physical duplicates must be the same when it comes to evaluating their rationality and explaining their actions. I argue that the considerations motivating this view are best handled with just the ordinary ‘that’-clause contents.
Georgalis, N. (1996). Awareness, understanding, and functionalism. Erkenntnis 44 (2):225-56.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Georgalis, Nick (2006). First-person intentionality. In The Primacy of the Subjective. MIT Press.   (Google)
Georgalis, Nicholas (2006). The Primacy of the Subjective: Foundations for a Unified Theory of Mind and Language. Cambridge MA: Bradford Book/MIT Press.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Gertler, Brie (ms). The narrow mind.   (Google)
Haas-Spohn, Ulrike (1999). Anti-individualism and cognitive semantics. DFG-Forschergruppe Logik in Der Philosophie 15.   (Google)
Haas-Spohn, Ulrike (1994). Hidden Indexicality and Subjective Meaning. Dissertation, Universitaet Tuebingen   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Hardcastle, Valerie Gray (1997). Discussion: [Explanation] is explanation better. Philosophy of Science 64 (1):154-160.   (Google)
Hunter, David (2003). Gabriel Segal's a slim book about narrow content. Noûs 37 (4):724–745.   (Google | More links)
Hunter, David, Gabriel Segal, a slim book about narrow content(mit press, 2000), 177 pp.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The Mind-Body problem is the problem of saying how a person’s mental states and events relate to his bodily ones. How does Oscar’s believing that water is cold relate to the states of his body? Is it itself a bodily state, perhaps a state of his brain or nervous system? If not, does it nonetheless depend on such states? Or is his believing that water is cold independent of his bodily states? And, crucially, what are the notions of dependence and independence at issue here?
Jacob, Pierre (1990). Externalism revisited: Is there such a thing as narrow content? Philosophical Studies 60 (November):143-176.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Jackson, Frank (2003). Narrow content and representation--or twin earth revisited. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 77 (2):55-70.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Intentional states represent. Belief represents how we take things to be; desire represents how we would like things to be; and so on. To represent is to make a division among possibilities; it is to divide the possibilities into those that are consistent with how things are being represented to be and those that are not. I will call the possibilities consistent with how some intentional state represents things to be, its content. There is no suggestion that this is the only legitimate notion of content, but for anyone who takes seriously the representational nature of intentional states, it must be one legitimate and central notion of content. To discover that DNA has a double helix structure is to make a selection from the various possible structures
Jackson, Frank (2003). Representation and narrow belief. Philosophical Issues 13 (1):99-112.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Jackson, Frank & Pettit, Philip (1993). Some content is narrow. In John Heil & Alfred R. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 14 | Annotation | Google)
Abstract: ONE way t0 defend narrow content is to produce a sentence 0f the form ‘S believes that P’, and show that this sentence is true 0f S if and 0nly if it is true 0f any duplicate from the skin in, any doppclgangcr, of S. N0toriously, this is hard to d0. Twin Earth examples are pervasivc.1 Another way to defend narrow content; is t0 show that Only 2. narrow notion can play thc causal explanatory r01c we require 0f contcnt in 2. properly scicntiicm psychology 0r cognitive science. Notoriously, this is hard t0 d0. The considerations—mcthod010gicaI solipsism, the principle 0f autonomy, 0r what:cvcr—invokcd to show that a broad notion 0f content cannot..
Kriegel, Uriah (2008). Real narrow content. Mind and Language 23 (3):304–328.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The purpose of the present paper is to develop and defend an account of narrow content that would neutralize the commonplace charge that narrow content
Kriegel, Uriah & Horgan, Terry (forthcoming). The Phenomenal Intentionality Research Program. In T. Horgan & U. Kriegel (eds.), Phenomenal Intentionality: New Essays. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: We review some of the work already done around the notion of phenomenal intentionality and propose a way of turning this body of work into a self-conscious research program for understanding intentionality.
Kriegel, Uriah (online). The primacy of narrow content.   (Google)
Abstract: In this paper, I want to explore a line of thought that would create a new case for a strong form of content internalism. I will not argue that all representational content is narrow content. Rather, I will argue that the source of all representational content is a narrow content. This means that there would be no wide content in a world without narrow content. The argument I will pursue is fairly straightforward: 1) the only non-derivative kind of representation is conscious representation; 2) conscious representation is narrow; therefore, 3) the only non-derivative kind of representation is narrow. If so, there would be no content without narrow content
Lau, Joe (ms). Three motivations for narrow content.   (Google)
Abstract: In everyday life, we typically explain what people do by attributing mental states such as beliefs and desires. Such mental states belong to a class of mental states that are _intentional_, mental states that have content. Hoping that Johnny will win, and believing that Johnny will win are of course rather different mental states that can lead to very different behaviour. But they are similar in that they both have the same content : what is being hoped for and believed is the very same thing. According to the thesis of externalism that has been defended most notably by Hilary Putnam and Tyler Burge, not all of the contents of our mental states are determined by our intrinsic properties. Instead, the contents of our beliefs and desires are often determined in part by our relations to the environment. They are, so to speak, "wide" contents that are "not in our heads." Although externalism is accepted by most philosophers, many have argued that mental states with wide contents must also have a kind of content wholly determined by the intrinsic properties of the individuals who are in those states. This kind of content is called "narrow content". The aim of this paper is to distinguish between three rather different motivations for postulating narrow content. I argue that, given a certain conception of narrow content that I shall explain below, none of these three motivations succeed in establishing the existence of narrow content
LePore, Ernest & Loewer, Barry M. (1989). Dual aspect semantics. In Stuart Silvers (ed.), ReRepresentation. Kluwer.   (Cited by 10 | Google)
LePore, Ernest & Loewer, Barry M. (1986). Solipsistic semantics. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 10:595-614.   (Cited by 11 | Annotation | Google)
Loar, Brian (1987). Social content and psychological content. In Robert H. Grimm & D. D. Merrill (eds.), Contents of Thought. University of Arizona Press.   (Cited by 72 | Annotation | Google)
Ludwig, Kirk A. (1996). Singular thought and the cartesian theory of mind. Noûs 30 (4):434-460.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)
Abstract: (1) Content properties are nonrelational, that is, having a content property does not entail the existence of any contingent object not identical with the thinker or a part of the thinker.2 (2) We have noninferential knowledge of our conscious thoughts, that is, for any of our..
Maloney, J. Christopher (1991). Saving psychological solipsism. Philosophical Studies 61 (March):267-83.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Manfredi, Pat A. (1993). Two routes to narrow content: Both dead ends. Philosophical Psychology 6 (1):3-22.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: If psychology requires a taxonomy that categorizes mental states according to their causal powers, the common sense method of individuating mental states (a taxonomy by intentional content) is unacceptable because mental states can have different intentional content, but identical causal powers. This difference threatens both the vindication of belief/desire psychology and the viability of scientific theories whose posits include intentional states. To resolve this conflict, Fodor has proposed that for scientific purposes mental states should be classified by their narrow content. Such a classification is supposed to correspond to a classification by causal powers. Yet a state's narrow content is also supposed to determine its (broad) intentional content whenever that state is 'anchored' to a context. I examine the two most plausible accounts of narrow content implicit in Fodor's work, arguing that neither account can accomplish both goals
McDermott, M. (1986). Narrow content. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 64 (September):277-88.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Morris, Katherine J. (1984). In defense of methodological solipsism: A reply to Noonan. Philosophical Studies 45 (May):399-412.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Newman, Andrew E. (2005). Two grades of internalism (pass and fail). Philosophical Studies 122 (2):153-169.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Internalism about mental content holds that microphysical duplicates must be mental duplicates full-stop. Anyone particle-for-particle indiscernible from someone who believes that Aristotle was wise, for instance, must share that same belief. Externalism instead contends that many perfectly ordinary propositional attitudes can be had only in certain sorts of physical, sociolinguistic, or historical context. To have a belief about Aristotle, for instance, a person must have been causally impacted in the right way by Aristotle himself (e.g., by hearing about him, or reading some of his works).An interesting third view, which I call
Noonan, Harold W. (1981). Methodological solipsism. Philosophical Studies 40 (September):269-274.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Putnam, Hilary (1987). Fodor and Block on narrow content. In Representation and Reality. MIT Press.   (Cited by 2 | Annotation | Google)
Quillen, Keith (1986). Propositional attitudes and psychological explanation. Mind and Language 1:133-57.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Recanati, F. (1990). Externalism and narrow content. Noûs 24.   (Annotation | Google)
Recanati, François (1994). How narrow is narrow content? Dialectica 48 (3-4):209-29.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Rechenauer, Martin (1993). How not to taxonomize mental kinds. Acta Analytica 10 (10):135-141.   (Google)
Rechenauer, Martin (1997). Individualism, individuation and that-clauses. Erkenntnis 46 (1):49-67.   (Google | More links)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1985). A farewell to functionalism. Philosophical Studies 48 (July):1-14.   (Cited by 9 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1994). Content and context. Philosophical Perspectives 8:17-32.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1987). Content by courtesy. Journal of Philosophy 84 (April):197-213.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1985). Just what do we have in mind? Midwest Studies in Philosophy 10:25-48.   (Cited by 5 | Annotation | Google)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1987). Saving Belief. Princeton University Press.   (Cited by 50 | Annotation | Google)
Sawyer, Sarah (2007). There is no viable notion of narrow content. In Brian P. McLaughlin & Jonathan D. Cohen (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.   (Google)
Schiffer, Stephen R. (1990). Fodor's character. In Enrique Villanueva (ed.), Information, Semantics, and Epistemology. Blackwell.   (Google)
Segal, Gabriel (2000). A Slim Book About Narrow Content. MIT Press.   (Cited by 57 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The book, written in a clear, engaging style, contains four chapters.
Segal, Gabriel (1999). A Slim Book on Narrow Content. The Mit Press.   (Google)
Segal, Gabriel (online). Cognitive content and propositional attitude attributions.   (Google)
Abstract: Tyler Burge (Burge (1979)) has developed a very influential line of anti-individualistic thought. He argued that the cognitive content of a person
Segal, Gabriel (2007). Cognitive content and propositional attitude attributions. In Brian P. McLaughlin & Jonathan D. Cohen (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.   (Google)
Silverberg, Arnold (1995). Narrow content: A defense. Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (1):109-27.   (Google)
Stalnaker, Robert (1990). Narrow content. In C. Anthony Anderson & Joseph Owens (eds.), Propositional Attitudes: The Role of Content in Logic, Language, and Mind. Stanford: CSLI.   (Cited by 27 | Annotation | Google)
Stich, Stephen P. (1991). Narrow content meets fat syntax. In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 13 | Annotation | Google)
Taylor, Kenneth A. (1989). Narrow content functionalism and the mind-body problem. Noûs 23 (3):355-72.   (Cited by 5 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Taylor, Kenneth A. (1989). Supervenience and levels of meaning. Southern Journal of Philosophy 27:443-58.   (Cited by 2 | Annotation | Google)
Toribio, Josefa (1995). Ruritania and ecology. In Contents. Atascadero: Ridgeview.   (Google | More links)
Vaughan, R. (1989). Searle's narrow content. Ratio 2 (2):185-90.   (Google)
Voltolini, Alberto, Holistic narrow content?   (Google)
Abstract: 1. In the course of his philosophical development, Jerry Fodor has indicated two sorts of non-broad (i.e., non-truthconditional) content of mental representations, namely content of mental state types opaquely taxonomized (de dicto content: DDC) and narrow content (NC) qua mapping function from contexts (of thought) to broad contents. According to the former conceptualization, mental state tokens which are truth-conditionally identical may be such that they cannot both truthfully ascribed to one and the same subject at the same time, for they differ in their respective DDC. In Fodor's own example, Oedipus' thoughts that he will marry Jocasta and that he will marry Mum are truth-conditionally identical, but different as far their DDC is concerned; one cannot indeed truthfully ascribe both thoughts to him simultaneously1. According to the latter conceptualization instead, mental state tokens of molecularly identical twins placed in different environments (such as Earth and Twin-Earth) are such that, although they differ in their truth-conditions, they share the same NC2. For instance, these twins respectively think that water quenches thirst and that twater (a liquid similar to water but its chemical composition) quenches thirst. Although these thoughts thus differ in broad content, they have the same NC: had the Twin-Earthling twin been brought up on Earth rather than on Twin-Earth where he actually lives, he would have thought that water quenches thirst rather than that twater quenches thirst3. According to Fodor's picture, both concepts are invoked for the purpose of psychology in order to account for one and the same thing, namely subjects' behavior. On the one hand, difference in behavior of a subject whose thought-tokens have the same truth-conditions may be ascribed to difference in the DDC of these tokens4. On the other hand, identity in behavior between two molecularly identical subjects whose thought-tokens have different truth-conditions is explained in terms of the NC- identity of these tokens5..
Voltolini, Alberto (1997). Is narrow content the same as content of mental state types opaquely taxonomized? In Analyomen 2, Volume III: Philosophy of Mind, Practical Philosophy, Miscellanea. Hawthorne: De Gruyter.   (Google)
Abstract: Jerry Fodor now holds (1990) that the content of mental state types opaquely taxonomized (de dicto content: DDC) is determined by the 'orthographical' syntax + the computational/functional role of such states. Mental states whose tokens are both orthographically and truth-conditionally identical may be different with regard to the computational/functional role played by their respective representational cores. This make them tantamount to different contentful states, i.e. states with different DDCs, insofar as they are opaquely taxonomized. Indeed they cannot both be truthfully ascribed to a single subject at the same time. Some years ago (1987), Fodor postulated a notion of mental content which also went beyond that of a mental state's truth-conditions. States whose tokens differ in their truth-conditions, or broad content, might, he claimed, still share a narrow content (NC), which was causally responsible for the shared behavior of the subjects of these states. For instance, two molecularly identical individuals, living in environments in all respects the same, except for the chemical substance of the phenomenically indistinguishable liquids filling their respective lakes and rivers, would behave similarly when having truth-conditionally different thoughts regarding those liquids. According to Fodor, this sameness of behavior was causally dependent on the sameness of the NC of the two individuals' truth-conditionally different thoughts. Now, this way of individuating mental states is still of interest for semantics. Indeed, NC allows one contextually to fix the broad content of a mental state token. Echoing Kaplan's notion of character,1 Fodor explained NC as a function that mapped contexts (of thought) onto broad contents. NC was thus invoked by Fodor mainly in order to account for sameness of intentional behavior. But DDC also plays a role in explaining intentional behavior, precisely by explaining why a subject whose thought-tokens have identical truthconditions may behave differently..
Wakefield, Jerome C. (2002). Broad versus narrow content in the explanation of action: Fodor on Frege cases. Philosophical Psychology 15 (2):119-33.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: A major obstacle to formulating a broad-content intentional psychology is the occurrence of ''Frege cases'' - cases in which a person apparently believes or desires Fa but not Fb and acts accordingly, even though "a" and "b" have the same broad content. Frege cases seem to demand narrow-content distinctions to explain actions by the contents of beliefs and desires. Jerry Fodor ( The elm and the expert: Mentalese and its semantics , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994) argues that an explanatorily adequate broad-content psychology is nonetheless possible because Frege cases rarely occur in intentional-explanatory contexts, and they are not systematically linked to intentional laws in a way that demands intentional explanation. Thus, he claims, behaviors associated with Frege cases can be considered ceteris-paribus exceptions to broad-content intentional laws without significantly decreasing the explanatory power of intentional psychology. I argue that Frege cases are plentiful and systematically linked to intentional laws in a way that requires intentional explanation, specifically in the explanation of why certain actions are not performed. Consequently, Frege-case behaviors cannot be construed as ceteris-paribus exceptions to intentional laws without significantly eroding the explanatory power of intentional psychology and reducing the rationality of the agent. Fodor thus fails to save broad-content psychology from the prima facie objections against it based on Frege cases
White, Stephen L. (1992). Narrow content and narrow interpretation. In The Unity of the Self. MIT Press.   (Cited by 8 | Annotation | Google)
White, Stephen L. (1982). Partial character and the language of thought. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 63 (October):347-65.   (Cited by 35 | Annotation | Google)
Williams, Michael (1990). Social norms and narrow content. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 15:425-462.   (Annotation | Google)
Williamson, Timothy (1998). The broadness of the mental: Some logical issues. Philosophical Perspectives 12:389-410.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)

2.2i The Extended Mind

Adams, Frederick R. & Aizawa, Kenneth (ms). Andy Clark on intrinsic content and extended cognition.   (Google)
Abstract: This is a plausible reading of what Clark and Chalmers had in mind at the time, but it is not the radical claim at stake in the extended cognition debate.[1] It is a familiar functionalist view of cognition and the mind that it can be realized in a wide range of distinct material bases. Thus, for many species of functionalism about cognition and the mind, it follows that they can be realized in extracranial substrates.[2] And, in truth, even some non-functionalist views of cognition apparently allow for the possibility that cognition extends into the external world.[3] So, the (logical, conceptual, or nomological) possibility of extended cognition seems to us not the kind of radical view the advocates of this view have often implied. This is not, of course, to assess or pass judgment on the truth of these possibilities; it is only to note that they are not what most agitates people about the hypothesis of extended cognition. Framing the radical extended cognition hypothesis is a more delicate matter than framing the modal extended cognition hypothesis, but something like the following is in the ballpark. The radical extended cognition hypothesis maintains that, in many mundane cases of tool use, human cognitive processes extend into the tools. The principal reason this hypothesis is so delicate is that there remains much room for dispute about what constitutes a
Adams, Frederick R. & Aizawa, Kenneth (forthcoming). Challenges to active externalism. In P. Robbins & Murat Aydede (eds.), Cambridge Handbook on Situated Cognition. Cambridge.   (Google)
Adams, Frederick R. & Aizawa, Kenneth (2005). Defending non-derived content. Philosophical Psychology 18 (6):661-669.   (Google | More links)
Adams, Frederick R. & Aizawa, Kenneth (forthcoming). Defending the Bounds of cognition. In Richard Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Abstract: That about sums up what is wrong with Clark
Adams, Frederick R. & Aizawa, Kenneth (2008). The Bounds of Cognition. Blackwell Pub..   (Cited by 34 | Google | More links)
Abstract: An alarming number of philosophers and cognitive scientists have argued that mind extends beyond the brain and body. This book evaluates these arguments and suggests that, typically, it does not. A timely and relevant study that exposes the need to develop a more sophisticated theory of cognition, while pointing to a bold new direction in exploring the nature of cognition Articulates and defends the “mark of the cognitive”, a common sense theory used to distinguish between cognitive and non-cognitive processes Challenges the current popularity of extended cognition theory through critical analysis and by pointing out fallacies and shortcoming in the literature Stimulates discussions that will advance debate about the nature of cognition in the cognitive sciences
Adams, Frederick & Aizawa, Kenneth (2008). The Bounds of Cognition. Blackwell.   (Google)
Adams, Fred & Aizawa, Ken (forthcoming). Why the mind is still in the head. In P. Robbins & M. Aydede (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition. Cambridge University Press.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Philosophical interest in situated cognition has been focused most intensely on the claim that human cognitive processes extend from the brain into the tools humans use. As we see it, this radical hypothesis is sustained by two kinds of mistakes, confusing coupling relations with constitutive relations and an inattention to the mark of the cognitive. Here we wish to draw attention to these mistakes and show just how pervasive they are. That is, for all that the radical philosophers have said, the mind is still in the head
Aizawa, Kenneth (ms). Clark's conditions on extended cognition are too strong.   (Google)
Aizawa, Ken (ms). Clark missed the mark: Andy Clark on intrinsic content and extended cognition.   (Google)
Abstract: This is a plausible reading of what Clark and Chalmers had in mind at the time, but it is not the radical claim at stake in the extended cognition debate.[1] It is a familiar functionalist view of cognition and the mind that it can be realized in a wide range of distinct material bases. Thus, for many species of functionalism about cognition and the mind, it follows that they can be realized in extracranial substrates.[2] And, in truth, even some non-functionalist views of cognition apparently allow for the possibility that cognition extends into the external world.[3] So, the (logical, conceptual, or nomological) possibility of extended cognition seems to us not the kind of radical view the advocates of this view have often implied. This is not, of course, to assess or pass judgment on the truth of these possibilities; it is only to note that they are not what most agitates people about the hypothesis of extended cognition. Framing the radical extended cognition hypothesis is a more delicate matter than framing the modal extended cognition hypothesis, but something like the following is in the ballpark. The radical extended cognition hypothesis maintains that, in many mundane cases of tool use, human cognitive processes extend into the tools. The principal reason this hypothesis is so delicate is that there remains much room for dispute about what constitutes a “mundane” case of tool use, such as keeping a notebook at hand at all times, versus an exotic case of tool use, such as having a computer memory chip implanted in one’s brain. Clark never in so many words defends the idea that there are actual cases of extended cognition. Rather, his tacit commitment must be inferred from such things as his proposal that the brain is made to use tools, so we should view tools as part of the mind (Cf., Clark, 2005, p. 8ff.)
Aizawa, Ken (ms). Defending the Bounds of cognition.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: That about sums up what is wrong with Clark’s extended mind hypothesis. Clark apparently thinks that the nature of the processes internal to a pencil, Rolodex, computer, cell phone, piece of string, or whatever, has nothing to do with whether that thing carries out cognitive processing.[1] Rather, what matters is how the thing interacts with a cognitive agent; the thing has to be coupled to a cognitive agent in a particular kind of way. Clark (20??) gives three conditions that constitute a rough or partial specification of the kind of coupling required
Baker, Lynne Rudder (2009). Persons and the extended-mind thesis. Zygon 44 (3):642-658.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The extended-mind thesis (EM) is the claim that mentality need not be situated just in the brain, or even within the boundaries of the skin. Some versions take "extended selves" be to relatively transitory couplings of biological organisms and external resources. First, I show how EM can be seen as an extension of traditional views of mind. Then, after voicing a couple of qualms about EM, I reject EM in favor of a more modest hypothesis that recognizes enduring subjects of experience and agents with integrated bodies. Nonetheless, my modest hypothesis allows subpersonal states to have nonbiological parts that play essential roles in cognitive processing. I present empirical warrant for this modest hypothesis and show how it leaves room for science and religion to coexist
Bartlett, Gary (2008). Whither internalism? How internalists should respond to the extended mind hypothesis. Metaphilosophy 39 (2):163–184.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: A new position in the philosophy of mind has recently appeared: the extended mind hypothesis (EMH). Some of its proponents think the EMH, which says that a subject's mental states can extend into the local environment, shows that internalism is false. I argue that this is wrong. The EMH does not refute internalism; in fact, it necessarily does not do so. The popular assumption that the EMH spells trouble for internalists is premised on a bad characterization of the internalist thesis—albeit one that most internalists have adhered to. I show that internalism is entirely compatible with the EMH. This view should prompt us to reconsider the characterization of internalism, and in conclusion I make some brief remarks about how that project might proceed
Bradley, Francis H. (1895). In what sense are psychical states extended? Mind 4 (14):225-235.   (Google | More links)
Browne, Derek (2009). The Bounds of cognition • by Frederick Adams and Kenneth Aizawa. Analysis 69 (2).   (Google)
Campbell, John (1993). The role of physical objects in spatial thinking. In Naomi M. Eilan, R McCarthy & M.W Brewer (eds.), Problems in the Philosophy and Psychology of Spatial Representation. Blackwell.   (Cited by 73 | Google)
Case, J. (2004). Offloading memory to the environment: A quantitative example. Minds and Machines 14 (3):387-89.   (Google | More links)
Chalmers, David J. & Clark, Andy (1998). The extended mind. Analysis 58:10--23.   (Google)
Chemero, Anthony (2007). Asking what's inside the head: Neurophilosophy meets the extended mind. Minds and Machines 17 (3).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In their historical overview of cognitive science, Bechtel, Abraham- son and Graham (1999) describe the field as expanding in focus be- ginning in the mid-1980s. The field had spent the previous 25 years on internalist, high-level GOFAI (“good old fashioned artificial intelli- gence” [Haugeland 1985]), and was finally moving “outwards into the environment and downards into the brain” (Bechtel et al, 1999, p.75). One important force behind the downward movement was Patricia Churchland’s Neurophilosophy (1986). This book began a movement bearing its name, one that truly came of age in 1999 when Kath- leen Akins won a million-dollar fellowship to begin the McDonnell Project in Philosophy and the Neurosciences. The McDonnell Project put neurophilosophy at the forefront of philosophy of mind and cogni- tive science, yielding proliferating articles, conferences, special journal issues and books. In two major new books, neurophilosophers Patricia Churchland (2002) and John Bickle (2003) clearly feel this newfound prominence: Churchland mocks those who do not apply findings in neuroscience to philosophical problems as “no-brainers”; Bickle mocks anyone with traditional philosophical concerns, including “naturalistic philosophers of mind” and other neurophilosophers
Chemero, Tony & Silberstein, Michael, Defending extended cognition.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In this talk, we defend extended cognition against several criticisms. We argue that extended cognition does not derive from armchair theorizing and that it neither ignores the results of the neural sciences, nor minimizes the importance of the brain in the production of intelligent behavior. We also argue that explanatory success in the cognitive sciences does not depend on localist or reductionist methodologies; part of our argument for this is a defense of what might be called ‘holistic science’
Drayson, Zoe & Clark, Andy (forthcoming). Augmentation, Agency, and the Spreading of the Mental State. Neuroethics.   (Google)
Clark, Andy (2005). Intrinsic content, active memory, and the extended mind. Analysis 65 (285):1-11.   (Cited by 12 | Google | More links)
Clark, Andy & Chalmers, David (forthcoming). Introduction: The extended mind in focus / Richard menary the extended mind. In Richard Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind. Mit Press.   (Google)
Clark, Andy (2006). Memento's revenge: The extended mind, extended. In Richard Menary (ed.), Objections and Replies to the Extended Mind. Ashgate.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In the movie, Memento, the hero, Leonard, suffers from a form of anterograde amnesia that results in an inability to lay down new memories. Nonetheless, he sets out on a quest to find his wife
Clark, Andy (2003). Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 181 | Google | More links)
Clark, Andy (2001). Reasons, robots and the extended mind. Mind and Language 16 (2):121-145.   (Cited by 49 | Google | More links)
Abstract: A suitable project for the new Millenium is to radically reconfigure our image of human rationality. Such a project is already underway, within the Cognitive Sciences, under the umbrellas of work in Situated Cognition, Distributed and De-centralized Cogition, Real-world Robotics and Artificial Life1. Such approaches, however, are often criticized for giving certain aspects of rationality too wide a berth. They focus their attention on on such superficially poor cousins as
Clark, Andy & Chalmers, David J. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis 58 (1):7-19.   (Cited by 320 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? The question invites two standard replies. Some accept the demarcations of skin and skull, and say that what is outside the body is outside the mind. Others are impressed by arguments suggesting that the meaning of our words "just ain't in the head", and hold that this externalism about meaning carries over into an externalism about mind. We propose to pursue a third position. We advocate a very different sort of externalism: an _active externalism_ , based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes
Collins, Harry; Clark, Andy & Shrager, Jeff (2008). Keeping the collectivity in mind? Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 7 (3).   (Google)
Abstract:  The key question in this three way debate is the role of the collectivity and of agency. Collins and Shrager debate whether cognitive psychology has, like the sociology of knowledge, always taken the mind to extend beyond the individual. They agree that irrespective of the history, socialization is key to understanding the mind and that this is compatible with Clark’s position; the novelty in Clark’s “extended mind” position appears to be the role of the material rather than the role of other minds. Collins and Clark debate the relationship between self, agency, and the human collectivity. Collins argues that the Clark’s extended mind fails to stress the asymmetry of the relationship between the self and its material “scaffolding.” Clark accepts that there is asymmetry but that an asymmetrical ensemble is sufficient to explain the self. Collins says that we know too little about the material world to pursue such a model to the exclusion of other approaches including that both the collectivity and language have agency. The collectivity must be kept in mind! (Though what follows is a robust exchange of views it is also a cooperative effort, authors communicating “backstage” with each other to try to make the disagreements as clear and to the point as possible.)
Dartnall, Terry (2005). Does the world Leak into the mind? Active externalism, "internalism", and epistemology. Cognitive Science 29:135-43.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Dartnall, Terry (2004). Epistemology, emulators, and extended minds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (3):401-402.   (Google)
Abstract: Grush's framework has epistemological implications and explains how it is possible to acquire offline empirical knowledge. It also complements the extended-mind thesis, which says that mind leaks into the world. Grush's framework suggests that the world leaks into the mind through the offline deployment of emulators that we usually deploy in our experience of the world
De Cruz, Helen (2008). An extended mind perspective on natural number representation. Philosophical Psychology 21 (4):475 – 490.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Experimental studies indicate that nonhuman animals and infants represent numerosities above three or four approximately and that their mental number line is logarithmic rather than linear. In contrast, human children from most cultures gradually acquire the capacity to denote exact cardinal values. To explain this difference, I take an extended mind perspective, arguing that the distinctly human ability to use external representations as a complement for internal cognitive operations enables us to represent natural numbers. Reviewing neuroscientific, developmental, and anthropological evidence, I argue that the use of external media that represent natural numbers (like number words, body parts, tokens or numerals) influences the functional architecture of the brain, which suggests a two-way traffic between the brain and cultural public representations
Di Paolo, Ezequiel (2009). Extended life. Topoi 28 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: This paper reformulates some of the questions raised by extended mind theorists from an enactive, life/mind continuity perspective. Because of its reliance on concepts such as autopoiesis, the enactive approach has been deemed internalist and thus incompatible with the extended mind hypothesis. This paper answers this criticism by showing (1) that the relation between organism and cogniser is not one of co-extension, (2) that cognition is a relational phenomenon and thereby has no location, and (3) that the individuality of a cogniser is inevitably linked with the question of its autonomy, a question ignored by the extended mind hypothesis but for which the enactive approach proposes a precise, operational, albeit non-functionalist answer. The paper raises a pespective of embedded and intersecting forms of autonomous identity generation, some of which correspond to the canonical cases discussed in the extended mind literature, but on the whole of wider generality. In addressing these issues, this paper proposes unbiased, non-species specific definitions of cognition, agency and mediation, thus filling in gaps in the extended mind debates that have led to paradoxical situations and a problematic over-reliance on intutions about what counts as cognitive
Fenton, Andrew & Alpert, Sheri (2008). Extending our view on using BCIs for locked-in syndrome. Neuroethics 1 (2).   (Google)
Abstract:   Locked-in syndrome (LIS) is a severe neurological condition that typically leaves a patient unable to move, talk and, in many cases, initiate communication. Brain Computer Interfaces (or BCIs) promise to enable individuals with conditions like LIS to re-engage with their physical and social worlds. In this paper we will use extended mind theory to offer a way of seeing the potential of BCIs when attached to, or implanted in, individuals with LIS. In particular, we will contend that functionally integrated BCIs extend the minds of individuals with LIS beyond their bodies, allowing them greater autonomy than they can typically hope for in living with their condition. This raises important philosophical questions about the implications of BCI technology, particularly the potential to change selves, and ethical questions about whether society has a responsibility to aid these individuals in re-engaging with their physical and social worlds. It also raises some important questions about when these interventions should be offered to individuals with LIS and respecting the rights of these individuals to refuse intervention. By aiding willing individuals in re-engaging with their physical and social worlds, BCIs open up avenues of opportunity taken for granted by able individuals and introduce new ways in which these individuals can be harmed. These latter considerations serve to highlight our emergent social responsibilities to those individuals who will be suitable for, and receive, BCIs
Fodor, Jerry (2009). Where is my mind? London Review of Books 31 (3).   (Google)
Fulda, Joseph S. (ms). "The extended mind"--extended.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: We review the argument made by Clark and Chalmers in _Analysis_ for a limited externalism and extend their argument from declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge
Gallagher, Shaun & Crisafi, Anthony (2009). Mental institutions. Topoi 28 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: We propose to extend Clark and Chalmer’s concept of the extended mind to consider the possibility that social institutions (e.g., legal systems, museums) may operate in ways similar to the hand-held conveniences (notebooks, calculators) that are often used as examples of extended mind. The inspiration for this suggestion can be found in the writings of Hegel on “objective spirit” which involves the mind in a constant process of externalizing and internalizing. For Hegel, social institutions are pieces of the mind, externalized in their specific time and place. These institutions are the products of shared mental processes. We then use these institutions instrumentally to do further cognitive work, for example, to solve problems or to control behavior
Noë, Alva (2006). Experience without the head. In John Hawthorne & Tamar Szab'o Gendler (eds.), Perceptual Experience. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Some cognitive states — e.g. states of thinking, calculating, navigating — may be partially external because, at least sometimes, these states depend on the use of symbols and artifacts that are outside the body. Maps, signs, writing implements may sometimes be as inextricably bound up with the workings of cognition as neural structures or internally realized symbols (if there are any). According to what Clark and Chalmers [1998] call active externalism, the environment can drive and so partially constitute cognitive processes. Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? If active externalism is right, then the boundary cannot be drawn at the skull. The mind reaches – or at least can reach --- beyond the limits of the body out into the world
Gertler, Brie (2007). Overextending the mind? In Brie Gertler & Lawrence Shapiro (eds.), Arguing About the Mind. Routledge.   (Google | More links)
Abstract:      Clark and Chalmers argue that the mind is extended – that is, its boundary lies beyond the skin. In this essay, I will criticize this conclusion. However, I will also defend some of the more controversial elements of Clark and Chalmers's argument. I reject their conclusion because I think that their argument shows that a seemingly innocuous assumption, about internal states and processes, is flawed. My goal is not to conclusively refute Clark and Chalmers's conclusion. My aim is only to reveal the best alternative for those who remain skeptical about the existence – or, perhaps, even the possibility – of extended minds
Gershenson, C. (ms). Where is the problem of “where is the mind?”?   (Google | More links)
Abstract: We propose that the discussions about “where the mind is” depend directly on the metaphysical preconception and definition of “mind”. If we see the mind from one perspective (individualist), it will be only in the brain, and if we see it from another (active externalist), it will be embedded in the body and extended into the world. The “whereabouts” of the mind depends on our 1 of mind. Therefore, we should not ask if the mind is somewhere, but if it is somehow
Green, Mitchell S. (2000). The status of supposition. Noûs 34 (3):376–399.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: According to many forms of Externalism now popular in the Philosophy of Mind, the contents of our thoughts depend in part upon our physical or social milieu.1 These forms of Externalism leave unchallenged the thesis that the ~non-factive! attitudes we bear towards these contents are independent of physical or social milieu. This paper challenges that thesis. It is argued here that publicly forwarding a content as a supposition for the sake of argument is, under conditions not themselves guaranteeing the existence of that state, sufficient for occupancy of the intentional state of supposing that content. Because a saying may literally create an intentional state, whether one is in such a state does not depend solely upon how things are within one’s skin. Rather, even leaving content fixed, the attitude borne toward that content depends in part upon what norms are in force in one’s milieu
Haugeland, John (1993). Mind embodied and embedded. In Yu-Houng H. Houng & J. Ho (eds.), Mind and Cognition: 1993 International Symposium. Academica Sinica.   (Cited by 49 | Annotation | Google)
Heath, Joseph & Anderson, Joel, Procrastination and the extended will.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Less than a decade ago, “rational choice theory” seemed oddly impervious to criticism. Hundreds of books, articles and studies were published every year, attacking the theory from every angle, yet it continued to attract new converts. How times have changed! The “anomalies” that Richard Thaler once blithely cataloged for the Journal of Economic Perspectives are now widely regarded, not as curious deviations from the norm, but as falsifying counterexamples to the entire project of neoclassical economics. The work of experimental game theorists has perhaps been the most influential in showing that people do not maximize expected utility, in any plausible sense of the terms “maximize,” “expected,” or “utility.” The evidence is so overwhelming and incontrovertible that, by the time one gets to the end of a book like Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational,1 it begins to feel like piling on. The suggestion is pretty clear: not only are people not as rational as decision and game theorists have traditionally taken them to be, they are not even as rational as they themselves take themselves to be. This conclusion, however, is not self-evident. The standard interpretation of these findings is that people are irrational: their estimation of probabilities is vulnerable to framing effects, their treatment of (equivalent) losses and gains is asymmetric, their choices violate the sure-thing principle, they discount the future hyperbolically, and so on. Indeed, after surveying the experimental findings, one begins to wonder how people manage to get on in their daily lives at all, given the seriousness and ubiquity of these deliberative pathologies. And yet, most people do manage to get on, in some form or another. This in itself suggests an..
Horgan, Terence M. & Kriegel, Uriah (2008). Phenomenal intentionality meets the extended mind. The Monist 91:347-373.   (Google)
Hurley, Susan L. (1998). Active perception and vehicle externalism. In Susan L. Hurley (ed.), Consciousness in Action. Harvard University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Certain empirical results suggest a way of challenging two natural and widespread assumptions about the mind. One assumption is about the relations between perception and action. This shows up in the widespread conception of perception and action in terms of input and output, respectively. Perception is conceived as input from world to mind and action is conceived as output from mind to world. The other assumption is about the relations between mind and world. It influences various opposed views about whether the contents of the mind are in principle independent of the outside world
Hurley, Susan L. (2003). Action, the unity of consciousness, and vehicle externalism. In Axel Cleeremans (ed.), The Unity of Consciousness. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Hurley, Susan L. (1998). Vehicles, contents, conceptual structure and externalism. Analysis 58 (1):1-6.   (Cited by 19 | Google | More links)
Abstract: We all know about the vehicle/content distinction (see Dennett 1991a, Millikan 1991, 1993). We shouldn't confuse properties represented in content with properties of vehicles of content. In particular, we shouldn't confuse the personal and subpersonal levels. The contents of the mental states of subject/agents are at the personal level. Vehicles of content are causally explanatory subpersonal events or processes or states. We shouldn't suppose that the properties of vehicles must be projected into what they represent for subject/agents, or vice versa. This would be to confuse the personal and subpersonal levels
Hurley, Susan L. (forthcoming). Varieties of externalism. In R. Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind. Ashgate.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Abstract: Externalism comes in varieties. While the landscape isn
Keijzer, Fred A. & Schouten, Maurice K. D. (2007). Embedded cognition and mental causation: Setting empirical Bounds on metaphysics. Synthese 158 (1).   (Google | More links)
Kirsh, David & Maglio, P. (1995). On distinguishing epistemic from pragmatic action. Cognitive Science 18:513-49.   (Cited by 246 | Google | More links)
Abstract: We present data and argument to show that in Tetris - a real-time interactive video game - certain cognitive and perceptual problems are more quickly, easily, and reliably solved by performing actions in the world rather than by performing computational actions in the head alone. We have found that some translations and rotations are best understood as using the world to improve cognition. These actions are not used to implement a plan, or to implement a reaction; they are used to change the world in order to simplify the problem-solving task. Thus, we distinguish pragmatic actions ñ actions performed to bring one physically closer to a goal - from epistemic actions - actions performed to uncover information that is hidden or hard to compute mentally. To illustrate the need for epistemic actions, we first develop a standard information-processing model of Tetris-cognition, and show that it cannot explain performance data from human players of the game - even when we relax the assumption of fully sequential processing. Standard models disregard many actions taken by players because they appear unmotivated or superfluous. However, we describe many such actions that are actually taken by players that are far from superfluous, and that play valuable roles in improving human performance. We argue that traditional accounts are limited because they regard action as having a single function: to change the world. By recognizing a second function of action - an epistemic function - we can explain many of the actions that a traditional model cannot. Although, our argument is supported by numerous examples specifically from Tetris, we outline how the one category of epistemic action can be incorporated into theories of action more generally.
Krueger, Joel W. (2009). Empathy and the extended mind. Zygon 44 (3):675-698.   (Google)
Abstract: I draw upon the conceptual resources of the extended mind thesis (EM) to analyze empathy and interpersonal understanding. Against the dominant mentalistic paradigm, I argue that empathy is fundamentally an extended bodily activity and that much of our social understanding happens outside of the head. First, I look at how the two dominant models of interpersonal understanding, theory theory and simulation theory, portray the cognitive link between folk psychology and empathy. Next, I challenge their internalist orthodoxy and offer an alternative "extended" characterization of empathy. In support of this characterization, I analyze some narratives of individuals with Moebius syndrome, a kind of expressive deficit resulting from bilateral facial paralysis. I conclude by discussing how a Zen Buddhist ethics of responsiveness is helpful for articulating the practical significance of an extended, body-based account of empathy
Levy, Neil (2007). Rethinking neuroethics in the light of the extended mind thesis. American Journal of Bioethics 7 (9):3-11.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The extended mind thesis is the claim that mental states extend beyond the skulls of the agents whose states they are. This seemingly obscure and bizarre claim has far-reaching implications for neuroethics, I argue. In the first half of this article, I sketch the extended mind thesis and defend it against criticisms. In the second half, I turn to its neuroethical implications. I argue that the extended mind thesis entails the falsity of the claim that interventions into the brain are especially problematic just because they are internal interventions, but that many objections to such interventions rely, at least in part, on this claim. Further, I argue that the thesis alters the focus of neuroethics, away from the question of whether we ought to allow interventions into the mind, and toward the question of which interventions we ought to allow and under what conditions. The extended mind thesis dramatically expands the scope of neuroethics: because interventions into the environment of agents can count as interventions into their minds, decisions concerning such interventions become questions for neuroethics
Marsh, Leslie (2009). Mindscapes and landscapes: Exploring the extended mind. Zygon 44 (3):625-627.   (Google)
Abstract: This brief article introduces a symposium discussing the extended mind thesis and its suggestive relation to religious thought. Essays by Mark Rowlands, Lynne Rudder Baker, Teed Rockwell, Joel Krueger, Leonard Angel, and Matthew Day present a variety of perspectives
Marsh, Leslie (2005). Review Essay: Andy Clark's Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence_. Cognitive Systems Research 6:405-409.   (Google)
Abstract: The notion of the cyborg has exercised the popular imagination for almost two hundred years. In very general terms the idea that a living entity can be a hybrid of both organic matter and mechanical parts, and for all intents and purposes be seamlessly functional and self-regulating, was prefigured in literary works such as Shellys Frankenstein (1816/18) and Samuel Butlers Erewhon (1872). This notion of hybridism has been a staple theme of 20th century science fiction writing, television programmes and the cinema. For the most part, these works trade on a deep sense of unease we have about our personal identity – how could some non-organic matter to which I have so little conscious access count as a bona fide part of me? Cognitive scientist and philosopher, Andy Clark, picks up this general theme and presents an empirical and philosophical case for the following inextricably linked theses.
Marsh, Leslie & Onof, Christian (2008). Stigmergic epistemology, stigmergic cognition. Cognitive Systems Research 9 (1-2).   (Google)
Abstract: To know is to cognize, to cognize is to be a culturally bounded, rationality-bounded and environmentally located agent. Knowledge and cognition are thus dual aspects of human sociality. If social epistemology has the formation, acquisition, mediation, transmission and dissemination of knowledge in complex communities of knowers as its subject matter, then its third party character is essentially stigmergic. In its most generic formulation, stigmergy is the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment. Extending this notion one might conceive of social stigmergy as the extra-cranial analog of an artifcial neural network providing epistemic structure. This paper recommends a stigmergic framework for social epistemology to account for the supposed tension between individual action, wants and beliefs and the social corpora. We also propose that the so-called "extended mind" thesis offers the requisite stigmergic cognitive analog to stigmergic knowledge. Stigmergy as a theory of interaction within complex systems theory is illustrated through an example that runs on a particle swarm optimization algorithm.
Menary, Richard (2006). Attacking the Bounds of cognition. Philosophical Psychology 19 (3):329-344.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Recently internalists have mounted a counter-attack on the attempt to redefine the bounds of cognition. The counter-attack is aimed at a radical project which I call "cognitive integration," which is the view that internal and external vehicles and processes are integrated into a whole. Cognitive integration can be defended against the internalist counter arguments of Adams and Aizawa (A&A) and Rupert. The disagreement between internalists and integrationists is whether the manipulation of external vehicles constitutes a cognitive process. Integrationists think that they do, typically for reasons to do with the close coordination and causal interplay between internal and external processes. The internalist criticisms of the manipulation thesis fail because they misconstrue the nature of manipulation, ignore the hybrid nature of cognition, and take the manipulation thesis to be dependent upon a weak parity principle
Menary, Richard (2007). Cognitive Integration: Mind and Cognition Unbounded. Palgrave Macmillan.   (Google)
Abstract: In Cognitive Integration: Attacking The Bounds of Cognition Richard Menary argues that the real pay-off from extended-mind-style arguments is not a new form of externalism in the philosophy of mind, but a view in which the 'internal' and 'external' aspects of cognition are integrated into a whole. Menary argues that the manipulation of external vehicles constitutes cognitive processes and that cognition is hybrid: internal and external processes and vehicles complement one another in the completion of cognitive tasks. However, we cannot make good on these claims without understanding the cognitive norms by which we manipulate bodily external vehicles of cognition. Shaun Gallagher: “Menary sets out some extremely welcome clarifications that help to integrate the models of embodied and extended cognition. He not only provides convincing responses to all of the main objections that have been made against these approaches, he also puts flesh on the integrated model by incorporating concepts such as epistemic action, by expanding the discussion to include a Peircean view of representation, by demonstrating its evolutionary roots, and by exploring its implications for language and cognition. This is one of those books that takes us forward a number of giant steps. Menary makes it comprehensive and comprehensible.”
Menary, Richard (2009). Intentionality, cognitive integration and the continuity thesis. Topoi 28 (1):31-43.   (Google)
Abstract: Naturalistic philosophers ought to think that the mind is continuous with the rest of the world and should not, therefore, be surprised by the findings of the extended mind, cognitive integration and enactivism. Not everyone is convinced that all mental phenomena are continuous with the rest of the world. For example, intentionality is often formulated in a way that makes the mind discontinuous with the rest of the world. This is a consequence of Brentano’s formulation of intentionality, I suggest, and can be overcome by revealing that the concept of intentional directedness as he receives it from the Scholastics is quite consistent with the continuity thesis. It is only when intentional directedness is conjoined with intentional inexistence that intentionality and content are consistent with a discontinuity thesis (such as Brentano’s thesis). This makes room to develop an account of intentional directedness that is consistent with the continuity thesis in the form of Peirce’s representational principle. I also argue against a form of the discontinuity thesis in the guise of the derived/underived content distinction. Having shown that intentionality is consistent with the continuity thesis I argue that we should focus on intentionality and representation as bodily enacted. I conclude that we would be better off focussing on representation and intentionality in action rather than giving abstract functional accounts of extended cognition
Menary, Richard (forthcoming). The extended mind and cognitive integration. In Richard Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind. Mit Press.   (Google)
Menary, Richard (2007). Writing As Thinking. Language Sciences 29:621-632.   (Google)
Abstract: In this paper I aim to show that the creation and manipulation of written vehicles is part of our cognitive processing and, therefore, that writing transforms our cognitive abilities. I do this from the perspective of cognitive integration: completing a complex cognitive, or mental, task is enabled by a co-ordinated interaction between neural processes, bodily processes and manipulating written sentences. In section one I introduce Harris’ criticisms of ways in which writing has been said to restructure thought (Goody 1968; McLuhan 1962, 1964; Ong 1982). This will give us a preliminary idea about possible pitfalls for a cognitive integrationist account. The second section outlines, firstly, how integrated cognitive systems function. Secondly, the model is applied to a hybrid mental act where writing allows us to complete complex cognitive tasks. The final section outlines the sense in which, following Harris, there is “a more realistic picture of how writing restructures thought” [Harris, R., 1989. How does writing restructure thought? Language and Communication 9 (2/3) 99–106] that is concealed by the ‘romantic fantasies’ of theorists such as the above. This picture is one of writing providing an autoglottic space in which a new form of theoretical thinking becomes prevalent. The cognitive integrationist understands this in terms of the nature of the written vehicles and how we manipulate them.
O'Brien, Gerard (1998). The mind: Embodied, embedded, but not extended. [Journal (Paginated)] 7:8-83.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This commentry focuses on the one major ecumenical theme propounded in Andy Clark's Being There that I find difficult to accept; this is Clark’s advocacy, especially in the third and final part of the book, of the extended nature of the embedded, embodied mind
O'Regan, Kevin J. (1992). Solving the "real" mysteries of visual perception: The world as an outside memory. Canadian Journal of Psychology 46:461-88.   (Cited by 359 | Google | More links)
Parsell, Mitch (2006). The cognitive cost of extending an evolutionary mind into the environment. Cognitive Processing 7 (1): 3-10.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Clark and Chalmers (1998) have argued that mental states can be extended outside an organism
Rowlands, Mark (2009). Enactivism and the extended mind. Topoi 28 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: According to the view that has become known as the extended mind , some token mental processes extend into the cognizing organism’s environment in that they are composed (partly) of manipulative, exploitative, and transformative operations performed by that subject on suitable environmental structures. Enactivist models understand mental processes as (partly) constituted by sensorimotor knowledge and by the organism’s ability to act, in appropriate ways, on environmental structures. Given the obvious similarities between the two views, it is both tempting and common to regard them as essentially variations on the same theme. In this paper, I shall argue that the similarities between enactivist and extended models of cognition are relatively superficial, and the divergences are deeper than commonly thought
Rowlands, Mark (2009). Extended cognition and the mark of the cognitive. Philosophical Psychology 22 (1):1 – 19.   (Google)
Abstract: According to the thesis of the extended mind (EM) , at least some token cognitive processes extend into the cognizing subject's environment in the sense that they are (partly) composed of manipulative, exploitative, and transformative operations performed by that subject on suitable environmental structures. EM has attracted four ostensibly distinct types of objection. This paper has two goals. First, it argues that these objections all reduce to one basic sort: all the objections can be resolved by the provision of an adequate and properly motivated criterion—or mark—of the cognitive. Second, it provides such a criterion—one made up of four conditions that are sufficient for a process to count as cognitive
Rowlands, Mark, 1. the extended mind.   (Google)
Abstract: According to the view known variously as the extended mind (Clark & Chalmers 1998), vehicle externalism (Hurley 1998; Rowlands 2003, 2006) active externalism (Clark and Chalmers 1998), locational externalism (Wilson 2004) and environmentalism (Rowlands 1999), at least some token mental processes extend into the cognizing organism’s environment in that they are composed, partly (and, on most versions, contingently), of manipulative, exploitative, and transformative operations performed by that subject on suitable environmental structures. More precisely, what I shall refer to as the thesis of the extended mind (EM) is constituted by the following claims: • The world is an external store of information relevant to processes such as perceiving, remembering, reasoning … (and possibly) experiencing. • At least some mental processes are hybrid – they straddle both internal and external operations. • The external operations take the form of action: manipulation, exploitation and transformation of environmental structures – ones that carry information relevant to the accomplishing of a given task. • At least some of the internal processes are ones concerned with supplying a subject with the ability to appropriately use relevant structures in its environment. As I shall understand it, therefore, the thesis of the extended mind is (1) an ontic thesis, of (2) partial and (3) contingent (4) composition of (5) some mental processes.[1] 1. It is ontic in the sense that it is a thesis about what (some) mental processes are, as opposed to an epistemic thesis about the best way of understanding mental processes. This ontic claim, of course, has an epistemic consequence: it is not possible to understand the nature of at least some of the mental processes without understanding the extent to which that organism is capable of manipulating, exploiting and transforming relevant structures in its environment (Rowlands 1999)..
Rowlands, Mark (2009). The extended mind. Zygon 44 (3):628-641.   (Google)
Abstract: The extended mind is the thesis that some mental—typically cognitive—processes are partly composed of operations performed by cognizing organisms on the world around them. The operations in question are ones of manipulation, transformation, or exploitation of environmental structures. And the structures in question are ones that carry information pertinent to the success or efficacy of the cognitive process in question. This essay examines the thesis of the extended mind and evaluates the arguments for and against it
Rupert, Robert D. (forthcoming). Cognitive Systems and the Supersized Mind. Philosophical Studies.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension (Clark, 2008), Andy Clark bolsters his case for the extended mind thesis and casts a critical eye on some related views for which he has less enthusiasm. To these ends, the book canvasses a wide range of empirical results concerning the subtle manner in which the human organism and its environment interact in the production of intelligent behavior. This fascinating research notwithstanding, Supersizing does little to assuage my skepticism about the hypotheses of extended cognition and extended mind. In particular, Supersizing fails to make the case for the extended view as a revolutionary thesis in the theoretical foundations of cognitive science
Rupert, Robert D. (forthcoming). Critical Study of Andy Clark's Supersizing the Mind. Journal of Mind and Behavior.   (Google)
Rupert, Robert D. (2004). Challenges to the hypothesis of extended cognition. Journal of Philosophy 101 (8):389-428.   (Cited by 13 | Google)
Rupert, Robert D. (2009). Innateness and the situated mind. In P. Robbins & M. Aydede (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition. Cambridge University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: forthcoming in P. Robbins and M. Aydede (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (Cambridge UP)
Rupert, Robert D. (ms). Keeping HEC in CHEC.   (Google)
Rupert, Robert D. (forthcoming). Representation in extended cognitive systems: Does the scaffolding of language extend the mind? In Richard Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind. MIT Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Abstract: forthcoming in R. Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind
Rupert, Robert D. (2010). Systems, Functions, and Intrinsic Natures: On Adams and Aizawa's The Bounds of Cognition. Philosophical Psychology.   (Google)
Abstract: Review essay contrasting Adams and Aizawa's approach to cognition with a functionalist, systems-based view.
Shapiro, Lawrence A. (2009). A review of Frederick Adams and Kenneth Aizawa, the Bounds of cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8 (2).   (Google)
Shapiro, Larry (web). Functionalism and mental boundaries. Cognitive Systems Research 9 (1-2).   (Google)
Sneddon, Andrew (2002). Towards externalist psychopathology. Philosophical Psychology 15 (3):297-316.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The "width" of the mind is an important topic in contemporary philosophical psychology. Support for active externalism derives from theoretical, engineering, and observational perspectives. Given the history of psychology, psychopathology is notable in its absence from the list of avenues of support for the idea that some cognitive processes extend beyond the physical bounds of the organism in question. The current project is to defend the possibility, plausibility, and desirability of externalist psychopathology. Doing so both adds to the case for externalism and suggests ways of improving our study of cognitive dysfunction. I establish the possibility of externalist psychopathology through the development of models of wide cognitive processing, and, by implication, failure of such processing, from the work of S.L. Hurley and Robert Wilson. The plausibility of wide conceptualization and explanation of cognitive disorders is shown through an examination of apraxia, disorders of learned, skilled movements. The desirability of externalist psychopathology is suggested through a look at theoretical and therapeutic virtues, again drawing on Wilson's work
Sprevak, Mark, Extended cognition and functionalism.   (Google)
Abstract: Andy Clark and David Chalmers claim that cognitive processes can and do extend outside the head.1 Call this the “hypothesis of extended cognition” (HEC). HEC has been strongly criticised by Fred Adams, Ken Aizawa and Robert Rupert.2 In this paper I argue for two claims. First, HEC is a harder target than Rupert, Adams and Aizawa have supposed. A widely-held view about the nature of the mind, functionalism—a view to which Rupert, Adams and Aizawa appear to subscribe— entails HEC. Either HEC is true, or functionalism is false. The relationship between functionalism and HEC goes beyond support for the relatively uncontroversial claim that it is logically or nomologically possible for cognition to extend (the “can” part of HEC); functionalism entails that cognitive processes do extend in the actual world. Second, I argue that the version of HEC entailed by functionalism is more radical than the version that Clark and Chalmers suggest. I argue that it is so radical as to form a counterexample to functionalism. If functionalism is modified to prevent these consequences, then HEC falls victim to Rupert, Adams and Aizawa’s original criticism. An advocate of HEC has two choices: (1) accept functionalism and radical HEC; (2) give up HEC entirely. Clark and Chalmers’ intermediate position of a modest form of HEC is unsustainable. The argument of this paper, although initially appearing to support Clark and Chalmers, ultimately argues against their position. The price of HEC is rampant expansion of the mind into the world, and the implausibility of such expansion is indicative of deep-seated problems with functionalism. The argument of this paper consequently speaks to wider issues than just the status of HEC. The reasons for..
Sterelny, Kim (2004). Externalism, epistemic artefacts and the extended mind. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)
Abstract: A common picture of evolution by natural selection sees it as a process through which organisms change so that they become better adapted to their environment. However, agents do not merely respond to the challenges their environments pose. They modify their environments, filtering and transforming the action of the environment on their bodies A beaver, in making a dam, engineers a stream, increasing both the size of its safe refuge and reducing its seasonal variability. Beavers, like many other animals, are ecological engineers. They act to modify the physical challenges posed by their environment. Nests, burrows and other shelters reduce the impacts of adverse weather and of other agents. Animal also modify their exposure to biological risks. Hygienic behaviour reduces the impact of disease. Intensive grooming; moving to new roosts; using a
Sutton, John (2006). Exograms and interdisciplinarity: History, the extended mind and the civilizing process. In Richard Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind. Ashgate.   (Google)
Sutton, John (2006). Introduction: Memory, embodied cognition, and the extended mind. Philosophical Psychology 19 (3):281-289.   (Cited by 21 | Google | More links)
Abstract: I introduce the seven papers in this special issue, by Andy Clark, J
Menary, Richard (ed.) (forthcoming). The Extended Mind. MIT Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? In their famous 1998 paper "The Extended Mind," philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers posed this question and answered it provocatively: cognitive processes "ain't all in the head." The environment has an active role in driving cognition; cognition is sometimes made up of neural, bodily, and environmental processes. Their argument excited a vigorous debate among philosophers, both supporters and detractors. This volume brings together for the first time the best responses to Clark and Chalmers's bold proposal. These responses, together with the original paper by Clark and Chalmers, offer a valuable overview of the latest research on the extended mind thesis. The contributors first discuss (and answer) objections raised to Clark and Chalmers's thesis. Andy Clark himself responds to critics in an essay that uses the movie Memento's amnesia-aiding notes and tattoos to illustrate the workings of the extended mind. Contributors then consider the different directions in which the extended mind project might be taken, including the need for an approach that focuses on cognitive activity and practice.
Thompson, Evan & Stapleton, Mog (2009). Making sense of sense-making: Reflections on enactive and extended mind theories. Topoi 28 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: This paper explores some of the differences between the enactive approach in cognitive science and the extended mind thesis. We review the key enactive concepts of autonomy and sense-making . We then focus on the following issues: (1) the debate between internalism and externalism about cognitive processes; (2) the relation between cognition and emotion; (3) the status of the body; and (4) the difference between ‘incorporation’ and mere ‘extension’ in the body-mind-environment relation
Walter, Sven & Kyselo, Miriam (2009). Fred Adams, Ken Aizawa: The Bounds of cognition. Erkenntnis 71 (2).   (Google)
Weiskopf, Daniel A. (2008). Patrolling the mind's boundaries. Erkenntnis 68 (2).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Defenders of the extended mind thesis say that it is possible that some of our mental states may be constituted, in part, by states of the extra-bodily environment. Often they also add that such extended mentation is a commonplace phenomenon. I argue that extended mentation, while not impossible, is either nonexistent or far from widespread. Genuine beliefs as they occur in normal biologically embodied systems are informationally integrated with each other, and sensitive to changes in the person
Wheeler, Michael (forthcoming). In defence of extended functionalism. In Richard Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind. Mit Press.   (Google)
Abstract: According to the extended cognition hypothesis (henceforth ExC), there are conditions under which thinking and thoughts (or more precisely, the material vehicles that realize thinking and thoughts) are spatially distributed over brain, body and world, in such a way that the external (beyond-the-skin) factors concerned are rightly accorded fully-paid-up cognitive status.1 According to functionalism in the philosophy of mind, “what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part” (Levin 2008). The respective fates of these two positions may not be independent of each other. The claim that ExC is in some way a form of, dependent on, entailed by, or at least commonly played out in terms of, functionalism is now pretty much part of the received view of things (see, e.g., Adams and Aizawa 2008; Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2005, 2008, this volume a, b, forthcoming; Menary 2007; Rupert 2004; Sprevak manuscript; Wheeler forthcoming). Thus ExC might be mandated by the existence of functionally specified cognitive systems whose boundaries are located partly outside the skin. This is the position that Andy Clark has recently dubbed extended functionalism (Clark 2008, forthcoming; see also Wheeler forthcoming)
Wheeler, Michael (ms). Minds, things, and materiality.   (Google)
Abstract: In a rich and thought-provoking paper, Lambros Malafouris argues that taking material culture seriously means to be ‘systematically concerned with figuring out the causal efficacy of materiality in the enactment and constitution of a cognitive system or operation’ (Malafouris 2004, 55). As I understand this view, there are really two intertwined claims to be established. The first is that the things beyond the skin that make up material culture (in other words, the physical objects and artefacts in which cultural networks and systems of human social relations are realized) may be essential to the enactment of, and be partly constitutive of, certain cognitive systems or operations. The consequence of establishing this claim is supposed to be that we have a mandate to recast the boundaries of the mind so as to include, as proper parts of the mind, things located beyond the skin. Thus, in talking about the contribution of the world to cognition, Malafouris (2004, 58) concludes that ‘what we have traditionally construed as an active or passive but always clearly separated external stimulus for setting a cognitive mechanism into motion, may be after all a continuous part of the machinery itself; at least ex hypothesi’. This is the position that, in philosophical circles, is known increasingly as the extended mind hypothesis (Clark & Chalmers 1998; Menary forthcoming). Henceforth I shall refer to this hypothesis as EM. A stock example will help bring the idea into view. Rumelhart et al. (1986) note that most of us solve difficult multiplication problems by using ‘pen and paper’ as an external resource. This environmental prop enables us to transform a difficult cognitive problem into a set of simpler ones, and to temporarily store the results of certain intermediate calculations. For the fan of EM, the distributed combination of this external resource and certain inner psychological processes constitutes a cognitive system in its own right
Wilson, Robert A. (2005). Collective memory, group minds, and the extended mind thesis. Cognitive Processing 6 (4).   (Cited by 12 | Google | More links)
Wilson, Robert A. (2010). Meaning making and the mind of the externalist. In Richard Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind. MIT Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper attempts to do two things. First, it recounts the problem of intentionality, as it has typically been conceptualized, and argues that it needs to be reconceptualized in light of the radical form of externalism most commonly referred to as the extended mind thesis. Second, it provides an explicit, novel argument for that thesis, what I call the argument from meaning making, and offers some defense of that argument. This second task occupies the core of the paper, and in completing it I distinguish _active _ _cognition_ from _cyborg fantasy arguments_ for externalism, and develop the analogy between the extended mind thesis in the cognitive sciences and developmental systems theory in developmental biology. The rethinking of the problem of intentionality on offer leads not so much to a solution as to a dissolution of that problem, as traditionally conceived
Wilson, Robert A. (2000). The mind beyond itself. In Metarepresentations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Wilson, Robert A. (1994). Wide computationalism. Mind 103 (411):351-72.   (Cited by 39 | Google | More links)
Yates, John (ms). The Many Bubble Interpretation, externalism, the extended mind of David Chalmers and Andy Clark, and the work of Alva Noe in connection with Experimental Philosophy and Dreamwork.   (Google)

2.2j Content Internalism and Externalism, Misc

Ball, Derek (2007). Twin-earth externalism and concept possession. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (3):457-472.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: It is widely believed that Twin-Earth-style thought experiments show that the contents of a person's thoughts fail to supervene on her intrinsic properties. Several recent philosophers have made the further claim that Twin-Earth-style thought experiments produce metaphysically necessary conditions for the possession of certain concepts. I argue that the latter view is false, and produce counterexamples to several proposed conditions. My thesis is of particular interest because it undermines some attempts to show that externalism is incompatible with privileged access
Bar-Elli, G. (1994). Intentionality and belief de re: A critical study of Searle's representative internalism. Erkenntnis 41 (1):65-85.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Borg, Emma (2009). Must a semantic minimalist be a semantic internalist? Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 83 (1):31-51.   (Google)
Abstract: I aim to show that a semantic minimalist need not also be a semantic internalist. §I introduces minimalism and internalism and argues that there is a prima facie case for a minimalist being an internalist. §II sketches some positive arguments for internalism which, if successful, show that a minimalist must be an internalist. §III goes on to reject these arguments and contends that the prima facie case for uniting minimalism and internalism is also not compelling. §IV returns to an objection from §I and argues for a way to meet it which does not depend on giving up semantic externalism
Briscoe, Robert (2006). Individualism, externalism and idiolectical meaning. Synthese 152 (1):95-128.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Semantic externalism in contemporary philosophy of language typically – and often tacitly – combines two supervenience claims about idiolectical meaning (i.e., meaning in the language system of an individual speaker). The first claim is that the meaning of a word in a speaker’s idiolect may vary without any variation in her intrinsic, physical properties. The second is that the meaning of a word in a speaker’s idiolect may vary without any variation in her understanding of its use. I here show that a conception of idiolectical meaning is possible that accepts the “anti-internalism” of the first claim while rejecting (what I shall refer to as) the “anti-individualism” of the second. According to this conception, externally constituted idiolectical meaning supervenes on idiolectical understanding.
Brown, Deborah J. (1996). A furry tile about mental representation. Philosophical Quarterly 46 (185):448-66.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Brooks, David (1995). Cartesian inner space. South African Journal of Philosophy 14 (4):135-144.   (Google)
Brown, Jessica (2003). Externalism and the Fregean tradition. In Alex Barber (ed.), Epistemology of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Brower-Toland, Susan (2007). Intuition, Externalism, and Direct Reference in Ockham. History of Philosophy Quarterly 24:317-336.   (Google)
Abstract: In this paper I challenge recent externalist interpretations of Ockham’s theory of intuitive cognition. I begin by distinguishing two distinct theses that defenders of the externalist interpretation typically attribute to Ockham: a ‘direct reference thesis’, according to which intuitive cognitions are states that lack all internal, descriptive content; and a ‘causal thesis’, according to which intuitive states are wholly determined by causal connections they bear to singular objects. I then argue that neither can be plausibly credited to Ockham. In particular, I claim that the causal thesis doesn’t square with Ockham’s account of supernaturally produced intuition and that the direct reference thesis sits uneasily with Ockham’s characterization of the intentional structure of intuitive states.
Brook, D. (1992). Substantial mind. South African Journal of Philosophy 1 (1):15-21.   (Google)
Brown, Deborah J. (1993). Swampman of la mancha. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (3):327-48.   (Annotation | Google)
Buekens, Filip (1994). Externalism, content, and causal histories. Dialectica 48 (3-4):267-86.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Campbell, John (1987). Is sense transparent? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 88:273-292.   (Cited by 15 | Google)
Carpenter, Andrew (1998). Davidson's externalism and the unintelligibility of massive error. Disputatio 4.   (Google)
Collins, John (2009). Methodology, not metaphysics: Against semantic externalism. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 83 (1):53-69.   (Google)
Abstract: Borg (2009) surveys and rejects a number of arguments in favour of semantic internalism. This paper, in turn, surveys and rejects all of Borg's anti-internalist arguments. My chief moral is that, properly conceived, semantic internalism is a methodological doctrine that takes its lead from current practice in linguistics. The unifying theme of internalist arguments, therefore, is that linguistics neither targets nor presupposes externalia. To the extent that this claim is correct, we should be internalists about linguistic phenomena, including semantics
Davidson, Donald (2003). Quine's externalism. Grazer Philosophische Studien 66 (1):281-297.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: In this paper, I credit Quine with having implicitly held a view I had long urged on him: externalism. Quine was the first fully to recognize that all there is to meaning is what we learn or absorb from observed usage. This entails the possibility of indeterminacy, thus destroying the myth of meanings. It also entails a powerful form of externalism. There is, of course, a counter-current in Quine's work of the mid century: the idea of stimulus meaning. Attractive as this choice of empirical base is compared to such options as sense data, appearances, and percepts, it has serious difficulties. In general, an externalism which ties the contents of observation sentences and perceptual beliefs directly to the sorts of situations that usually make them true is superior to those forms of empiricism which introduce intermediaries between word and object
de Vries, Willem A. (1996). Experience and the swamp creature. Philosophical Studies 82 (1):55-80.   (Annotation | Google)
Drai, Dalia (2003). Externalism and identity. Synthese 134 (3):463-475.   (Google | More links)
Edwards, S. (1994). Externalism in the Philosophy of Mind. Avebury.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Engel, Pascal (1987). Functionalism, belief, and content. In S. Torrance (ed.), The Mind and the Machine. Horwood.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Frances, Bryan (2007). Externalism, physicalism, statues, and hunks. Philosophical Studies 133 (2):199-232.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: Content externalism is the dominant view in the philosophy of mind. Content essentialism, the thesis that thought tokens have their contents essentially, is also popular. And many externalists are supporters of such essentialism. However, endorsing the conjunction of those views either (i) commits one to a counterintuitive view of the underlying physical nature of thought tokens or (ii) commits one to a slightly different but still counterintuitive view of the relation of thought tokens to physical tokens as well as a rejection of realist physicalism. In this essay I reveal the problem and articulate and adjudicate among the possible solutions. I will end up rejecting content essentialism
Gauker, Christopher (1991). Mental content and the division of epistemic labour. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (September):302-18.   (Google | More links)
Gerken, Mikkel (2007). A false dilemma for anti-individualism. American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (4):329-42.   (Google)
Gertler, Brie (2007). Content externalism and the epistemic conception of the self. Philosophical Issues 17 (1):37–56.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Our fundamental conception of the self seems to be, broadly speaking, epistemic: selves are things that have thoughts, undergo experiences, and possess reasons for action and belief. In this paper, I evaluate the consequences of this epistemic conception for the widespread view that properties like thinking that arthritis is painful are relational features of the self
Gertler, Brie (2009). Review of Katalin Farkas, The Subject's Point of View. Philosophical Quarterly 59 (237):743-47.   (Google)
Abstract: A few decades ago, in the wake of influential arguments by Putnam and Burge, prevailing opinion among philosophers shifted from internalism to externalism about thought contents. While there was always a vocal minority opposed to externalism, internalist opposition has grown markedly in the past several years. This book represents a major advance in the internalist campaign. Farkas’ ambitious agenda is to advance a strongly internalist account of the mental. She makes impressive strides towards achieving this goal. Along the way, she presents important new arguments on a number of topics, including: how best to understand the ‘twin’ cases used in debates about content, the alleged incompatibility of content externalism and privileged access, and the prospects for defending Frege’s claim that sense determines reference
Gerken, Mikkel (2008). Is internalism about knowledge consistent with content externalism? Philosophia 36 (1):87-96.   (Google)
Abstract: There is widespread suspicion that there is a principled conflict between epistemic internalism and content externalism (or anti-individualism). Despite the prominence of this suspicion, it has rarely been substantiated by explicit arguments. However, Duncan Pritchard and Jesper Kallestrup have recently provided a prima facie argument concluding that internalism about knowledge and externalism about content are incompatible. I criticize the incompatibilist argument and conclude that the purported incompatibility is, at best, prima facie. This is, in part, because several steps in the argument are faulty and, in part, because there are promising responses available to the compatibilists
Gibbons, John (1993). Identity without supervenience. Philosophical Studies 70 (1):59-79.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Gregg, John (online). Language and meaning.   (Google)
Hacker, P. M. S. (1998). Davidson on intentionality and externalism. Philosophy 73 (286):539-552.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Davidson has attempted to integrate externalism into his account of meaning and understanding. He contends that what words mean is fixed in part by the circumstances in which they were learnt, in which the basic connection between words and things is established. This connection is allegedly established by causal interaction between people and the world. Words and sentences derive their meanings from the objects and circumstances in which they were learnt, which
Haukioja, Jussi (2009). Intuitions, Externalism, and Conceptual Analysis. Studia Philosophica Estonica 2:81-93.   (Google)
Abstract: Semantic externalism about a class of expressions is often thought to make conceptual analysis about members of that class impossible. In particular, since externalism about natural kind terms makes the essences of natural kinds empirically discoverable, it seems that mere reflection on one's natural kind concept will not be able to tell one anything substantial about what it is for something to fall under one's natural kind concepts. Many hold the further view that one cannot even know anything substantial about the reference-fixers of one's natural kind concepts by armchair reflection. In this paper I want to question this latter view and claim that, because of the way our standard methodology of doing theories of reference relies on semantic intuitions, typical externalists in fact presuppose that one can know the reference-fixers of one's natural kind concepts by mere armchair reflection. The more interesting question is how substantial such knowledge can be. I also take some steps toward answering this question.
H, (2007). Externalism and a posteriori semantics. Erkenntnis 67 (3).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: It is widely held that the meaning of certain types of terms, such as natural kind terms, is individuated externalistically, in terms of the individual
Hickey, Lance P. (1999). The chomskian challenge to externalism. International Studies in Philosophy 31 (4):39-51.   (Google)
Houghton, David (1997). Mental content and external representations: Internalism, anti-internalism. Philosophical Quarterly 47 (187):159-77.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Hurley, Susan L. (forthcoming). Varieties of externalism. In R. Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind. Ashgate.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Abstract: Externalism comes in varieties. While the landscape isn
Jackson, Frank & Pettit, Philip (1988). Functionalism and broad content. Mind 97 (July):318-400.   (Cited by 79 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Jackman, Henry (2005). Intuitions and semantic theory. Metaphilosophy 36 (3):363-380.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: While engaged in the analysis of topics such as the nature of knowledge, meaning, or justice, analytic philosophers have traditionally relied extensively on their own intuitions about when the relevant terms can, and can't, be correctly applied. Consequently, if intuitions about possible cases turned out not to be a reliable tool for the proper analysis of philosophically central concepts, then a radical reworking of philosophy's (or at least analytic philosophy's) methodology would seem to be in order. It is thus not surprising that the increasingly critical scrutiny that intuitions have received of late has produced what has been referred to as a "crisis" in analytic philosophy. This paper will argue, however, that at least those criticisms that stem from recent work on semantic externalism are not as serious as their proponents have claimed. Indeed, this paper will argue while the conceptual intuitions (and the analyses that result from them) will have to be recognized as fallible, they still have a prima facie claim to correctness. A naturalistic and externalistic account of concepts thus merely requires that the methodology of conceptual analysis be reinterpreted (from a 'Platonic' to a 'constructive' model) rather than given up
Jackson, Frank (2004). On an argument from properties of words to broad content. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Google)
Katz, J. M. (1990). The Domino theory. Philosophical Studies 58 (1-2):3-39.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Korman, Daniel Z. (2006). What externalists should say about dry earth. Journal of Philosophy 103 (10):503-520.   (Google)
Abstract: Dry earth seems to its inhabitants (our intrinsic duplicates) just as earth seems to us, that is, it seems to them as though there are rivers and lakes and a clear, odorless liquid flowing from their faucets. But, in fact, this is an illusion; there is no such liquid anywhere on the planet. I address two objections to externalism concerning the nature of the concept that is expressed by the word 'water' in the mouths of the inhabitants of dry earth. Gabriel Segal presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the application conditions of the concept, and Paul Boghossian presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the complexity of the concept. I show that, in both cases, the externalist may occupy the horn of his choice without departing from either the letter or spirit of externalism
Korman, Daniel Z. (2006). What Externalists Should Say About Dry Earth. The Journal of Philosophy 103:503-520.   (Google)
Abstract: Dry earth seems to its inhabitants (our intrinsic duplicates) just as earth seems to us, that is, it seems to them as though there are rivers and lakes and a clear, odorless liquid flowing from their faucets. But, in fact, this is an illusion; there is no such liquid anywhere on the planet. I address two objections to externalism concerning the nature of the concept that is expressed by the word ‘water’ in the mouths of the inhabitants of dry earth. Gabriel Segal presents a dilemma for the externalist concering the application conditions of the concept, and Paul Boghossian presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the complexity of the concept. I show that, in both cases, the externalist may occupy the horn of his choice without departing from either the letter or spirit of externalism.
Larkin, William S. (online). Content and metacognition.   (Google)
Abstract: C. Theses: 1. Content Externalism strictly implies the possibility of acquiring a new concept as the result of an unwitting switch of environments. 2. This intuitively compels us to accept the possibility of someone possessing a concept without being aware that she does. 3. This possibility strictly favors causal models of meta-cognition over constitution models. 4. The possibility of possessing a concept unawares suggests that the contents of metacognitive
Leclerc, Andre (2005). Davidson's externalism and swampman's troublesome biography. Principia 9 (1-2):159-175.   (Google)
Levison, Arnold B. & Rosenkrantz, Gary S. (1983). Mental events: An epistemic analysis. Philosophia 12 (March):307-321.   (Google | More links)
Liston, Michael N. (1998). Externalist determinants of reference. Protosociology 11:173-215.   (Google)
Longworth, Guy (2003). Where should we look for the mind? Think 5.   (Google)
Macdonald, C. (1998). Externalism and norms. In Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Contemporary Issues in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Macdonald, C. (1990). Weak externalism and mind-body identity. Mind 99 (395):387-404.   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Madison, B. J. C. (2009). On the Compatibility of Epistemic Internalism and Content Externalism. Acta Analytica 24 (3):173-183.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper I consider a recent argument of Timothy Williamson’s that epistemic internalism and content externalism are indeed incompatible, and since he takes content externalism to be above reproach, so much the worse for epistemic internalism. However, I argue that epistemic internalism, properly understood, remains substantially unaffected no matter which view of content turns out to be correct. What is key to the New Evil Genius thought experiment is that, given everything of which the inhabitants are consciously aware, the two worlds are subjectively indistinguishable for them, which is what matters on internalist accounts of epistemic justification. I argue that even if a standard moral of the New Evil Genius intuition is untenable due to considerations arising from content externalism, the case can be understood as supporting epistemic internalism in a way that is wholly compatible with content externalism. In short, epistemic internalism is committed to sameness of justificatory status between subjectively indistinguishable counterparts, not sameness of content of their justifiers.
Malmgren, Helge (online). The "internal/external" metaphor in the philosophy of mind.   (Google)
Abstract: The being of the _cogitatio,_ or to be more exact, of the knowledge-phenomenon itself, cannot
be questioned, and it is free from the riddle of transcendence. /.../ It is also obvious, that the
_cogitationes_ represent a sphere of absolute immanent givens, in which sense we also interpret
immanence. In the seeing [Schauen] of the pure phenomenon, the object is not outside the
knowledge, outside consciousness, and at the same time it is given in the sense of the absolute
self-givenness of a purely seen object."
Mcculloch, Gregory (1988). Carruthers repulsed. Analysis 48 (March):96-100.   (Google)
McCulloch, Gregory (1995). The Mind and its World. Routledge.   (Cited by 32 | Google)
Abstract: Since Descartes, the mind has been thought to be "in the head," separable from the world and even from the body it inhabits. In The Mind and its World , Gregory McCulloch considers the latest debates in philosophy and cognitive science about whether the thinking subject actually requires an environment in order to be able to think. McCulloch explores the mind/body duality from the Enlightenment to the 20th century. He examines such figures as Descartes, Frege, Locke, and Wittgenstein. His method is comparative, and his insights are illuminating. By pitting Descartes against such thinkers as Wittgenstein and Frege, McCulloch produces a dynamic account of the implications of the Descartian argument about consciousness and the mind. The contrast evolves into McCulloch's original theory of externalism, the notion that the mind is not in the head, and is constituted by environmental, and linguistic object relations. The Mind and its World is a clearand compelling reading of the one of the dominant elements and debates within Western philosophy. Its synthesis of the arguments and controversies will make this book necessary reading for the general reader who is interested in the claims the Enlightenment and its aftermath have made about consciousness, our "minds", and even our brains._
McGinn, Colin (1982). The structure of content. In Andrew Woodfield (ed.), Thought and Object. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 83 | Annotation | Google)
Millikan, Ruth G. (2004). Comments on "Millikan's compromised externalism". In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Google)
Millikan, Ruth G. (2004). Existence proof for a viable externalism. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Millikan, Ruth G. (1997). On cognitive luck: Externalism in an evolutionary frame. In Peter K. Machamer & Martin Carrier (eds.), Philosophy and the Sciences of Mind.   (Cited by 7 | Google)
Abstract: "Paleontologists like to say that to a first approximation, all species are extinct (ninety- nine percent is the usual estimate). The organisms we see around us are distant cousins, not great grandparents; they are a few scattered twig-tips of an enormous tree whose branches and trunk are no longer with us." (p. 343-44). The historical life bush consists mainly in dead ends
Nelkin, Norton (1988). Internality, externality, and intentionality. In Perspectives On Mind. Dordrecht: Kluwer.   (Google)
Owens, Joseph (1987). In defense of a different doppelganger. Philosophical Review 96 (October):521-54.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)
Owens, Joseph (1994). Psychological externalism. In The Mind-Body Problem: A Guide to the Current Debate. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Google)
Owens, Joseph (1992). Psychophysical supervenience: Its epistemological foundation. Synthese 90 (1):89-117.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Pereboom, Derk (1995). Conceptual structure and the individuation of content. Philosophical Perspectives 9:401-428.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Current attempts to understand psychological content divide into two families of views. According to externalist accounts such as those advanced by Tyler Burge and Ruth Millikan, psychological content does not supervene on the physical features of the individual subject, but is fixed partially by the nature of the world external to her.1 In the rival functional role theories developed by Ned Block and Brian Loar, content does supervene on the physical features of the individual, and is, in addition, determined solely by the role it plays in the causal network of an individual's sensations, behavior, and mental states.2 Over the past fifteen years, criticism of these two types of views has often focussed on their capacity to individuate content in an acceptable way, and both seem to be deficient in this respect
Pettit, Philip (ed.) (1986). Subject, Thought, And Context. NY: Clarendon Press.   (Cited by 23 | Google)
Potrc, Matjaz (1989). Externalizing content. In Johannes L. Brandl & Wolfgang L. Gomobcz (eds.), The Mind of Donald Davidson. Netherlands: Rodopi.   (Google)
Preti, Consuelo (2000). Belief and desire under the Elms. Protosociology 14:270-284.   (Google)
Preti, Consuelo (1998). The irrelevance of supervenience. Protosociology 11:160-172.   (Google)
Rey, Georges (2004). Millikan's compromised externalism. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Google)
Rey, Georges (1992). Semantic externalism and conceptual competence. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 66:315-33.   (Cited by 9 | Annotation | Google)
Rowlands, Mark (1989). Discussion of Jackson and Pettit, Functionalism and Broad Content. Mind 98 (April):269-275.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Rowlands, Mark (1995). Externalism and token-token identity. Philosophia 24 (3-4):359-75.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Rowlands, Mark (1999). The Body in Mind: Understanding Cognitive Processes. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 67 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In this book, Mark Rowlands challenges the Cartesian view of the mind as a self-contained monadic entity, and offers in its place a radical externalist or environmentalist model of cognitive processes. Drawing on both evolutionary theory and a detailed examination of the processes involved in perception, memory, thought and language use, Rowlands argues that cognition is, in part, a process whereby creatures manipulate and exploit relevant objects in their environment. This innovative book provides a foundation for an unorthodox but increasingly popular view of the nature of cognition
R, (1994). Internalism, externalism, and Davidson's conception of the mental. In Language, Mind, and Epistemology: On Donald Davidson's Philosophy. Dordrecht: Kluwer.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Rudd, Anthony J. (1997). Two types of externalism. Philosophical Quarterly 47 (189):501-7.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Rupert, Robert (2008). Causal theories of mental content. Philosophy Compass 3 (2):353–380.   (Google | More links)
Rupert, Robert D. (forthcoming). Causal Theories of Intentionality. In Hal Pashler (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Mind. Sage.   (Google)
Sainsbury, R. M. (1991). Cartesian possibilities and the externality and extrinsicness of content. Synthese 89 (3):407-424.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Schroeter, Laura (2007). Illusion of transparency. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (4):597 – 618.   (Google)
Abstract: It's generally agreed that, for a certain a class of cases, a rational subject cannot be wrong in treating two elements of thought as co-referential. Even anti-individualists like Tyler Burge agree that empirical error is impossible in such cases. I argue that this immunity to empirical error is illusory and sketch a new anti-individualist approach to concepts that doesn't require such immunity
Seager, William E. (1992). Externalism and token identity. Philosophical Quarterly 42 (169):439-48.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Segal, Gabriel (2004). Reference, causal powers, externalist intuitions, and unicorns. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Google)
Abstract: In this chapter, I will compare and contrast singular concepts with what I call
Smith, Leslie (2003). Internality of mental representation: Twenty questions for interactivism. Comment. Consciousness and Emotion 4 (2):307-326.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Smith, David Woodruff (1990). Thoughts. Philosophical Papers 19 (November):163-189.   (Google)
Sneddon, Andrew (2008). The depths and shallows of psychological externalism. Philosophical Studies 138 (3).   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper examines extant ways of classifying varieties of psychological externalism and argues that they imply a hitherto unrecognized distinction between shallow and deep externalism. The difference is between starting points: shallowly externalist hypotheses begin with the attribution of psychological states to individuals, just as individualistic hypotheses do, whereas deeply externalistic hypotheses begin with agent-environment interaction as the basis of cognitive processes and attribute psychological states to individuals as necessary for such interaction. The over-arching aim is to show how deep externalism works and what its implications are for psychological and philosophical theorizing
Stalnaker, Robert (1989). On what's in the head. Philosophical Perspectives 3:287-319.   (Cited by 22 | Google | More links)
Stroud, Barry G. (2004). The epistemological promise of externalism. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Google)
Thomas, J. R. (1996). Analogies and the mind of the replica: Sunburn, the little green bug, and the fake plant. Philosophical Quarterly 46 (184):364-371.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Toribio, Josefa (1997). Ecological content. Pragmatics and Cognition 5 (2):253-281.   (Google)
Vahid, Hamid (2003). Content externalism and the internalism/externalism debate in justification theory. European Journal of Philosophy 11 (1):89-107.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Van Gulick, Robert (2004). Outing the mind. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Google)
Voltolini, Alberto (online). Internalism and externalism. Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind.   (Google)
Voltolini, Alberto (2005). On the metaphysics of internalism and externalism. Disputation 18 (2).   (Google)
Abstract: In this paper, I explore the consequences of the thesis that externalism and internalism are (possibly, but as we will see not necessarily, opposite) metaphysical doctrines on the individuation conditions of a thought. If I am right, this thesis primarily entails that at least some naturalist positions on the ontology of the mind, namely the reductionistic ones, are hardly compatible with both externalism and a version of internalism so conceived, namely relational internalism. Indeed, according to both externalism and relational internalism, intentionality constitutes (or at least grounds) the relational content property providing the individuation conditions of a thought, as a relation to an outer or to an inner object respectively. Yet since intentionality turns out to be a modal, hence a nonnatural, property, both externalism and relational internalism deny to thoughts at least token-identity with physical states. Finally, I will give some support to the idea that externalism and internalism must be interpreted as doctrines on the individuation conditions of a thought
Walker, Vern R. (1990). In defense of a different taxonomy: A reply to Owens. Philosophical Review 99 (3):425-431.   (Cited by 6 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Wedgwood, Ralph (2006). The internal and external components of cognition. In Robert J. Stainton (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Timothy Williamson has presented several arguments that seek to cast doubt on the idea that cognition can be factorized into internal and external components. In the first section of this paper, I attempt to evaluate these arguments. My conclusion will be that these arguments establish several highly important points, but in the end these arguments fail to cast any doubt either on the idea that cognitive science should be largely concerned with internal mental processes, or on the idea that cognition can be analysed in terms of the existence of a suitable connection between internal and external components. I shall present an argument for the conclusion that cognition involves certain causal processes that are entirely internal
Wikforss, Asa Maria (2006). Content Externalism and Fregean Sense. In P. Marvan (ed.), What Determines Content? The Internalism/Externalism Dispute. Cambridge Scholars Press.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Can externalist concepts really capture an individual
Wikforss, Asa Maria & Haggqvist, Soren (web). Externalism and a posteriori semantics. Erkenntnis.   (Google)
Abstract: We have become accustomed to the idea that meaning is determined externalistically, that the meaning of certain types of terms, for example natural kind terms, depends on facts about the external environment.1 Recently, however, a more radical thesis has emerged, a thesis we shall dub
Wilson, Robert A. (2004). Boundaries of the Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences: Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 38 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Where does the mind begin and end? Robert Wilson establishes the foundations for the view that the mind extends beyond the boundary of the individual. He blends traditional philosophical analysis, cognitive science, and the history of psychology and the human sciences. Wilson then develops novel accounts of mental representation and consciousness, discussing a range of other issues, such as nativism and the idea of group minds. Boundaries of the Mind re-evaluates the place of the individual in the cognitive, biological and social sciences (what Wilson calls the fragile sciences) with an emphasis on cognition. The book will appeal to a broad range of professionals and students in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and the history of the behavioral and human sciences. Robert A. Wilson is professor of philosophy at the University of Alberta. He is author or editor of five other books, including the award-winning The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (MIT Press, 1999)
Williamson, Timothy (2006). Can cognition be factorized into internal and external components? In Robert J. Stainton (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.   (Google)
Abstract: 0. Platitudinously, cognitive science is the science of cognition. Cognition is usually defined as something like the process of acquiring, retaining and applying knowledge. To a first approximation, therefore, cognitive science is the science of knowing. Knowing is a relation between the knower and the known. Typically, although not always, what is known involves the environment external to the knower. Thus knowing typically involves a relation between the agent and the external environment. It is not internal to the agent, for the internal may be the same whether or not it is related to the external in a way that constitutes knowing. Cognition enables agents to achieve their goals by adjusting their actions appropriately to the environment. Such adjustment requires what is internal to the agent to be in some sense in line with what is external; that matching depends on both internal and external sides. Thus if cognitive science were restricted to what is internal to the agent, it would lose sight of its primary object of study. Although cognition depends on both the internal and the external, one can try to analyse it into internal and external factors. Call a state S narrow if and only if whether an agent is in S at a time t depends only on the total internal qualitative state of S at t, so that if one agent in one possible situation is internally an exact duplicate of another agent..
Williams, Michael (1990). Externalism and the philosophy of mind. Philosophical Quarterly 40:352-80.   (Google | More links)
Wilson, Robert A. (2002). Individualism. In Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Williamson, Timothy (2004). Sosa on abilities, concepts, and externalism. In John Greco (ed.), Ernest Sosa and His Critics. Blackwell Publishing.   (Google)
Abstract: A kind of intellectual project characteristic of Ernest Sosa is to resolve an apparently flat-out dispute by showing that it is not after all a zero-sum game. His irenic goal is to do justice to both sides and give each of them most of what it wants. In his subtle paper ‘Abilities, Concepts, and Externalism’ he applies this strategy to the dispute between internalism and externalism in the philosophy of mind. It is a pleasure to engage in discussion with a philosopher of Sosa’s fair-mindedness and analytical skills
Woodfield, Andrew (1986). Two categories of content. Mind and Language 1:319-54.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)

2.3 Naturalizing Mental Content

Akins, Kathleen (1996). Of sensory systems and the "aboutness" of mental states. Journal of Philosophy 93 (7).   (Google)
Callaway, H. G. (1995). Intentionality naturalized: Continuity, reconstruction, and instrumentalism. Dialectica 49 (2-4):147-68.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: This paper explicates and defends a social-naturalist conception of internationality and intentions, where internationality of scientific expressions is fundamental. Meanings of expressions are a function of their place in language-systems and of the relations of systems to object-level evidence and associated community activities-including deliberation and experiment. Naturalizing internationality requires social-intellectual reconstruction exemplified by the scientific community at its best. This approach emphasizes normative elements of pragmatic conceptions of meaning and their function in orientation. It requires social conditions and intellectual practices making knowledge of intentions possible. Scientific ends, methods, and meanings, together, constitute culturally evolved instruments of adaptation to, and reconstruction of, physical and cultural environments.
Fodor, Jerry A. (1990). A Theory of Content and Other Essays. MIT Press.   (Cited by 458 | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerrold A. (1990). A theory of content II: The theory. In Jerrold A. Fodor (ed.), A Theory of Content and Other Essays. The Mit Press.   (Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1987). Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind. MIT Press.   (Cited by 1153 | Google)
Mandik, Pete (2010). Swamp Mary's revenge: Deviant phenomenal knowledge and physicalism. Philosophical Studies 148 (2).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Deviant phenomenal knowledge is knowing what it’s like to have experiences of, e.g., red without actually having had experiences of red. Such a knower is a deviant. Some physicalists have argued and some anti-physicalists have denied that the possibility of deviants undermines anti-physicalism and the Knowledge Argument. The current paper presents new arguments defending the deviant-based attacks on anti-physicalism. Central to my arguments are considerations concerning the psychosemantic underpinnings of deviant phenomenal knowledge. I argue that physicalists are in a superior position to account for the conditions in virtue of which states of deviants constitute representations of phenomenal facts

2.3a Information-Based Accounts of Mental Content

72 / 73 entries displayed

Adams, Frederick R. (2003). The informational turn in philosophy. Minds and Machines 13 (4):471-501.   (Google | More links)
Aydede, Murat (1997). Pure informational semantics and the narrow/broad dichotomy. In Dunja Jutronic (ed.), The Maribor Papers in Naturalized Semantics. Maribor.   (Google)
Abstract: The influence of historical-causal theories of reference developed in the late sixties and early seventies by Donnellan, Kripke, Putnam and Devitt has been so strong that any semantic theory that has the consequence of assigning disjunctive representational content to the mental states of twins (e.g. [H2O or XYZ]) has been thereby taken to refute itself. Similarly, despite the strength of pre-theoretical intuitions that exact physical replicas like Davidson's Swampman have representational mental states, people have routinely denied that they have any intentional/representational states. I want to focus on a particular brand of causal theory that is not historical, the so-called pure informational or nomic covariance theories, and examine how they propose to handle twin cases and replicas like Swampman. In particular, I will take up Fodor
Barwise, Jon (1986). Information and circumstance. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 27 (July):324-338.   (Cited by 17 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Barwise, Jon & Perry, John (1983). Situations and Attitudes. MIT Press.   (Cited by 1714 | Google | More links)
Barwise, Jon (1987). Unburdening the language of thought. Mind and Language 2:82-96.   (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)
Bogdan, Radu J. (1994). Grounds for Cognition. Erlbaum.   (Cited by 18 | Google | More links)
Bogdan, Radu J. (1988). Information and semantic cognition: An ontological account. Mind and Language 3:81-122.   (Cited by 61 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: Information is the fuel of cognition. At its most basic level, information is a matter of structures interacting under laws. The notion of information thus reflects the (relational) fact that a structure is created by the impact of another structure. The impacted structure is an encoding, in some concrete form, of the interaction with the impacting structure. Information is, essentially, the structural trace in some system of an interaction with another system; it is also, as a consequence, the structural fuel which drives the impacted system's subsequent processes and behavior. Information takes various forms because the world has many levels of compositional and functional complexity, under different constraints. The key constraints that matter in the understanding of information are natural patterns of organization, or types, and systematic correlations among types, or laws. These level- sensitive constraints, in the form of types and laws, shape the very form in which information is tokened in some structure, that is, the very form in which it is encoded. As a result, the information-producing interactions bring about different sorts of structures, with various sorts of causal effects and functions, whence so many ways in which information is coded and utilized
Bogdan, Radu J. (1987). Mind, content and information. Synthese 70 (February):205-227.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Abstract: What is it that one thinks or believes when one thinks or believes something? A mental formula? A sentence in some natural language? Its truth conditions? Or perhaps an abstract proposition? The current story of content is fairly ecumenical. It says that a number of aspects, some mental, other semantic, go into our understanding of content. Yet the current story is incomplete. It leaves out a very important aspect of content, one which I call incremental information. It is information in a specific format, information as a limited or local increment, structured by a number of underlying parameters. It is in the form of such increments that information drives cognition and behavior. This is why, perhaps of all aspects of content, it is incremental information which matters most when we want to understand cognitive attitudes and performances. This in turn must have an impact on our philosophical notions of content, propositional attitudes, inference, justification and knowledge
Bogdan, Radu J. (1988). Replies to Israel and Dretske's Bogdan on information. Mind and Language 3:145-151.   (Google)
Bridges, Jason (2006). Does informational semantics commit euthyphro's fallacy. Nos 40 (3):522�547.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that informational semantics, the most well-known and worked-out naturalistic account of intentional content, conflicts with a fundamental psychological principle about the conditions of belief-formation. Since this principle is an important premise in the argument for informational semantics, the upshot is that the view is self-contradictory??indeed, it turns out to be guilty of a sophisticated version of the fallacy famously committed by Euthyphro in the eponymous Platonic dialogue. Criticisms of naturalistic accounts of content typically proceed piecemeal by narrowly constructed counterexamples, but I argue that the current result is more robust. It affects a broad family of accounts, and provokes a wider doubt about the possibility of successful execution of the naturalistic project
Chemero, Anthony (2003). Information for perception and information processing. Minds and Machines 13 (4):577-588.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Clark, Andy (1987). Intentionality and information. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 65 (September):335-341.   (Google | More links)
Clark, Austen (1993). Mice, shrews, and misrepresentation. Journal of Philosophy 60 (6):290-310.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Cohen, Jonathan (2006). An objective counterfactual theory of information. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (3):333 – 352.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: We offer a novel theory of information that differs from traditional accounts in two respects: (i) it explains information in terms of counterfactuals rather than conditional probabilities, and (ii) it does not make essential reference to doxastic states of subjects, and consequently allows for the sort of objective, reductive explanations of various notions in epistemology and philosophy of mind that many have wanted from an account of information
Cohen, Jonathan (2002). Information and content. In Luciano Floridi (ed.), Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Information and Computing. Blackwell.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: Mental states differ from most other entities in the world in having semantic or intentional properties: they have meanings, they are about other things, they have satisfaction- or truth-conditions, they have representational content. Mental states are not the only entities that have intentional properties - so do linguistic expressions, some paintings, and so on; but many follow Grice, 1957 ] in supposing that we could understand the intentional properties of these other entities as derived from the intentional properties of mental states (viz., the mental states of their producers). Of course, accepting this supposition leaves us with a puzzle about how the non-derivative bearers of intentional properties (mental states) could have these properties. In particular, intentional properties seem to some to be especially difficult to reconcile with a robust commitment to ontological naturalism - the view that the natural properties, events, and individuals are the only properties, events, and individuals that exist. Fodor puts this intuition nicely in this oft-quoted passage:
I suppose that sooner or later the physicists will complete the catalogue they've been compiling of the
ultimate and irreducible properties of things. When they do, the likes of _spin_, _charm_, and _charge_ will perhaps
appear upon their list. But _aboutness_ surely won't; intentionality simply doesn't go that deep.... If aboutness is
real, it must be really something else ([ Fodor, 1987 ], 97).
Some philosophers have reacted to this clash by giving up one of the two views generating the tension. For example, Churchland, 1981 ] opts for intentional irrealism in order to save ontological naturalism, while
Cole, David J. (ms). Natural language and natural meaning.   (Google)
Abstract: In Book II of the _Essay_, at the beginning of his discussion of language in Chapter II ("Of the Signification of Words"), John Locke writes that we humans have a variety of thoughts which might profit others, but that unfortunately these thoughts lie invisible and hidden from others. And so we use language to communicate these thoughts. As a result, "words, in their primary or immediate signification,stand for nothing but _the ideas in the mind of him that uses them_
Coulter, Jeff (1995). The informed neuron: Issues in the use of information theory in the behavioral sciences. Minds and Machines 5 (4):583-96.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Doyle, Anthony (1985). Is knowledge information-produced belief? Southern Journal of Philosophy 23:33-46.   (Google)
Dretske, Fred (1988). Bogdan on information: Commentary. Mind and Language 3:141-144.   (Google)
Dretske, Fred (1991). Dretske's replies. In Dretske and His Critics. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 11 | Google)
Dretske, Fred (1981). Knowledge and the Flow of Information. MIT Press.   (Cited by 1236 | Annotation | Google)
Abstract: This book presents an attempt to develop a theory of knowledge and a philosophy of mind using ideas derived from the mathematical theory of communication developed by Claude Shannon. Information is seen as an objective commodity defined by the dependency relations between distinct events. Knowledge is then analyzed as information caused belief. Perception is the delivery of information in analog form (experience) for conceptual utilization by cognitive mechanisms. The final chapters attempt to develop a theory of meaning (or belief content) by viewing meaning as a certain kind of information-carrying role
Dretske, Fred (1990). Putting information to work. In Philip P. Hanson (ed.), Information, Language and Cognition. University of British Columbia Press.   (Cited by 9 | Annotation | Google)
Dretske, Fred (2000). Perception, Knowledge and Belief: Selected Essays. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 44 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This collection of essays by eminent philosopher Fred Dretske brings together work on the theory of knowledge and philosophy of mind spanning thirty years. The two areas combine to lay the groundwork for a naturalistic philosophy of mind. The fifteen essays focus on perception, knowledge, and consciousness. Together, they show the interconnectedness of Dretske's work in epistemology and his more contemporary ideas on philosophy of mind, shedding light on the links which can be made between the two. The first section of the book argues the point that knowledge consists of beliefs with the right objective connection to facts; two essays discuss this conception of knowledge's implications for naturalism. The next section articulates a view of perception, attempting to distinguish conceptual states from phenomenal states. A naturalized philosophy of mind, and thus a naturalized epistemology, is articulated in the third section. This collection will be a valuable resource for a wide range of philosophers and their students, and will also be of interest to cognitive scientists, psychologists, and philosophers of biology
Dretske, Fred (1983). Precis of knowledge and the flow of information. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6:55-90.   (Cited by 36 | Annotation | Google)
Floridi, Luciano (2005). Is semantic information meaningful data? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2):351-370.   (Cited by 51 | Google | More links)
Abstract: There is no consensus yet on the definition of semantic information. This paper contributes to the current debate by criticising and revising the Standard Definition of semantic Information (SDI) as meaningful data, in favour of the Dretske-Grice approach: meaningful and well-formed data constitute semantic information only if they also qualify as contingently truthful. After a brief introduction, SDI is criticised for providing necessary but insufficient conditions for the definition of semantic information. SDI is incorrect because truth-values do not supervene on semantic information, and misinformation (that is, false semantic information) is not a type of semantic information, but pseudo-information, that is not semantic information at all. This is shown by arguing that none of the reasons for interpreting misinformation as a type of semantic information is convincing, whilst there are compelling reasons to treat it as pseudo-information. As a consequence, SDI is revised to include a necessary truth-condition. The last section summarises the main results of the paper and indicates some interesting areas of application of the revised definition
Floridi, Luciano (2003). Two approaches to the philosophy of information. Minds and Machines 13 (4):459-469.   (Cited by 17 | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1987). A situated grandmother. Mind and Language 2:64-81.   (Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1986). Information and association. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 27 (July):307-323.   (Cited by 14 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Foley, Richard (1987). Dretske's 'information-theoretic' account of knowledge. Synthese 70 (February):159-184.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Frank, M. C. (2004). Against informational atomism. The Dualist 10.   (Google)
Gates, Gary (1996). The price of information. Synthese 107 (3):325-347.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Gjelsvik, Olav (1991). Dretske on knowledge and content. Synthese 86 (March):425-41.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Grandy, Richard E. (1987). Information-based epistemology, ecological epistemology and epistemology naturalized. Synthese 70 (February):191-203.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Grim, Patrick; St Denis, P. & Kokalis, T. (2004). Information and meaning: Use-based models in arrays of neural nets. Minds and Machines 14 (1):43-66.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Hardcastle, Valerie Gray (1994). Indicator semantics and Dretske's function. Philosophical Psychology 7 (3):367-82.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: In his Explaining Behavior, Fred Dretske uses a reliabilist theory of representation to try to vindicate the use of intentional explanation for behaviour against latter-day elitninativism. Although Dretske's indicator semantics turns on the notion of function, he himself never explicitly defines what function means. Dretske's reticence in discussing function may ultimately be an error, for, as I argue, his implicit understanding of what a function amounts to does not fit with data from op rant conditioning. Still, this need not be a deep flaw in Dretske and I offer one way in which we may patch up the notion of function via the changes known to occur with learning in the brain. Ultimately, I conclude that the only facts needed to explain behaviour are (1) the conditions in the world that are paired with neuronal circuit activation (as picked out by goals in some circumstances); and (2) what motor output that condition triggers
Heller, M. (1991). Indication and what might have been. Analysis 51 (October):187-91.   (Annotation | Google)
Hilbert, David R. (ms). Content, intention, and explanation.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Naturalistic theories of content and whether or not reason-giving explanations of human behavior are causal explanations have been central topics in recent philosophy of mind. Fred Dretske, in his book Explaining Behavior, attempts to construct a naturalistic theory of the contents of beliefs and desires that gives these mental states an important role in the causation of behavior. Even if Dretske is granted that the theory adequately accounts for individual behaviors the theory still faces problems in offering an adequate account of important features of extended sequences of behavior. Some sequences of behavior exhibit coherence in the sense that the elements of the sequence either contribute to the atttainment of a goal state or only make sense on the supposition that the goal state will be attained. Two ways of attaining coherence are distinguished. In chaining behavior coherence is guaranteed by the fit between the internal structure of the organism and the structure of the external environment. In other cases of coherence chaining is not available as an explanation. It is argued that Dretske
Hofmann, Frank (2001). The reference of de re representations. Grazer Philosophische Studien 62 (1):83-101.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Full understanding ofrepresentation requires both an accountofrepresentational content and of reference. Fred Dretske has proposed a powerful theory of representational content, the teleological theory of indicator functions. And he has indicated that he thinks an informational account of reference is basically correct. According to this account, reference is determined by a certain informational relation, the relation of carrying primary information about an object. However, a closer examination will show that the informational account cannot adequately deal with our intuitions about certain cases of illusion. In these cases, the informational account will lead to an unwelcome loss of the referential object. For reasons of causal underdetermination, a purely causal account of reference will not work either. So ultimately, the informational account has to be replaced by a mixed account that relies both on satisfaction (of representational content) and a causal relation. This means that the turn away from an informational theory of representational content to a teleological theory has to be accompanied by a corresponding turn away from the informational theory of reference to the mixed causal-satisfactional theory
Horowitz, Amir (1990). Dretske on perception. Ratio 3 (2):136-141.   (Google)
Israel, David J. (1988). Bogdan on information: Commentary. Mind and Language 3:123-140.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Israel, David J. & Perry, John (1990). What is information? In Philip P. Hanson (ed.), Information, Language and Cognition. University of British Columbia Press.   (Cited by 43 | Google | More links)
Jackendoff, Ray S. (1985). Information is in the mind of the beholder. Linguistics and Philosophy 8 (February):23-33.   (Cited by 7 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Kamppinen, Matti (1988). Intentionality and information from an ontological point of view. Philosophia 18 (April):107-118.   (Google | More links)
Kistler, Max (2000). Source and Channel in the informational theory of mental content. Facta Philosophica 2:213-36.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Kulvicki, John (2004). Isomorphism in information-carrying systems. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85 (4):380-395.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Loewer, Barry M. (1987). From information to intentionality. Synthese 70 (February):287-317.   (Cited by 19 | Google | More links)
Lombardi, Olimpia I. (2005). Dretske, Shannon's theory, and the interpretation of information. Synthese 144 (1):23-39.   (Google | More links)
Lombardi, Olimpia I. (2004). What is information? Foundations of Science 9 (2):105-134.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The main aim of this work is to contribute tothe elucidation of the concept of informationby comparing three different views about thismatter: the view of Fred Dretske's semantictheory of information, the perspective adoptedby Peter Kosso in his interaction-informationaccount of scientific observation, and thesyntactic approach of Thomas Cover and JoyThomas. We will see that these views involvevery different concepts of information, eachone useful in its own field of application. This comparison will allow us to argue in favorof a terminological `cleansing': it is necessaryto make a terminological distinction among thedifferent concepts of information, in order toavoid conceptual confusions when the word`information' is used to elucidate relatedconcepts as knowledge, observation orentropy
Maloney, J. Christopher (1983). Dretske on knowledge and information. Analysis 43 (January):25-28.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
McLaughlin, Brian P. (1991). Belief individuation and Dretske on naturalizing content. In Dretske and His Critics. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Millikan, Ruth G. (2001). What has Natural Information to Do with Intentional Representation? In D. Walsh (ed.), Evolution, Naturalism and Mind. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Abstract: "According to informational semantics, if it's necessary that a creature can't distinguish Xs from Ys, it follows that the creature can't have a concept that applies to Xs but not Ys." (Jerry Fodor, The Elm and the Expert, p.32)
Morris, William E. (1990). Knowledge and the regularity theory of information. Synthese 82 (3):375-398.   (Google | More links)
Morris, William E. (1990). The regularity theory of information. Synthese 82:375-398.   (Annotation | Google)
O'Hair, S. G. (1969). A definition of informational content. Journal of Philosophy 66 (March):132-133.   (Google | More links)
Pineda, David (1998). Information and content. Philosophical Issues 9:381-387.   (Google | More links)
Putnam, Hilary (1986). Information and the mental. In Ernest LePore (ed.), Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
Robinson, William S. (1983). Dretske's etiological view. Southwest Philosophical Studies 9:23-29.   (Google)
Savitt, Steven F. (1987). Absolute informational content. Synthese 70 (February):185-90.   (Cited by 2 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Sayre, Kenneth M. (1987). Cognitive science and the problem of semantic content. Synthese 70 (February):247-69.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Sayre, Kenneth M. (1986). Intentionality and information processing: An alternative model for cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 9:121-38.   (Cited by 15 | Google)
Skokowski, Paul G. (1999). Information, belief, and causal role. In L.S. Moss, J Ginzburg & M. de Rijke (eds.), Logic, Language, and Computation Vol 2. CSLI Press.   (Google | More links)
Stich, Stephen P. (1990). Building belief: Some queries about representation, indication, and function. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (4):801-806.   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Sturdee, D. (1997). The semantic shuffle: Shifting emphasis in Dretske's account of representational content. Erkenntnis 47 (1):89-104.   (Google | More links)
Summerfield, Donna M. & Manfredi, Pat A. (1998). Indeterminacy in recent theories of content. Minds and Machines 8 (2):181-202.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Taylor, Kenneth A. (1987). Belief, information and semantic content: A naturalist's lament. Synthese 71 (April):97-124.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Usher, Matthew (2001). A statistical referential theory of content: Using information theory to account for misrepresentation. Mind and Language 16 (3):331-334.   (Cited by 12 | Google | More links)
Villanueva, Enrique (ed.) (1990). Information, Semantics and Epistemology. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 15 | Google)
Washington, Corey G. (2002). A conflict between language and atomistic information. Minds and Machines 12 (3):397-421.   (Google | More links)
Welbourne, Michael (1983). A cognitive thoroughfare. Mind 92 (July):410-413.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Winograd, Terry (1987). Cognition, attunement and modularity. Mind and Language 2:97-103.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Yourgrau, Palle (1987). Information retrieval and cognitive accessibility. Synthese 70 (February):229-246.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Zalabardo, Jos (1995). A problem for information-theoretic semantics. Synthese 105 (1):1-29.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)

2.3b Asymmetric-Dependence Accounts of Mental Content

Adams, Frederick R. & Aizawa, Kenneth (1997). Fodor's asymmetric causal dependency theory and proximal projections. Southern Journal of Philosophy 35 (4):433-437.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Adams, Frederick R. (online). Fodor's asymmetrical causal dependency theory of meaning.   (Google)
Adams, Frederick & Aizawa, Kenneth (1994). Fodorian Semantics. In Steven Stich & Ted Warfield (eds.), Mental Representation. Blackwell.   (Google)
Adams, Frederick R. & Aizawa, Kenneth (1993). Fodorian semantics, pathologies, and "Block's problem". Minds and Machines 3 (1):97-104.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Adams, Frederick R. & Aizawa, Kenneth (1992). 'X' means X: Semantics Fodor-style. Minds and Machines 2 (2):175-83.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Adams, Frederick R. & Aizawa, Kenneth (1994). 'X' means X: Fodor/warfield semantics. Minds and Machines 4 (2):215-31.   (Google | More links)
Antony, Louise M. & Levine, Joseph (1991). The nomic and the robust. In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 8 | Google)
Bernier, Paul (1993). Narrow content, context of thought, and asymmetric dependence. Mind and Language 8 (3):327-42.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Bickhard, Mark H. (1998). A Process Model of the Emergence of Representation. In G.L. Farre & T. Oksala (eds.), Emergence, Complexity, Hierarchy, Organization, Selected and Edited Papers From the ECHO III Conference. Acta Polytechnica Scandinavica.   (Cited by 20 | Google)
Abstract: Two challenges to the very possibility of emergence are addressed, one metaphysical and one logical. The resolution of the metaphysical challenge requires a shift to a process metaphysics, while the logical challenge highlights normative emergence, and requires a shift to more powerful logical tools -- in particular, that of implicit definition. Within the framework of a process metaphysics, two levels of normative emergence are outlined: that of function and that of representation
Boghossian, Paul A. (1991). Naturalizing content. In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 20 | Annotation | Google)
Cain, M. J. (1999). Fodor's attempt to naturalize mental content. Philosophical Quarterly 50 (197):520-26.   (Google | More links)
Cram, H-R. (1992). Fodor's causal theory of representation. Philosophical Quarterly 42 (166):56-70.   (Cited by 5 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Fish, William C. (2000). Asymmetry in action. Ratio 13 (2):138-145.   (Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1990). A theory of content II. In Jerry A. Fodor (ed.), A Theory of Content. MIT Press.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1987). Meaning and the world order. In Psychosemantics. MIT Press.   (Cited by 1 | Annotation | Google)
Gibson, Martha I. (1996). Asymmetric dependencies, ideal conditions, and meaning. Philosophical Psychology 9 (2):235-59.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Abstract: Jerry Fodor has proposed a causal theory of meaning based on the notion of a certain asymmetric dependency between the causes of a symbol's tokens. This theory is held to be an improvement on Dennis Stampe's causal theory of meaning and Fred Dretske's information theoretic account, because it allegedly solves what Fodor calls the “disjunction problem”, and does so without recourse to the kind of optimal (ideal) conditions to which Stampe and Dretske appeal. A series of counterexamples is proposed to Fodor's account, which, it is argued, can only be met by reintroducing that same appeal to optimal conditions that he had sought to eliminate. It is then argued that Fodor's notion of asymmetric dependence is not fundamental to the explanation of why a symbol means what it does: on the contrary, the symbol's meaning what it does is explanatorily prior to the obtaining of the asymmetry, so the asymmetry cannot be used to explain the symbol's meaning. Finally, it is argued that the “disjunction problem “ as it is defined by Fodor is not a genuine problem for causal theories of meaning
Gillett, Carl (2006). Samuel Alexander's emergentism. Synthese 153 (2):261-296.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Samuel Alexander was one of the foremost philosophical figures of his day and has been argued by John Passmore to be one of ‘fathers’ of Australian philosophy as well as a novel kind of physicalist. Yet Alexander is now relatively neglected, his role in the genesis of Australian philosophy if far from widely accepted and the standard interpretation takes him to be an anti-physicalist. In this paper, I carefully examine these issues and show that Alexander has been badly, although understandably, misjudged by most of his contemporary critics and interpreters. Most importantly, I show that Alexander offers an ingenious, and highly original, version of physicalism at the heart of which is a strikingly different view of the nature of the microphysical properties and associated view of emergent properties. My final conclusion will be that Passmore is correct in his claims both that Alexander is significant as one of the grandfather’s of Australian philosophy and that he provides a novel physicalist position. I will also suggest that Alexander’s emergentism is important for addressing the so-called ‘problem of mental causation’ presently dogging contemporary non-reductive physicalists
Gomila, Antoni (1994). Punctuate minds and Fodor's theory of content. In Analyomen 1. Hawthorne: De Gruyter.   (Google)
Jones, Todd (1991). Staving off catastrophe: A critical notice of Jerry Fodor's psychosemantics. Mind and Language 6:58-82.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Jylkkä, Jussi (2009). Why Fodor's theory of concepts fails. Minds and Machines 19 (1):25-46.   (Google)
Abstract: Fodor’s theory of concepts holds that the psychological capacities, beliefs or intentions which determine how we use concepts do not determine reference. Instead, causal relations of a specific kind between properties and our dispositions to token a concept are claimed to do so. Fodor does admit that there needs to be some psychological mechanisms mediating the property–concept tokening relations, but argues that they are purely accidental for reference. In contrast, I argue that the actual mechanisms that sustain the reference determining concept tokening relations are necessary for reference. Fodor’s atomism is thus undermined, since in order to refer with a concept it is necessary to possess some specific psychological capacities
Livingston, Kenneth R. (1993). What Fodor means: Some thoughts on reading Jerry Fodor's A Theory of Content and Other Essays. Philosophical Psychology 6 (3):289-301.   (Google)
Abstract: Jerry Fodor's Asymmetric Dependency Theory (ADT) of meaning is discussed in the context of his attempt to avoid holism and the relativism it entails. Questions are raised about the implications of the theory for psychological theories of meaning, and brief suggestions are offered for how to more closely link a theory of meaning to a theory of perception
Loar, Brian (1991). Can we explain intentionality? In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 8 | Google)
Maloney, J. Christopher (1990). Mental misrepresentation. Philosophy of Science 57 (September):445-58.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Manfredi, Pat A. & Summerfield, Donna M. (1992). Robustness without asymmetry: A flaw in Fodor's theory of content. Philosophical Studies 66 (3):261-83.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Mariano, Luciano B. (1999). Content naturalized. Philosophical Studies 96 (2):205-38.   (Google | More links)
Mendola, Joseph (2003). A dilemma for asymmetric dependence. Noûs 37 (2):232-257.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Accounts of mental content rooted in asymmetric dependence hold, crudely speaking, that the content of a mental representation is the cause of that representation on which all its other causes depend.1 To speak somewhat less crudely, such accounts, hereafter
Meyering, Theo C. (1997). Fodor's information semantics between naturalism and mentalism. Inquiry 40 (2):187-207.   (Google | More links)
Myin, Erik (1993). Some problems for Fodor's theory of content. Philosophica 50 (2):101-122.   (Google)
Palmquist, Steve (1992). Unknown. Indian Philosophical Quarterly 19.   (Google)
Abstract: At what stage in its development does a foetus become a living human being? When is it proper to refer to a network of pulsating neurons as a
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1991). Has content been naturalized? In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 18 | Google)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1989). On a causal theory of content. Philosophical Perspectives 3:165-186.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Rupert, Robert D. (2000). Dispositions indisposed: Semantic atomism and Fodor's theory of content. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 81 (3):325-349.   (Google | More links)
Seager, William E. (1993). Fodor's theory of content: Problems and objections. Phiosophy of Science 60 (2):262-77.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Tolliver, Joseph T. (1988). Disjunctivitis. Mind and Language 3:64-70.   (Google)
Voltolini, Alberto (1995). Is meaning without actually existing reference naturalizable? Grazer Philosophische Studien 50:397-414.   (Google)
Abstract: As is well known, meaningful expressions denoting no actual entity represent a hard problem for any naturalistically inspired theory of meaning which tries to explain the expression's meaning in terms of the expression's cause. For, since the actual extension of one such expression is ex hypothesi empty, there is no actual candidate for the role of the expression's cause one can plausibly appeal to in order to assign it to the expression as its meaning. Faced with this problem, a naturalizer may be immediately tempted to claim that there are no lexically primitive extensionless expressions. Thus, for any expression whose extension is actually empty she can attempt to paraphrase it away along the well-honoured Russellian path. Although reluctantly, in his A Theory of Content (1990) Jerry Fodor has however argued that a naturalizer can resist the above temptation. Fodor indeed provides another naturalized informational theory of meaning for Mentalese expressions based on the notion of asymmetric dependence between causal relations. This theory is also basically a denotational theory of meaning, for according to it a lexically primitive expression means the entity it denotes. On the basis of this theory, he claims that the problem of the lexically primitive extensionless expressions can be solved while letting them run denotationally. In what follows, however, I will try to cast some doubts on Fodor's solution of the lexically primitive extensionless expressions without at the same time falling back in the Russellian trap. If there are lexically primitive expressions whose extension in the actual world is empty, their meaning can be still accounted for in terms which are both denotational and non-naturalistic. Suffice it that one appeals to the weak Meinongianism contained in the thesis that one can directly refer to possible but unactual entities by means of a suitable fixing-reference description
Wallis, Charles (1995). Asymmetric dependence, representation, and cognitive science. Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (3):373-401.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Warfield, Ted A. (1994). Fodorian semantics: A reply to Adams and Aizawa. Minds and Machines 4 (2):205-14.   (Google | More links)

2.3c Causal Accounts of Mental Content, Misc

Adams, Fred & Aizawa, Ken (online). Causal theories of mental content. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   (Google)
Abstract: Causal theories of mental content attempt to explain how thoughts can be about things. They attempt to explain how one can think about, for example, dogs. These theories begin with the idea that there are mental representations and that thoughts are meaningful in virtue of a causal connection between a mental representation and some part of the world that is represented. In other words, the point of departure for these theories is that thoughts of dogs are about dogs because dogs cause the mental representations of dogs
Aizawa, Kenneth (1994). Lloyd's dialectical theory of representation. Mind and Language 9 (1):1-24.   (Google | More links)
Buras, Todd (2009). An Argument against Causal Theories of Mental Content. American Philosophical Quarterly 46 (2):117-129.   (Google)
Abstract: Some mental states are about themselves. Nothing is a cause of itself. So some mental states are not about their causes; they are about things distinct from their causes. If this argument is sound, it spells trouble for causal theories of mental content—the precise sort of trouble depending on the precise sort of causal theory. This paper shows that the argument is sound (§§1-3), and then spells out the trouble (§4).
Cummins, Robert E. (1989). Representation and covariation. In Stuart Silvers (ed.), ReRepresentation. Kluwer.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Cummins, Robert E. (1997). The LOT of the causal theory of mental content. Journal of Philosophy 94 (10):535-542.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Abstract: hc thcsis of this paper is that thc causal themy of mental cantent (hcrcaftcr CT) is incompatible with an clcmcntary fact of pcrccptual psychology, namely, that thc detection 0f distal propcrtics generally requires thc mediation of a “the- 0ry.” I shall call this fact thc nontransducibility of distal properties (hcrcaftcr NTDP). The argument proceeds in two stages. Thc burden of stage 0nc is that, taken together, CT and thc language 0f thought hypothesis (hcrcaftcr LOT) arc incompatible with NTDP. The burden of stage two is that acceptance of CT rcquircs acceptance of LOT as well. It follows that CT is incompatiblc with NTDP. I organize things in this way in part bccausc it makcs the argument casicr t0 understand, and in part bccausc thc stage-two thcsis—that CT cntails LOT—has somc independcnt interest and is thcrcforc worth separating from thc rcst 0f thc argument. 1. STAGE ONE; THE CONJUNCTION OF CT AND LOT Is INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE NONTRANSDUCIBILITY OF DISTAL PROPERTIES Let us begin by clarifying some tcrms. By LOT, I mean the hypothesis that thc human schcmc 0f mental rcprcscmation satisfies the following conditions: (1) It has a finite number of semantically primitive expressions individuatcd syntactically
Fodor, Jerry A. (1990). Information and representation. In Philip P. Hanson (ed.), Information, Language and Cognition. University of British Columbia Press.   (Cited by 43 | Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1984). Semantics, wisconsin style. Synthese 59 (June):231-50.   (Cited by 51 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Franklin, James, Symbolic connectionism in natural language disambiguation.   (Google)
Abstract: language into these formalisms. However, they make use of only small subsets of knowledge. This article will describe how to..
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (1989). Misinformation. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (4):533-50.   (Cited by 51 | Annotation | Google)
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (1991). Signal, decision, action. Journal of Philosophy 88 (12):709-22.   (Cited by 19 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Hogan, Melinda (1994). What is wrong with an atomistic account of mental representation. Synthese 100 (2):307-27.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Jacquette, Dale (1996). Lloyd on intrinsic natural representation in simple mechanical minds. Minds and Machines 6 (1):47-60.   (Google | More links)
Maloney, J. Christopher (1994). Content: Covariation, control, and contingency. Synthese 100 (2):241-90.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
McLaughlin, Brian P. (1987). What is wrong with correlational psychosemantics. Synthese 70 (February):271-286.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Ray, Greg (1997). Fodor and the inscrutability problem. Mind and Language 12 (3-4):475-89.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (2004). Rejoinder to Zimmerman. In Michael Peterson (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion. Blackwell.   (Google)
Rupert, Robert D. (2001). Coining terms in the language of thought: Innateness, emergence, and the lot of Cummins's argument against the causal theory of mental content. Journal of Philosophy 98 (10):499-530.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Robert Cummins argues that any causal theory of mental content (CT) founders on an established fact of human psychology: that theory mediates sensory detection. He concludes,
Rupert, Robert (2008). Causal theories of mental content. Philosophy Compass 3 (2):353–380.   (Google | More links)
Rupert, Robert D. (forthcoming). Causal Theories of Intentionality. In Hal Pashler (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Mind. Sage.   (Google)
Stampe, Dennis W. (1990). Content, context, and explanation. In Enrique Villanueva (ed.), Information, Semantics, and Epistemology. Blackwell.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Stampe, Dennis W. (1977). Towards a causal theory of linguistic representation. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 2:42-63.   (Cited by 86 | Google)
Stampe, Dennis W. (1986). Verificationism and a causal account of meaning. Synthese 69 (October):107-37.   (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)
Viger, Christopher D. (2001). Locking on to the language of thought. Philosophical Psychology 14 (2):203-215.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: I demonstrate that locking on, a key notion in Jerry Fodor's most recent theory of content, supplemented informational atomism (SIA), is cashed out in terms of asymmetric dependence, the central notion in his earlier theory of content. I use this result to argue that SIA is incompatible with the language of thought hypothesis because the constraints on the causal relations into which symbols can enter imposed by the theory of content preclude the causal relations needed between symbols for them to serve as the elements of the medium of thought
Warmbrod, Ken (1992). Primitive representation and misrepresentation. Topoi 11 (1):89-101.   (Google)
Weitzman, Leora (1996). What makes a causal theory of content anti-skeptical? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (2):299-318.   (Google | More links)

2.3d Teleological Accounts of Mental Content

Abrams, Marshall (2005). Teleosemantics without natural selection. Biology and Philosophy 20 (1):97-116.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Ruth Millikan and others advocate theories which attempt to naturalize wide mental content (e.g. beliefs
Adams, Frederick R. & Aizawa, Kenneth (1997). Rock beats scissors: Historicalism fights back. Analysis 57 (4):273-81.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Agar, Nicholas (1993). What do frogs really believe? Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71 (1):1-12.   (Cited by 10 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Millikan, Ruth G. (2007). An Input Condition for Teleosemantics? Reply to Shea (and Godfrey-Smith). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (2):436-455.   (Google)
Allen, Colin (2001). A tale of two froggies. In J. McIntosh (ed.), Naturalism, Evolution, and Intentionality (Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume 27). University of Calgary Press.   (Google)
Abstract: There once was an ugly duckling. Except he wasn’t a duckling at all, and once he realized his error he lived happily ever after. And there you have an early primer from the animal literature on the issue of misrepresentation -- perhaps one of the few on this topic to have a happy ending. Philosophers interested in misrepresentation have turned their attention to a different fairy tale animal: the frog. No one gets kissed in this story and the controversial issue of self-recognition is avoided. There are simply some scientifically established facts about ways to get a frog to stick out its tongue. (Who would want to kiss a frog under those conditions, anyway?) Some frogs, it seems, are fairly indiscriminate about sticking out their tongues. Not just flies, but a whole slew of other things will go down the hatch if propelled at just the right velocity and range through a frog’s visual field, provoking a tongue-flicking response. Fortunately for us all, frogs seem to be a bit more discriminating about whom they will kiss. At first sight, the frog’s tongue-flicking response seems like an ideal starting point for those who wish to promote evolutionary or "teleological" theories of intentional content. The signals passed from the frog’s retina to the frog’s brain were undoubtedly honed by the deaths of untold millions of insects snagged by countless generations of amphibians. Those amphibian ancestors whose eyes generated signals that were more 1 reliable guides to the location of food in the environment did better at propagating their genes, all other things being equal, than their cohorts whose eye to brain signals were less reliable. The teleosemanticist identifies the content of frogs’ intracranial signals in terms of the environmental conditions that historically corresponded to successful tongue-flicking, namely the presence of frog food -- typically flies -- in tongue-flicking range. And their descendants live happily ever after. But this would not be a fairy tale unless there were something to pose a credible threat to this happy ending..
Anderson, Michael L. (2005). Representation, evolution and embodiment. [Journal (Paginated)] (in Press).   (Google)
Abstract: As part of the ongoing attempt to fully naturalize the concept of human being--and, more specifically, to re-center it around the notion of agency--this essay discusses an approach to defining the content of representations in terms ultimately derived from their central, evolved function of providing guidance for action. This 'guidance theory' of representation is discussed in the context of, and evaluated with respect to, two other biologically inspired theories of representation: Dan Lloyd's dialectical theory of representation and Ruth Millikan's biosemantics
Antony, Louise M. (1996). Equal Rights for Swamp-persons. Mind and Language 11 (1):70-75.   (Google)
Ariew, Andre; Cummins, Robert & Perlman, Mark (2002). Functions: New Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 18 | Google | More links)
Millikan, Ruth G. (2009). Biosemantics. In Brian P. McLaughlin & Ansgar Beckerman (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
L'Hôte, Crystal (forthcoming). Biosemantics: an evolutionary theory of thought. Evolution: Education and Outreach.   (Google)
Bauer, Mark (2009). Normativity without artifice. Philosophical Studies 144 (2):239-259.   (Google)
Abstract: To ascribe a telos is to ascribe a norm or standard of performance. That fact underwrites the plausibility of, say, teleological theories of mind. Teleosemantics, for example, relies on the normative character of teleology to solve the problem of “intentional inexistence”: a misrepresentation is just a malfunction. If the teleological ascriptions of such theories to natural systems, e.g., the neurological structures of the brain, are to be literally true, then it must be literally true that norms can exist independent of intentional and psychological agency. Davies, for one, has argued that such norms are impossible within a naturalistic worldview. Consequently, teleological theories of mind, for example, cannot be literally true. I will show, however, that the truth conditions on normative statements do not presuppose intentional and psychological agency and, further, that a selectional regime is one naturalistic mechanism that satisfies those truth conditions. Norms, then, exist in the world independent of intentional and psychological agency
Braddon-Mitchell, David & Jackson, Frank (2002). A pyrrhic victory for teleonomy. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (3):372-77.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Braddon-Mitchell, David & Jackson, Frank (1997). The teleological theory of content. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 75 (4):474-89.   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Bridges, Jason (2006). Teleofunctionalism and psychological explanation. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 28 (September):359-372.   (Google | More links)
Charlton, William (1991). Teleology and mental states. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 17:17-32.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Clarke, Murray (1996). Darwinian algorithms and indexical representation. Philosophy of Science 63 (1):27-48.   (Google | More links)
Shea, Nicholas (2007). Consumers Need Information: supplementing teleosemantics with an input condition. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (2):404-435.   (Google)
Cruz, Joe (online). On teleosemantics and natural maps (comments on work by Rob Cummins et al.).   (Google)
Abstract: Let me begin by signaling my enthusiasm both for the specific case offered by Cummins et al. against teleosemantics and for the overall framework from which this work derives. If the first approximation of the idea is that there will be material implicit in a representation that can be exploited by a cognitive agent that later acquires the right abilities to extract this material, and if this material looks a great deal like content, then the teleosemanticist will find accommodating it challenging. Moreover, the distinction between representation and indication is intriguing and important, and the discussion of structural transformation and isomorphism is illuminating. While Cummins has been urging these themes for some time now, it seems to me that they have not been sufficiently appreciated in the literature
Cummins, Robert E.; Blackmon, James; Byrd, David; Lee, Alexa & Martin Roth, and (2006). Representation and unexploited content. In Graham F. Macdonald & David Papineau (eds.), Teleosemantics. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: In this paper, we introduce a novel difficulty for teleosemantics, viz., its inability to account for what we call unexploited content—content a representation has, but which the system that harbors it is currently unable to exploit. In section two, we give a characterization of teleosemantics. Since our critique does not depend on any special details that distinguish the variations in the literature, the characterization is broad, brief and abstract. In section three, we explain what we mean by unexploited content, and argue that any theory of content adequate to ground representationalist theories in cognitive science must allow for it.1 In section four, we show that teleosemantic theories of the sort we identify in section two cannot accommodate unexploited content, and are therefore unacceptable if intended as attempts to ground representationalist cognitive science. Finally, in section five, we speculate that the existence and importance of unexploited content has likely been obscured by a failure to distinguish representation from indication, and by a tendency to think of representation as reference
Davies, Paul S. (2001). The Excesses of Teleosemantics. In J. S. McIntosh (ed.), Naturalism, Evolution, and Intentionality (Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume 27). University of Calgary Press.   (Google)
Dennett, Daniel C. (2002). Brian Cantwell Smith on evolution, objectivity, and intentionality. In Philosophy of Mental Representation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.   (Google)
Dennett, Daniel C. (1988). Evolution, error and intentionality. In The Intentional Stance. MIT Press.   (Cited by 21 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: Sometimes it takes years of debate for philosophers to discover what it is they really disagree about. Sometimes they talk past each other in long series of books and articles, never guessing at the root disagreement that divides them. But occasionally a day comes when something happens to coax the cat out of the bag. "Aha!" one philosopher exclaims to another, "so that's why you've been disagreeing with me, misunderstanding me, resisting my conclusions, puzzling me all these years!"
Dennett, Daniel C. (1993). Evolution, teleology, intentionality. [Journal (Paginated)] 16 (2):89-391.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: No response that was not as long and intricate as the two commentaries combined could do justice to their details, so what follows will satisfy nobody, myself included. I will concentrate on one issue discussed by both commentators: the relationship between evolution and teleological (or intentional) explanation. My response, in its brevity, may have just one virtue: it will confirm some of the hunches (or should I say suspicions) that these and other writers have entertained about my views. For more closely argued defenses of my points, see Dennett 1990a,b,c; 1991a,b
Dennett, Daniel C. (1996). Granny versus mother nature - no contest. Mind and Language 11 (3):263-269.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Dretske, Fred (1986). Misrepresentation. In R. Bogdan (ed.), Belief: Form, Content, and Function. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 136 | Annotation | Google)
Dretske, Fred (2001). Norms, history, and the mental. In D. Walsh (ed.), Evolution, Naturalism and Mind. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Dretske, Fred (2006). Representation, teleosemantics, and the problem of self-knowledge. In Graham F. Macdonald & David Papineau (eds.), Teleosemantics. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Elder, Crawford (forthcoming). Mental Causation, Invariance, and Teleofunctional Content. The Monist.   (Google)
Elder, Crawford L. (1998). What sensory signals are about. Analysis 58 (4):273-276.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In ‘Of Sensory Systems and the “Aboutness” of Mental States’, Kathleen Akins (1996) argues against what she calls ‘the traditional view’ about sensory systems, according to which they are detectors of features in the environment outside the organism. As an antidote, she considers the case of thermoreception, a system whose sensors send signals about how things stand with themselves and their immediate dermal surround (a ‘narcissistic’ sensory system); and she closes by suggesting that the signals from many sensory systems may not in any familiar sense be about anything at all. Her presentation of the issues, however, overlooks resources available to ‘the traditional view’—or so I shall argue. Akins’s own thumbnail sketch of what is wrong with the traditional view is that it asks, concerning a given sensory system, ‘what is it detecting?’, when we should instead be asking ‘what is it doing?’ (352). Her point is that on the traditional view the function of a sensory system—what it's ‘for’—is to detect or indicate (values of) features of the outside environment. But at least on one version of the traditional view—namely Ruth Millikan’s—this would never be the sole or main proper function of a sensory system. (Akins does not list Millikan as a traditionalist, but Millikan fits squarely Akins’s description of them, since she believes in a naturalistic theory of aboutness and thinks it should begin with the senses.) For Millikan (1989, 1993), the proper function of a sensory system is in the first instance enabling behavioural systems—in the simplest case, motor routines—to perform their proper function. This they do, roughly, by switching on and steering the behavioural routines. Where features of the outside environment come in is as Normal (= assumed-by-the-design) conditions for the successful performance of the sensory system's proper function. That is, the only strategy for switching on and steering that is simple enough for evolution to have hit upon it, and reliable enough for evolution to have liked it, is a strategy which gears the steering to (values of) features of the outside environment. But as soon as one starts fleshing out the details of this story, one notices that they are probably quite different in the case of thermoreception from how they are with ‘distance’ senses such as vision and olfaction--a point which Akins overlooks..
Elder, Crawford L. (1998). What versus how in naturally selected representations. Mind 107 (426):349-363.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Empty judgements appear to be about something, and inaccurate judgements to report something. Naturalism tries to explain these appearances without positing non-real objects or states of affairs. Biological naturalism explains that the false and the empty are tokens which fail to perform the function proper to their biological type. But if truth is a biological 'supposed to', we should expect designs that achieve it only often enough. The sensory stimuli which trigger the frog's gulp-launching signal may be a poor guide to the signal's content. Teleosemantics should be anti-verificationist
Enc, Berent (2002). Indeterminacy of Function Attributions. In Andre Ariew, Robert Cummins & Mark Perlman (eds.), Functions: New Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology.   (Google)
Ferguson, Kenneth G. (2009). Meaning and the external world. Erkenntnis 70 (3).   (Google)
Abstract: Realism, defined as a justified belief in the existence of the external world, is jeopardized by ‘meaning rationalism,’ the classic theory of meaning that sees the extension of words as a function of the intensions of individual speakers, with no way to ensure that these intensions actually correspond to anything in the external world. To defend realism, Ruth Millikan ( 1984 , 1989a , b , 1993 , 2004 , 2005 ) offers a biological theory of meaning called ‘teleosemantics’ in which words, without requiring any contribution from the speaker’s intensions, are supposedly matched directly with their extensions by external norms. But even if one granted as a theoretical possibility that word meaning might possibly be stabilized through an external process, nonetheless, realists who wish to appeal to teleosemantics for a semantic proof of the external world must be capable of identifying these external norms, something that Millikan describes as highly fallible. Furthermore, because they can be aware of these norms only as these are internally represented, it would also be necessary for realists to verify that these internal representations accurately reflect the norms as they occur in the external world. But given that this is virtually the same stumbling block to realism found in meaning rationalism, it is concluded that teleosemantics is not likely to restore faith in this worldview
Fodor, Jerry A. (1990). A theory of content I. In Jerry A. Fodor (ed.), A Theory of Content. MIT Press.   (Annotation | Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1990). Psychosemantics, or, where do truth conditions come from? In William G. Lycan (ed.), Mind and Cognition. Blackwell.   (Cited by 33 | Annotation | Google)
Forbes, Graeme (1989). Biosemantics and the normative properties of thought. Philosophical Perspectives 3:533-547.   (Google | More links)
Gauker, Christopher (1995). Review of Millikan, White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice. Philosophical Psychology 8:305-309.   (Google)
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (1994). A Continuum of Semantic Optimism. In Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), Mental Representation: A Reader. Blackwell.   (Google)
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (1996). Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 134 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This book explains the relationship between intelligence and environmental complexity, and in so doing links philosophy of mind to more general issues about the relations between organisms and environments, and to the general pattern of 'externalist' explanations. The author provides a biological approach to the investigation of mind and cognition in nature. In particular he explores the idea that the function of cognition is to enable agents to deal with environmental complexity. The history of the idea in the work of Dewey and Spencer is considered, as is the impact of recent evolutionary theory on our understanding of the place of mind in nature
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (1992). Indication and adaptation. Synthese 92 (2):283-312.   (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (2004). Mental representation, naturalism, and teleosemantics. In David Papineau & Graham MacDonald (eds.), Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Abstract: The "teleosemantic" program is part of the attempt to give a naturalistic explanation of the semantic properties of mental representations. The aim is to show how the internal states of a wholly physical agent could, as a matter of objective fact, represent the world beyond them. The most popular approach to solving this problem has been to use concepts of physical correlation with some kinship to those employed in information theory (Dretske 1981, 1988; Fodor 1987, 1990). Teleosemantics, which tries to solve the problem using a concept of biological function, arrived in the mid 1980s with ground-breaking works by Millikan (1984) and Papineau (1984, 1987).<sup>1</sup>
Guirguis, Mazen M. (2004). On the reclamation of a certain swampman. Journal of Mind and Behavior 25 (2):79-95.   (Google)
Jacob, Pierre (2000). Can selection explain content? In Bernard Elevitch (ed.), Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Volume 9. Philosophy Doc Ctr.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
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Joyce, Richard (2002). Moral realism and teleosemantics. Biology and Philosophy 16 (5):723-31.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In a recent article, William F. Harms (2000) argues in a novel way for a form of moral realism. He does not actually argue that moral realism is true, but rather that if morality is the product of natural selection
Juhl, Cory F. (2000). Teleosemantics, kripkenstein and paradox. In N. Shanks & R. Gardner (eds.), Logic, Probability and Science. Atlanta: Rodopi.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
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Kingsbury, Justine (2006). A proper understanding of Millikan. Acta Analytica 21 (40):23-40.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Ruth Millikan’s teleological theory of mental content is complex and often misunderstood. This paper motivates and clarifies some of the complexities of the theory, and shows that paying careful attention to its details yields answers to a number of common objections to teleological theories, in particular, the problem of novel mental states, the problem of functionally false beliefs, and problems about indeterminacy or multiplicity of function
Kingsbury, Justine (2008). Learning and selection. Biology and Philosophy 23 (4).   (Google)
Abstract: Are learning processes selection processes? This paper takes a slightly modified version of the account of selection presented in Hull et al. (Behav Brain Sci 24:511–527, 2001) and asks whether it applies to learning processes. The answer is that although some learning processes are selectional, many are not. This has consequences for teleological theories of mental content. According to these theories, mental states have content in virtue of having proper functions, and they have proper functions in virtue of being the products of selection processes. For some mental states, it is plausible that the relevant selection process is natural selection, but there are many for which it is not plausible. One response to this (due to David Papineau) is to suggest that the learning processes by which we acquire non-innate mental states are selection processes and can therefore confer proper functions on mental states. This paper considers two ways in which this response could be elaborated, and argues that neither of them succeed: the teleosemanticist cannot rely on the claim that learning processes are selection processes in order to justify the attribution of proper functions to beliefs
Kingsbury, Justine; Ryder, Dan & , Kenneth Williford (eds.) (forthcoming). Millikan and Her Critics. Blackwell.   (Google)
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Macdonald, Graham & Papineau, David (2006). Introduction: Prospects and problems for teleosemantics. In Graham Macdonald & David Papineau (eds.), Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 41 | Google)
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Abstract: Perceptions "present" objects as red, as round, etc.-- in general as possessing some property. This is the "perceptual content" of the title, And the article attempts to answer the following question: what is a materialistically adequate basis for assigning content to what are, after all, neurophysiological states of biological organisms? The thesis is that a state is a perception that presents its object as "F" if the "biological function" of the state is to detect the presence of objects that are "F". The theory contrasts with causal/informational theories, and with internalist theories, for example those which assign content on the basis of introspected feel. Its advantages are that it permits perceptual error while at the same time allowing content to be expressed in terms of external properties. The argument of the paper is illustrated throughout by examples from biology and computational psychology.
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Abstract: This article presents an analogical account of the meaning of function attributions in biology. To say that something has a function analogizes it with an artifact, but since the analogy rests on a necessary (but possibly insufficient) basis, function statements can still be assessed as true or false in an objective sense.
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Abstract: "According to informational semantics, if it's necessary that a creature can't distinguish Xs from Ys, it follows that the creature can't have a concept that applies to Xs but not Ys." (Jerry Fodor, The Elm and the Expert, p.32)
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Abstract: Theories of content purport to explain, among other things, in virtue of what beliefs have the truth conditions they do have. The desire for such a theory has many sources, but prominent among them are two puzzling (and related) facts that are notoriously difficult to explain: beliefs can be false, and there are normative constraints on the formation of beliefs.2 If we knew in virtue of what beliefs had truth conditions, we would be better positioned to explain how it is possible for an agent to believe that which is not the case. Moreover, we do not say merely of such an agent that he believes that p when p is not the case. We say the agent made a mistake, and often criticize him accordingly; we think agents ought not have false beliefs, and that such beliefs should be changed; etc. An adequate theory of content would, presumably, reveal the source of these normative facts about the mental lives of agents. Indeed, it is typically taken to be an adequacy constraint on a theory of content that it help explain the possibility of error and the "normativity" of content. Teleological theories of content promise to do just this
Potrc, Matjaz (1992). A naturalistic and evolutionary account of content. In The Turning Points of the New Phenomenological Era (Analecta Husserliana, XXXIV). Dordrecht: Kluwer.   (Google)
Price, Carolyn S. (1998). Determinate functions. Noûs 32 (1):54-75.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Price, Carolyn S. (2001). Functions in Mind: A Theory of Intentional Content. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In this adventurous contribution to the project of combining philosophy and biology to understand the mind, Carolyn Price investigates what it means to say that mental states--like thoughts, wishes, and perceptual experiences--are about things in the natural world. Her insight into this deep philosophical problem offers a novel teleological account of intentional content, grounded in and shaped by a carefully constructed theory of functions. Along the way she defends her view from recent objections to teleological theories and indicates how it might be applied to notable problems in the philosophy of mind
Price, Carolyn S. (2000). General-purpose content. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 14 (2):123-133.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper, I consider the objection, raised by Radu Bogdan, that a teleological theory of content is unable to ascribe content to a general-purpose, doxastic system. I begin by giving some attention to the notion of general-purpose representation, and suggest that this notion can best be understood as what I term "interest-independent" representation. I then outline Bogdan's objection in what I take to be its simplest form. I attempt to counter the objection by explaining how a teleologist might ascribe content in a particular case - the case of a perceptual judgement whose content is learned. I reject the idea that the teleologist can appeal to the way in which the subject has used the judgement, or its constituent concepts, in the past, on the grounds that it is possible for the subject to produce judgements and concepts that never help her to satisfy any of her interests. Instead, my account depends on the idea that the process of learning is regulated by a mechanism whose function is to produce a harmony between the information carried by perceptual judgements and the way in which they are used in inference
Ross, Don & Zawidzki, Tadeusz W. (1994). Information and teleosemantics. Southern Journal of Philosophy 32 (4):393-419.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Rosenberg, Alexander (1989). Perceptual presentations and biological function: A comment on Matthen. Journal of Philosophy 86 (January):38-44.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Rountree, James (1997). The plausibility of teleological content ascriptions: A reply to Pietroski. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 78 (4):404-20.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Paul Pietroski argues that evolutionary/teleological theories of content offer implausible content ascriptions in certain cases, and that this provides grounds for rejecting this class of theories. He uses a fictional example to illustrate. A close look at the example shows it fails to provoke the intuitions Pietroski is relying on - these require relatively sophisticated representers while his representers are simple, comparable to known actual organisms for which the required intuitions do not arise. Could Pietroski make his point with an amended example? I argue that the scenario required would be both evolutionarily unlikely, and such as to make intuitions unreliable
Rowlands, Mark (online). Teleosemantics. A Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind.   (Google)
Rowlands, Mark (1997). Teleological semantics. Mind 106 (422):279-304.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Teleological theories of content are thought to suffer from two related difficulties. According to the problem of indeterminacy, biological function is indeterminate in the sense that, in the case of two competing interpretations of the function of an evolved mechanism, there is often no fact of the matter capable of determining which function is the correct one. Therefore, any attempts to construct content out of biological function entail the indeterminacy of content. According to the problem of transparency, statements of biological function are transparent in that a statement of the form 'the function of evolved mechanism M is to represent Fs' can be substituted salva veritate by a statement of the form 'the function of evolved mechanism M is to represent Gs' provided that the statement 'F iff G' is counterfactual supporting. Therefore, any attempt to construct content out of biological function must fail to capture the intensionality of psychological ascriptions. This paper argues that the teleological account is undermined by neither of these problems. Failure to appreciate this point stems from a conflation of two types of proper function - organismic and algorithmic - possessed by an evolved mechanism. These functions underwrite attributions of content to distinct objects. The algorithmic proper function of a mechanism underwrites attributions of content to the mechanism itself, while the organismic proper function of a mechanism underwrites attribution of content to the organism that possesses the mechanism. However the problems of indeterminacy and transparency arise only if the attributions of content attach to the same object
Koons, Robert C. (2000). Realism Regained: An Exact Theory of Causation, Teleology, and the Mind. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Rupert, Robert D. (1999). Mental representations and Millikan's theory of intentional content: Does biology chase causality? Southern Journal of Philosophy 37 (1):113-140.   (Google)
Ryder, Dan (2006). On thinking of kinds: A neuroscientific perspective. In David Papineau & Graham MacDonald (eds.), Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays. Oup.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Ryder, Dan (2004). SINBaD neurosemantics: A theory of mental representation. Mind and Language 19 (2):211-240.   (Cited by 9 | Google)
Saidel, Eric (2001). Teleosemantics and the Epiphenomenality of Content. In J. S. McIntosh (ed.), Naturalism, Evolution, and Intentionality (Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume 27). University of Calgary Press.   (Google)
Schroeder, Timothy (2001). Monsters Among Us. In J. S. McIntosh (ed.), Naturalism, Evolution, and Intentionality (Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume 27). University of Calgary Press.   (Google)
Schroeder, Timothy (2004). New norms for teleosemantics. In Hugh Clapin (ed.), Representation in Mind. Elsevier.   (Google)
Sehon, Scott R. (1994). Teleology and the nature of mental states. American Philosophical Quarterly 31 (1):63-72.   (Cited by 11 | Google)
Shapiro, Lawrence A. (1992). Darwin and disjunction: Foraging theory and univocal assignments of content. Philosophy of Science Association 1992:469-480.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Shapiro, Lawrence A. (1996). Representation from bottom to top. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (4):523-42.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Shani, Itay (2007). Teleonomic Functions and Intrinsic Intentionality: Dretske's Theory as a Test Case. Cognitive Systems Research 8 (1):15-27.   (Google)
Shea, Nicholas (2006). Millikan's contribution to materialist philosophy of mind. Matière Première 1:127-156.   (Google)
Abstract: One of the great outstanding problems in materialist philosophy of mind is the problem of how there can be space in the material world for intentionality. In the 1980s Ruth Millikan formulated a detailed theory according to which representations are physical particulars and their contents are complex relational properties of those particulars which can be specified in terms of respectable properties drawn from the natural sciences. In particular, she relied on the biological concept of the function of a trait, and the existence of historical conditions which enter into an evolutionary explanation of the operation of that trait. The present article is an introduction to this influential theory of intentionality
Shea, Nicholas (forthcoming). Millikan's Isomorphism Requirement. In Justine Kingsbury, Dan Ryder & Kenneth Williford (eds.), Millikan and Her Critics. Blackwell.   (Google)
Shea, Nicholas (2004). On Millikan. Wadsworth.   (Google)
Stegmann, Ulrich E. (2009). A consumer‐based teleosemantics for animal signals. Philosophy of Science 76 (5).   (Google)
Abstract: Ethological theory standardly attributes representational content to animal signals. In this article I first assess whether Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantic theory accounts for the content of animal signals. I conclude that it does not, because many signals do not exhibit the required sort of cooperation between signal‐producing and signal‐consuming devices. It is then argued that Kim Sterelny’s proposal, while not requiring cooperation, sometimes yields the wrong content. Finally, I outline an alternative view, according to which consumers alone are responsible for conferring representational status and determining content. I suggest that consumer‐based teleosemantics reconstruct the content of both cooperative and noncooperative signals and explain how a given trait can mean different things to different consumers. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, U.K.; e‐mail: ulrich.stegmann@kcl.ac.uk
Sullivan, S. R. (1993). From natural function to indeterminate content. Philosophical Studies 69 (2-3):129-37.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Tan, Ming (2002). The status of teleological theories of content. Philosophical Writings 21:25-37.   (Google)
Toribio, Josefa (1998). Meaning and other non-biological categories. Philosophical Papers 27 (2):129-150.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Neander, Karen (online). teleological theories of mental content. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   (Google)
Usher, Matthew (2004). Comment on Ryder's SINBAD neurosemantics: Is teleofunction isomorphism the way to understand representations? Mind and Language 19 (2):241-248.   (Google | More links)
Wagner, Steven J. (1996). Teleosemantics and the troubles of naturalism. Philosophical Studies 82 (1):81-110.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Walsh, Denis M. (2002). Brentano's chestnuts. In Andre Ariew, Robert Cummins & Mark Perlman (eds.), Functions. Oxford University Press.   (Google | More links)
Wojtach, William T. (2009). Reconsidering perceptual content. Philosophy of Science 76 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: An important class of teleological theories cannot explain the representational content of visual states because they fail to address the relationship between the world, projected retinal stimuli, and perception. A different approach for achieving a naturalized theory of visual content is offered that rejects the traditional internalism/externalism debate in favor of what is termed “empirical externalism.” This position maintains that, while teleological considerations can underwrite a broad understanding of representation, the content of visual representation can only be determined empirically according to accumulated past experience. A corollary is that a longstanding problem concerning the indeterminacy of visual content is dissolved. *Received September 2006; revised November 2008. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Box 90999 LSRC, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708; e‐mail: wtw3@duke.edu
Zawidzki, Tadeusz W. (2003). Mythological content: A problem for Milikan's teleosemantics. Philosophical Psychology 16 (4):535-538.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: I pose the following dilemma for Millikan's teleological theory of mental content. There is only one way that her theory can avoid Gauker's [(1995) Review of Millikan's White queen psychology and other essays for Alice, Philosophical Psychology, 8, 305-309] charge that it relies on an unexplained notion of mapping or isomorphism between mental state and world. Mental content must be explained in terms of the mapping relation that is required for mental state producing and consuming mechanisms to perform their biologically proper functions, i.e. producing mental states that are consumed in systematically adaptive practical inferences. However, this proposal leads to unacceptably counterintuitive ascriptions of content to mythological beliefs and related desires: such beliefs and desires must "map onto" environmental states that make them adaptive, not onto the mythological states of affairs that (would) make them true or fulfilled. I conclude by discussing the merits and drawbacks of a potential solution to this problem: the view that the contents of mythological beliefs and desires are determined by the non-mythological concepts out of which they are constructed, rather than by the environmental states that make them adaptive. The affinities of this proposal with Pascal Boyer's recent theory of mythological concepts [(2001) Religion explained, New York: Basic Books] are also discussed

2.3e Inferentialist Accounts of Meaning and Content

Block, Ned (1986). Advertisement for a semantics for psychology. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 10:615-78.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google)
Block, Ned (1997). Semantics, conceptual role. In Edward Craig (ed.), [Book Chapter] (Unpublished). Routledge.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Abstract: According to Conceptual Role Semantics ("CRS"), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, e.g. in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well known "use" theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to are not just actual, but also counterfactual: not only what effects a thought does have, but what effects it would have had if stimuli or other states had differed. The view has arisen separately in philosophy (where it is sometimes called "inferential," or "functional" role semantics) and in cognitive science (where it is sometimes called "procedural semantics"). The source of the view is Wittgenstein (1953) and Sellars, but the source in contemporary philosophy is a series of papers by Harman (see his 1987) and Field (1977). Other proponents in philosophy have included Block, Horwich, Loar, McGinn and Peacocke (1992). In cognitive science, they include Woods (1981) and Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976). (See references in Block, 1987.)
Block, Ned (1988). Functional role and truth conditions. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 61:157-181.   (Cited by 20 | Annotation | Google)
Block, Ned (1993). Holism, hyper-analyticity and hyper-compositionality. Mind and Language 8 (1):1-26.   (Cited by 28 | Google | More links)
Boghossian, Paul A. (1993). Does an inferential role semantics rest upon a mistake? Mind and Language 8 (1):27-40.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)
Boghossian, Paul A. (1994). Inferential-role semantics and the analytic/synthetic distinction. Philosophical Studies 73 (2-3):109-122.   (Cited by 9 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Brandom, Robert B. (1994). Reasoning and representing. In M. Michael & John O'Leary-Hawthorne (eds.), Philosophy in Mind: The Place of Philosophy in the Study of Mind. Kluwer.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Brandom, Robert B. (1993). The social anatomy of inference. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (3):661-666.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Brigandt, Ingo (2004). Conceptual role semantics, the theory theory, and conceptual change. In Proceedings First Joint Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology and the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Barcelona, Spain.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The purpose of the paper is twofold. I first outline a philosophical theory of concepts based on conceptual role semantics. This approach is explicitly intended as a framework for the study and explanation of conceptual change in science. Then I point to the close similarities between this philosophical framework and the theory theory of concepts, suggesting that a convergence between psychological and philosophical approaches to concepts is possible. An underlying theme is to stress that using a non-atomist account of concepts is crucial for the successful study of conceptual development and change
Callaway, H. G. (2008). Meaning Without Analyticity: Essays on Logic, Language and Meaning. Cambridge Scholars.   (Google)
Abstract: Meaning without Analyticity draws upon the author’s essays and articles, over a period of 20 years, focused on language, logic and meaning. The book explores the prospect of a non-behavioristic theory of cognitive meaning which rejects the analytic-synthetic distinction, Quinean behaviorism, and the logical and social-intellectual excesses of extreme holism. Cast in clear, perspicuous language and oriented to scientific discussions, this book takes up the challenges of philosophical communication and evaluation implicit in the recent revival of the pragmatist tradition—especially those arising from its relation to prior American analytic thought. This volume continues the work of Callaway’s 1993 book, Context for Meaning and Analysis, building on the “turn toward pragmatism.”
Callaway, H. G. (1990). Review of Fodor, Psychosemantics. Erkenntnis 33 (2):251-59..   (Google)
Abstract: This is my expository and critical review of Jerry Fodor's Psychosemantics. See also Callaway 1992, Meaning Holism and Semantic Realism
Cummins, Robert E. (1992). Conceptual role semantics and the explanatory role of content. Philosophical Studies 65 (1-2):103-127.   (Cited by 9 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Devitt, Michael (1993). Localism and analyticity. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (3):641-646.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Dowell, J. L. (2006). Making it totally explicit. Philosophical Papers 35 (2):137-170.   (Google | More links)
Field, Hartry (1977). Logic, meaning, and conceptual role. Journal of Philosophy 74 (July):379-409.   (Cited by 119 | Annotation | Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. & LePore, Ernest (1991). Why meaning (probably) isn't conceptual role. Mind and Language 6 (4):328-43.   (Cited by 47 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: It's an achievement of the last couple of decades that people who work in linguistic semantics and people who work in the philosophy of language have arrived at a friendly, de facto agreement as to their respective job descriptions. The terms of this agreement are that the semanticists do the work and the philosophers do the worrying. The semanticists try to construct actual theories of meaning (or truth theories, or model theories, or whatever) for one or another kind of expression in one or another natural language; for example, they try to figure out how the temperature could be rising compatibly with the substitutivity of identicals. The philosophers, by contrast, keep an eye on the large, foundational issues, such as: what's the relation between sense and denotation; what's the relation between thought and language; whether translation is determinate; and whether life is like a fountain. Every now and then the philosophers and the semanticists are supposed to get together and compare notes on their respective progress. Or lack thereof
Gozzano, Simone (2006). Functional role semantics and reflective equilibrium. Acta Analytica 21 (38):62-76.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper it is argued that functional role semantics can be saved from criticisms, such as those raised by Putnam and Fodor and Lepore, by indicating which beliefs and inferences are more constitutive in determining mental content. The Scylla is not to use vague expressions; the Charybdis is not to endorse the analytic/synthetic distinction. The core idea is to use reflective equilibrium as a strategy to pinpoint which are the beliefs and the inferences that constitute the content of a mental state. The beliefs and the inferences that are constitutive are those that are in reflective equilibrium in the process of attributing mental states to others
Greenberg, Mark & Harman, Gilbert (2007). Conceptual role semantics. In Ernest LePore & Barry Smith (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Abstract: CRS says that the meanings of expressions of a language or other symbol system or the contents of mental states are determined and explained by the way symbols are used in thinking. According to CRS one
Gross, Steven (ms). Review of Brandom's Articulating Reasons.   (Google)
Abstract: There is nothing in [the six chapters that make up the body of Articulating Reasons] that will come as a surprise to anyone who has mastered [Making It Explicit]. … I had in mind audiences that had perhaps not so much as dipped into the big book but were curious about its themes and philosophical consequences. (35–36)
Harman, Gilbert (1982). Conceptual role semantics. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 28 (April):242-56.   (Cited by 71 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Harman, Gilbert (1974). Meaning and semantics. In Milton K. Munitz & Peter K. Unger (eds.), Semantics and Philosophy. New York University Press.   (Cited by 23 | Google)
Harman, Gilbert (1987). (Nonsolipsistic) conceptual role semantics. In Ernest LePore (ed.), New Directions in Semantics. Academic Press.   (Google | More links)
Horowitz, Amir (1992). Functional role and intentionality. Theoria 58 (2-3):197-218.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Horst, Steven (ms). Goldilocks searches for a conceptual semantics.   (Google)
Abstract: This is a relatively breezy version of an exploration of some issues about how to provide a theory of concepts and conceptual semantics. I have also written more conventional versions of some of this material (without the Three Bears motif), though those are set in a broader context.
Jorgensen, Andrew Kenneth (2009). Holism, communication, and the emergence of public meaning: Lessons from an economic analogy. Philosophia 37 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: Holistic accounts of meaning normally incorporate a subjective dimension that invites the criticism that they make communication impossible, for speakers are bound to differ in ways the accounts take to be relevant to meaning, and holism generalises any difference over some words to a difference about all, and this seems incompatible with the idea that successful communication requires mutual understanding. I defend holism about meaning from this criticism. I argue that the same combination of properties (subjective origins of value, holism among values, and ultimate publicity of value) is exhibited by monetary value and take the emergence of equilibrium prices as a model for the emergence of public meanings
Jorgensen, Andrew, Understanding as endorsing an inference.   (Google)
Abstract: Fodor & Lepore (2001) and Williamson (2003) attack the inferentialist account of concept possession according to which possessing or understanding a concept requires endorsing the inference patterns constitutive of its content. I show that Fodor & Lepore's concern – that the conception places an exorbitant epistemological demands on possessors of a concept – is met by Brandom's tolerance of materially bad nonconservative inferences. Such inferences themselves, as Williamson argues, present difficulties for the 'understanding as endorsement' conception. I show that, properly understood, Brandom's broad conception of inferential role, which encompasses social-perspectival inferential connections, has the resources to respond to Willianson's challenge
Kalderon, Mark Eli (2001). Reasoning and representing. Philosophical Studies 105 (2):129-160.   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Laurier, Daniel (2005). Pragmatics, pittsburgh style. Pragmatics and Cognition 13 (1):141-160.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Lepore, Ernie & Fodor, Jerry (2001). Brandom's burdens: Compositionality and inferentialism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (2):465–481.   (Google | More links)
Loar, Brian (1982). Conceptual role and truth conditions. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 23 (July):272-83.   (Cited by 23 | Annotation | Google)
Loewer, Barry M. (1982). The role of 'conceptual role semantics'. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 23 (July):305-15.   (Cited by 3 | Annotation | Google | More links)
McCullagh, Mark (2003). Do inferential roles compose? Dialectica 57 (4):431-38.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Jerry Fodor and Ernie Lepore have argued that inferential roles are not compositional. It is unclear, however, whether the theories at which they aim their objection are obliged to meet the strong compositionality requirement they have in mind. But even if that requirement is accepted, the data they adduce can in fact be derived from an inferential-role theory that meets it. Technically this is trivial, but it raises some interesting objections turning on the issue of the generality of inferential roles. I explain how those objections can be met. Whether Fodor’s and Lepore’s strong compositionality requirement is justified or not, then, inferential-role theories do not have the problem that they claim to have identified.
McCullagh, Mark (2005). Inferentialism and singular reference. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 35 (2):183-220.   (Google)
Abstract: Basic to Robert Brandom’s project in Making It Explicit is the demarcation of singular terms according to the structure of their inferential roles---rather than, as is usual, according to the kinds of things they purport to denote. But the demarcational effort founders on the need to distinguish extensional and nonextensional occurrences of expressions in terms of inferential roles; the closest that an inferentialist can come to drawing that distinction is to discern degrees of extensionality, and that is not close enough. The general moral applies as well to “two factor” theories of content: the notion of inferential role lacks the independence from the notion of denotation that many proponents of such theories have attributed to it.
McCullagh, Mark (2005). Motivating inferentialism. Southwest Philosophy Review 21 (1):77-84.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Robert Brandom has supported his inferentialist conception of semantic content by appealing to the claim that it is a necessary condition on having a propositional attitude that one appreciate the inferential relations it stands in. When we see what considerations can be given in support of that claim, however, we see that it doesn’t even motivate an inferentialist semantics. The problem is that that claim about what it takes to have a propositional attitude does nothing to show that its inferential relations are a feature of its content rather than of the relation that the subject stands in to that content---that is, the attitude.
McDowell, John (2005). Motivating inferentialism: Comments on making it explicit (ch. 2). Pragmatics and Cognition 13 (1):121-140.   (Google)
Millikan, Ruth G. (2000). Representations, targets and attitudes. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (1):103-111.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Montminy, Martin (2005). A non-compositional inferential role theory. Erkenntnis 62 (2):211-233.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: I propose a version of inferential role theory which says that having a concept is having the disposition to draw most of the inferences based on the stereotypical features associated with this concept. I defend this view against Fodor and Lepore
Penco, Carlo (forthcoming). Truth, charity and assertion. Peruvian Journal of Philosophy.   (Google)
Abstract: In this paper I discuss the relation between truth and assertion, starting from an example by Leonard Linsky which has been used in the debate on definite description by Keith Donnellan and Saul Kripke. To treat the problem of the referential use of definite descriptions we need not only to take into account the contest of utterance, but also the context of reception, or the cognitive context. If the cognitive context is given the right relevance we may even accept the possibility to speak of "pragmatic ambiguity" as Donnellan did. However I will not give a definite answer to the debate between Donnellan and Kripke, but I will try to show that there is a moral to be drawn by the discussion: it is advisable to use truth attribution in a charitable way if we want to entertain conversation with people who have beliefs not necessarily similar to ours.
Peregrin, Jaroslav, Inferentialism and the compositionality of meaning.   (Google)
Abstract: Inferentialism, which I am going to present in detail in the following sections, is the view that meanings are, roughly, roles that are acquired by types of sounds and inscriptions in virtue of their being treated according to rules of our language games, roughly in the sense in which wooden pieces acquire certain roles by being treated according the rules of chess. The most important consequences are that (i) a meaning is not an object labeled (stood for, represented ...) by an expression; and that (ii) meaning is normative in the sense that to say that an expression means thus and so is to say that it should be used so and so. The founding father of inferentialism is Brandom (1994; 2000). (However, nothing in this paper hinges on the fact that the version of inferentialism defended here is identical with Brandom's). This position provokes two kinds of objections. First there are general objections towards the very normativity of meaning, which do not target especially inferentialism; these I have addressed elsewhere 1. Besides this, there are objection targeted more specifically at inferentialism. Probably the most discussed specimen of such objections is the objection - repeatedly raised especially by Jerry Fodor and Ernest LePore and others - to the effect that though meanings should be compositional, the compositionality of inferential roles is unattainable. This is the kind of objection I am going to deal with here 2. (Hand in hand with this objection then go various allegations of circularity of inferentialism, which we will also discuss.) To do this, I will exploit the long-standing comparison of language to chess, as it seems particularly helpful for making the inferentialist account of language plausible3. This comparison, to be sure, has its limits beyond which it may become severely misleading; but as long as we keep them in mind, it can serve us very well
Peregrin, Jaroslav (2006). Meaning as an inferential role. Erkenntnis 64 (1):1-35.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: While according to the inferentialists, meaning is always a kind of inferential role, proponents of other approaches to semantics often doubt that actual meanings, as they see them, can be generally reduced to inferential roles. In this paper we propose a formal framework for considering the hypothesis of the
Perlman, Mark (1997). The trouble with two-factor conceptual role theories. Minds and Machines 7 (4):495-513.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Schellenberg, Susanna (2006). Sellarsian perspectives on perception and non-conceptual content. In Mark Lance & Michael P. Wolf (eds.), The Self-Correcting Enterprise: Essays on Wilfrid Sellars. Rodopi.   (Google | More links)
Shapiro, Lionel (2004). Brandom on the normativity of meaning. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (1):141-60.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Brandom's "inferentialism"—his theory that contentfulness consists in being governed by inferential norms—proves dubiously compatible with his own deflationary approach to intentional objectivity. This is because a deflationist argument, adapted from the case of truth to that of correct inference, undermines the criterion of adequacy Brandom employs in motivating inferentialism. Once that constraint is abandoned, moreover, the very constitutive-explanatory availability of Brandom's inferential norms becomes suspect. Yet Brandom intertwines inferentialism with a separate explanatory project, one that in explaining the pragmatic significance of meaning-attributions does yield a convincing construal of the claim that the concept of meaning is normative.
Schellenberg, Susanna (2000). Begriff, gehalt, folgerung. Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 48 (5):780-789.   (Google | More links)
Silverberg, Arnold (1992). Putnam on functionalism. Philosophical Studies 67 (2):111-31.   (Annotation | Google | More links)
Tirrell, Lynne (1999). Derogatory Terms: Racism, Sexism and the Inferential Role Theory of Meaning. In Kelly Oliver & Christina Hendricks (eds.), Language and Liberation: Feminism, Philosophy and Language,. SUNY Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic, and homophobic epithets) are bully words with ontological force: they serve to establish and maintain a corrupt social system fuelled by distinctions designed to justify relations of dominance and subordination. No wonder they have occasioned public outcry and legal response. The inferential role analysis developed here helps move us away from thinking of the harms as being located in connotation (representing mere speaker bias) or denotation (holding that the terms fail to refer due to inaccurate descriptive content). The issue is not bad attitudes or referential misfires. An inferential role semantic analysis of derogatory terms shows exactly what is at stake between those who argue that the terms should be eliminated (Absolutists) and those who claim they can be successfully rehabilitated (Reclaimers). The Reclaimer maintains, and the Absolutist denies, that certain contexts can detach the derogatory force from deeply derogatory terms. The article looks at these claims with respect to ‘nigger’ and ‘dyke,’ setting out the inferential role of each term and examining detachability potential. Explaining detachability in terms of linguistic commitments, this article also addresses the issue of whether such terms count as political discourse, and examines the implications of that issue.
Tirrell, Lynne (1989). Extending: The structure of metaphor. Noûs 23 (1):17-34.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This article shows how attention to extended metaphors provides the basis for a substantive account of what it is to understand a metaphor. Offering an analysis of extended metaphors modeled on an analysis of co-referential anaphoric chains, this article presents an account of how contexts makes metaphors. The analysis introduces the concept of expressive commitment, commitment to the viability and value of particular modes of discourse. Unlike literal interpretation, metaphorical interpretation puts the expressive commitment in the forefront of the interpretive process. The analogy between extended metaphors and anaphora provides a structure for describing what it is to interpret expressions metaphorically. It generates an account that explains the affinities and differences between extension and explication, and hence of the age-old problem of paraphrase. Further, the account allows for the open-endedness of metaphor without succumbing to the view that metaphor is non-cognitive. Finally, the account developed here underscores the role of expressive commitment in metaphorical interpretation.
Tomberlin, James E. (1988). Semantics, psychological attitudes, and conceptual roles. Philosophical Studies 53 (March):205-226.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Toribio, Josefa (1997). Twin pleas: Probing content and compositionality. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (4):871-89.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Whiting, Daniel (online). Conceptual role semantics. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   (Google | More links)
Williams, Robert (2008). The price of inscrutability. Noûs 42 (4):600-641.   (Google | More links)
Warfield, Ted A. (1993). On a semantic argument against conceptual role semantics. Analysis 53 (4):298-304.   (Cited by 5 | Annotation | Google)
Whiting, Daniel (2006). Between primitivism and naturalism: Brandom's theory of meaning. Acta Analytica 21 (3).   (Google)
Abstract: Many philosophers accept that a naturalistic reduction of meaning is in principle impossible, since behavioural regularities or dispositions are consistent with any number of semantic descriptions. One response is to view meaning as primitive. In this paper, I explore Brandom’s alternative, which is to specify behaviour in non-semantic but normative terms. Against Brandom, I argue that a norm specified in non-semantic terms might correspond to any number of semantic norms. Thus, his theory of meaning suffers from the very same kind of problem as its naturalistic competitors. It is not sufficient, I contend, merely that some norms be introduced into one’s account but that they be specified using intensional, semantic notions on a par with that of meaning. In closing, I counter Brandom’s reasons for resisting such a position, the most significant of which is that it leaves philosophers with nothing constructive to say about meaning
Whiting, Daniel J. (2008). Conservatives and racists: Inferential role semantics and pejoratives. Philosophia 36 (3).   (Google | More links)
Abstract:  According to inferential role semantics (IRS), for any given expression to possess a particular meaning one must be disposed to make or, alternatively, acknowledge as correct certain inferential transitions involving it. As Williamson points out, pejoratives such as ‘Boche’ seem to provide a counter-example to IRS. Many speakers are neither disposed to use such expressions nor consider it proper to do so. But it does not follow, as IRS appears to entail, that such speakers do not understand pejoratives or that they lack meaning. In this paper, I examine recent responses to this problem by Boghossian and Brandom and argue that their proposed construal of the kind of inferential rules governing a pejorative such as ‘Boche’ is to be ruled out on the grounds that it is non-conservative. I defend the appeal to conservatism in this instance against criticism and, in doing so, propose an alternative approach to pejoratives on behalf of IRS that resolves the problem Williamson poses
Whiting, Daniel (2007). Inferentialism, representationalism and derogatory words. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 15 (2):191 – 205.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In a recent paper, after outlining various distinguishing features of derogatory words, Jennifer Hornsby suggests that the phenomenon raises serious difficulties for inferentialism. Against Hornsby, I claim that derogatory words do not pose any insuperable problems for inferentialism, so long as it is supplemented with apparatus borrowed from Grice and Hare. Moreover, I argue, derogatory expressions pose difficulties for Hornsby's favoured alternative theory of meaning, representationalism, unless it too is conjoined with a similar Grice/Hare mechanism. So, the upshot of the discussion is that, contra Hornsby, focus on derogatory expressions alone does not provide grounds for deciding between competing theories of meaning, but nevertheless serves to highlight important features that any such theory must acknowledge and incorporate

2.3f Interpretivist Accounts of Meaning and Content

Andrews, Kristin (2002). Interpreting autism: A critique of Davidson on thought and language. Philosophical Psychology 15 (3):317-332.   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Donald Davidson's account of interpretation purports to be a priori , though I argue that the empirical facts about interpretation, theory of mind, and autism must be considered when examining the merits of Davidson's view. Developmental psychologists have made plausible claims about the existence of some people with autism who use language but who are unable to interpret the minds of others. This empirical claim undermines Davidson's theoretical claims that all speakers must be interpreters of other speakers and that one need not be a speaker in order to be a thinker. The falsity of these theses has consequences for other parts of Davidson's world-view; for example, it undermines his argument against animal thought
Bouma, H. K. (2006). Radical interpretation and high-functioning autistic speakers: A defense of Davidson on thought and language. Philosophical Psychology 19 (5):639-662.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Donald Davidson argues in "Thought and Talk" that all speakers must be interpreters of other speakers: linguistic competence requires the possession of intentional concepts and the ability to attribute intentional states to other people. Kristin Andrews (in Philosophical Psychology, 15) has argued that empirical evidence about autism undermines this theoretical claim, for some individuals with autism lack the requisite "theory of mind" skills to be able to interpret, yet are competent speakers. In this paper, Davidson is defended on the grounds that the high-functioning autistic individuals in question have a more robust theory of mind than has been acknowledged, and that this is sufficient for them to be interpreters of other speakers. It is argued, further, that Davidson's theory would remain intact even if one or more autistic speakers lacking a theory of mind were to exist, as he makes conceptual claims about thought and language that are not vulnerable to empirical counterexamples
Brueckner, Anthony L. (1991). The omniscient interpreter rides again. Analysis (October) 199 (October):199-205.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Byrne, Alex (1998). Interpretivism. European Review of Philosophy 3:199-223.   (Google)
Abstract: In the writings of Daniel Dennett and Donald Davidson we find something like the following bold conjecture: it is an a priori truth that there is no gap between our best judgements of a subject's beliefs and desires and the truth about the subject's beliefs and desires. Under ideal conditions a subject's belief-box and desire-box become transparent
Callaway, H. G. (ed.) (1993). Context for Meaning and Analysis, A Critical Study in the Philosophy of Language. Rodopi.   (Google)
Abstract: This book provides a concise overview, with excellent historical and systematic coverage, of the problems of the philosophy of language in the analytic tradition. Howard Callaway explains and explores the relation of language to the philosophy of mind and culture, to the theory of knowledge, and to ontology. He places the question of linguistic meaning at the center of his investigations. The teachings of authors who have become classics in the field, including Frege, Russell, Carnap, Quine, Davidson, and Putnam are critically analyzed. I share completely his conviction that contemporary Anglo-American philosophy follows the spirit of the enlightenment in insisting on intellectual sincerity, clarity, and the willingness to meet scientific doubts or objections openly. --Professor Henri Lauener, Editor of Dialectica.
Callaway, H. G. (1985). Meaning without Analyticity (Reprinted in Callaway, 2008 Meaning without Analyticity). Logique et Analyse 109 (March):41-60.   (Google)
Abstract: In a series of interesting and influential papers on semantics, Hilary Putnam has developed what he calls a “post-verificationist” theory of meaning. As part of this work, and not I think the most important part, Putnam defends a limited version of the analytic-synthetic distinction. In this paper I will survey and evaluate Putnam’s defense of analyticity and explore its relationship to broader concerns in semantics. Putnam’s defense of analyticity ultimately fails, and I want to show here exactly why it fails. However, I will also argue that this very failure helps open the prospect of a new optimism concerning the theory of meaning, a theory of meaning finally liberated from the dead weight of the notions of analyticity and necessary truth. Putnam’s work, in fact, makes valuable contributions to such a theory.
Callaway, H. G. & van Brakel, J. (1996). No Need to Speak the same Language? Review of Ramberg, Donald Davidson's Philosophy of Language. Dialectica, Vol. 50, No.1, 1996, pp. 63-71..   (Google)
Abstract: The book is an “introductory” reconstruction of Davidson on interpretation —a claim to be taken with a grain of salt. Writing introductory books has become an idol of the tribe. This is a concise book and reflects much study. It has many virtues along with some flaws. Ramberg assembles themes and puzzles from Davidson into a more or less coherent viewpoint. A special virtue is the innovative treatment of incommensurability and of the relation of Davidson’s work to hermeneutic themes. The weakness comes in a certain unevenness. While generally convincing and well written, the book has low points which may leave the reader confused or unconvinced. Davidson is the hero in this book, and our hero is sometimes over idealized.
Callaway, H. G. (1988). Semantic competence and truth-conditional semantics. Erkenntnis 28 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: Davidson approaches the notions of meaning and interpretation with the aim of characterizing semantic competence in the syntactically characterized natural language. The objective is to provide a truth-theory for a language, generating T-sentences expressed in the semantic metalanguage, so that each sentence of the object language receives an appropriate interpretation. Proceeding within the constraints of referential semantics, I will argue for the viability of reconstructing the notion of linguistic meaning within the Tarskian theory of reference. However, the view proposed here involves a revision of Davidson’s con-ception of the object of semantic investigation. Taking (idealized) language-theories as the proper object of semantic characterization, provides solutions to outstanding problems in Davidson’s views, better approximates the practice in standard model-theoretic semantics, and incorporates the elements of semantic competence sought for in tradi¬tional theories of lexical analysis. Sources of evidence beyond those emphasized by Davidson will be invoked in order to allow for the selection of interpre¬tive T-sentences. In the final section, possible Quinean objections will be considered.
Davidson, Donald (1974). Belief and the basis of meaning. Synthese 27 (July-August):309-323.   (Cited by 98 | Google | More links)
Davidson, Donald (1984). Inquiries Into Truth And Interpretation. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 1067 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Now in a new edition, this volume updates Davidson's exceptional Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (1984), which set out his enormously influential philosophy of language. The original volume remains a central point of reference, and a focus of controversy, with its impact extending into linguistic theory, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. Addressing a central question--what it is for words to mean what they do--and featuring a previously uncollected, additional essay, this work will appeal to a wide audience of philosophers, linguists, and psychologists
Davidson, Donald (1973). Radical interpretation. Dialectica 27:314-328.   (Cited by 198 | Google | More links)
Davidson, Donald (1994). Radical interpretation interpreted. Philosophical Perspectives 8:121-128.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Davidson, Donald (1993). Reply to Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore's Is Radical Interpretation Possible?. In Reflecting Davidson, Stoecker, Ralf. Hawthorne: De Gruyter.   (Google)
Davidson, Donald (1980). Toward a unified theory of meaning and action. Grazer Philosophische Studien 11:1-12.   (Cited by 18 | Google)
Davidson, Donald (1989). The conditions of thought. In The Mind of Donald Davidson. Netherlands: Rodopi.   (Google)
Davidson, Donald (2001). What thought requires. In Joao Branquinho (ed.), The Foundations of Cognitive Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press.   (Cited by 7 | Google)
Engel, Pascal (1988). Radical interpretation and the structure of thought. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 88:161-177.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1993). Is radical interpretation possible? In Reflecting Davidson, Stoecker, Ralf. Hawthorne: De Gruyter.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. & LePore, Ernest (1994). Is radical interpretation possible? Philosophical Perspectives 8:101-119.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Gauker, Christopher (1988). Objective interpretationism. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 69 (June):136-51.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Gauker, Christopher (1986). The principle of charity. Synthese 69 (October):1-25.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Genova, Anthony C. (1991). Craig on Davidson: A thumbnail refutation. Analysis (October) 195 (October):195-198.   (Google)
Gerrans, Philip (2004). Cognitive architecture and the limits of interpretationism. Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 11 (1):42-48.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Glezer, Tal (2005). Conversation and Conservation. Iyyun: The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly 54.   (Google)
Gl, (2006). Triangulation. In E. Lepore & B. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, ed. E. Lepore/B. Smith, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006, 1006-1019
Cook, John R. (2009). Is Davidson a Gricean? Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review/Revue canadienne de philosophie 48 (3):557-575.   (Google)
Abstract: In his recent collection of essays, Language, Truth and History (2005), Donald Davidson appears to endorse a philosophy of language which gives primary importance to the notion of the speaker’s communicative intentions, a perspective on language not too dissimilar from that of Paul Grice. If that is right, then this would mark a major shift from the formal semanticist approach articulated and defended by Davidson in his Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (1984). In this paper, I argue that although there are many similarities between these two thinkers, Davidson has not abandoned his earlier views on language
Jackman, Henry (1996). Radical interpretation and the permutation principle. Erkenntnis 44 (3):317-326.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Jorgensen, Andrew (2008). Lewis's synthesis. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 16 (1):77 – 84.   (Google | More links)
Klein, Peter D. (1986). Radical interpretation and global skepticism. In Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 8 | Google)
Kriegel, Uriah (forthcoming). Cognitive Phenomenology as the Basis of Unconscious Content. In T. Bayne & M. Montague (eds.), Cognitive Phenomenology. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Since the seventies, it has been customary to assume that intentionality is independent of consciousness. Recently, a number of philosophers have rejected this assumption, claiming intentionality is closely tied to consciousness, inasmuch as non- conscious intentionality in some sense depends upon conscious intentionality. Within this alternative framework, the question arises of how to account for unconscious intentionality, and different authors have offered different accounts. In this paper, I compare and contrast four possible accounts of unconscious intentionality, which I call potentialism, inferentialism, eliminativism, and interpretivism. The first three are the leading accounts in the existing literature, while the fourth is my own proposal, which I argue to be superior. I then argue that an upshot of interpretivism is that all unconscious intentionality is ultimately grounded is a specific kind of cognitive phenomenology.
Kukla, Rebecca (2000). How to get an interpretivist committed. Protosociology 14:180-221.   (Google)
Laurier, Daniel (2001). Non-conceptually contentful attitudes in interpretation. Sorites 13 (October):6-22.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
LePore, Ernest (ed.) (1986). Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 72 | Google)
Lewis, David (1974). Radical interpretation. Synthese 27 (July-August):331-344.   (Cited by 77 | Google | More links)
Malpas, Jeff E. (1991). Holism and indeterminacy. Dialectica 47:47-58.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Manning, Richard N. (1995). Interpreting Davidson's omniscient interpreter. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 25 (3):335-374.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Manning, Richard N. (2003). Interpretation, reasons, and facts. Inquiry 46 (3):346-376.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Donald Davidson argues that his interpretivist approach to meaning shows that accounting for the intentionality and objectivity of thought does not require an appeal, as John McDowell has urged it does, to a specifically rational relation between mind and world. Moreover, Davidson claims that the idea of such a relation is unintelligible. This paper takes issue with these claims. It shows, first, that interpretivism, contra Davidson's express view, does not depend essentially upon an appeal to a causal relation between events in the world and speakers' beliefs. Second, it shows that interpretivism essentially, if implicitly, depends upon interpreters' appealing to facts taken in in perception, and that such facts are suited to provide a rational connection between mind and world. The paper then argues that none of Davidson's legitimate epistemological arguments tell against the idea that experience, in the form of the propositional contents of perception, can play a role in doxastic economy. Finally, it argues that granting experience such a role is consistent with Davidson's coherentist slogan that nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief
McCulloch, Gregory (1998). Intentionality and interpretation. In Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Contemporary Issues in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
McCarthy, Timothy (2002). Radical Interpretation and Indeterminacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: McCarthy develops a theory of radical interpretation--the project of characterizing from scratch the language and attitudes of an agent or population--and applies it to the problems of indeterminacy of interpretation first described by Quine. The major theme in McCarthy's study is that a relatively modest set of interpretive principles, properly applied, can serve to resolve the major indeterminacies of interpretation
Mcginn, Colin (1986). Radical interpretation and epistemology. In Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 9 | Google)
Moran, Richard A. (1994). Interpretation theory and the first-person. Philosophical Quarterly 44 (175):154-73.   (Cited by 12 | Google | More links)
Pettit, Philip (1994). Towards interpretation. Philosophia 23 (1-4):157-170.   (Google | More links)
Picardi, Eva (1989). Davidson on assertion, convention and belief. In The Mind of Donald Davidson. Netherlands: Rodopi.   (Google)
Preyer, Gerhard (1998). Interpretation and rationality: Steps from radical interpretation to the externalism of triangulation. Protosociology 11:245-260.   (Google)
Putnam, Hilary (1987). Computational psychology and interpretation theory. In Artificial Intelligence. St Martin's Press.   (Cited by 13 | Google)
Ramberg, B. (2004). Naturalizing idealizations: Pragmatism and the interpretivist strategy. Contemporary Pragmatism 1 (2):1-63.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Rawling, Piers (2003). Radical interpretation. In Donald Davidson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 7 | Google)
Saka, Paul (2007). Spurning charity. Axiomathes.   (Google | More links)
Sinclair, Robert (2002). What is radical interpretation? Davidson, Fodor, and the naturalization of philosophy. Inquiry 45 (2):161-184.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore have recently criticized Davidson's methodology of radical interpretation because of its apparent failure to reflect how actual interpretation is achieved. Responding to such complaints, Davidson claims that he is not interested in the empirical issues surrounding actual interpretation but instead focuses on the question of what conditions make interpretation possible. It is argued that this exchange between Fodor and Lepore on one side, and Davidson on the other, cannot be viewed simply as a naturalist reaction to non-naturalist philosophical inquiry. Through a careful excavation of the hidden assumptions and commitments underlying this debate, we recognize a more serious disagreement over the intellectual obligations of naturalism; a position with a firm hold on current philosophical imaginations. In the process, we gain a new appreciation for how such commitments shape these naturalist positions, and recognize that any resolution to this specific debate will require careful attention to the divergent commitments that are its real source
Smith, Barry C. (2006). Davidson, interpretation and first-person constraints on meaning. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14 (3):385-406.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: International Journal of Philosophical Studies 0967-2559 (print)/1466-4542 (online) Original Article
Stenius, Erik (1976). Comments on Donald Davidson's paper Radical Interpretation. Dialectica 30:35-60.   (Google)
Taschek, William W. (2002). Making sense of others: Donald Davidson on interpretation. Harvard Review of Philosophy 10:27-40.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Tumulty, Maura (2006). Davidson's fear of the subjective. Southern Journal of Philosophy 44 (3):509-532.   (Google)
Williams, Robert (2008). The price of inscrutability. Noûs 42 (4):600-641.   (Google | More links)
Verheggen, Claudine (2007). Triangulating with Davidson. Philosophical Quarterly 57 (226):96-103.   (Google | More links)
Weir, Alan (online). Indeterminacy of translation.   (Google)
Abstract: in Ernest Lepore and Barry C. Smith (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Chapter Eleven, pp. 233-249
Williams, J. Robert G. (2007). Eligibility and inscrutability. Philosophical Review 116 (3).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Inscrutability arguments threaten to reduce interpretationist metasemantic theories to absurdity. Can we find some way to block the arguments? A highly influential proposal in this regard is David Lewis’ ‘eligibility’ response: some theories are better than others, not because they fit the data better, but because they are framed in terms of more natural properties. The purposes of this paper are (1) to outline the nature of the eligibility proposal, making the case that it is not ad hoc, but instead flows naturally from three independently motivated elements; and (2) to show that severe limitations afflict the proposal. In conclusion, I pick out the element of the eligibility response that is responsible for the limitations: future work in this area should therefore concentrate on amending this aspect of the overall theory
Williams, Robert (2008). Gavagai again. Synthese 164 (2).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Quine (1960, Word and object. Cambridge, Mass.:MIT Press, ch. 2) claims that there are a variety of equally good schemes for translating or interpreting ordinary talk. ‘Rabbit’ might be taken to divide its reference over rabbits, over temporal slices of rabbits, or undetached parts of rabbits, without significantly affecting which sentences get classified as true and which as false. This is the basis of his famous ‘argument from below’ to the conclusion that there can be no fact of the matter as to how reference is to be divided. Putative counterexamples to Quine’s claim have been put forward in the past (see especially Evans 1975; 1975, Journal of Philosophy, LXXII(13), 343–362. Reprinted in McDowell (Ed.), Gareth Evans: Collected papers. Oxford: Clarendon Press.), and various patches have been suggested (e.g. Wright (1997, The indeterminacy of translation. In C. Wright & B. Hale (Eds.), A companion to the philosophy of language (pp. 397–426). Oxford: Blackwell)). One lacuna in this literature is that one does not find any detailed presentation of what exactly these interpretations are supposed to be. Drawing on contemporary literature on persistence, the present paper sets out detailed semantic treatments for fragments of English, whereby predicates such as ‘rabbit’ divide their reference over four-dimensional continuants (Quine’s rabbits), instantaneous temporal slices of those continuants (Quine’s rabbit-slices) and the simple elements which compose those slices (undetached rabbit parts) respectively. Once we have the systematic interpretations on the table, we can get to work evaluating them
Williams, J. Robert G. (2008). Permutations and Foster problems: Two puzzles or one? Ratio 21 (1):91–105.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: How are permutation arguments for the inscrutability of reference to be formulated in the context of a Davidsonian truth-theoretic semantics? Davidson (1979) takes these arguments to establish that there are no grounds for favouring a reference scheme that assigns London to “Londres”, rather than one that assigns Sydney to that name. We shall see, however, that it is far from clear whether permutation arguments work when set out in the context of the kind of truth-theoretic semantics which Davidson favours. The principle required to make the argument work allows us to resurrect Foster problems against the Davidsonian position. The Foster problems and the permutation inscrutability problems stand or fall together: they are one puzzle, not two

2.3g Naturalizing Mental Content, Misc

Aizawa, Kenneth & Adams, Frederick R. (2005). Defending non-derived content. Philosophical Psychology 18 (6):661-669.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Alfano, Mark (forthcoming). Nietzsche, naturalism, and the tenacity of the intentional. International Studies in Philosophy.   (Google)
Abstract: In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche demands that “psychology shall be
recognized again as the queen of the sciences.” While one might cast a dubious glance at the “again,” many of Nietzsche’s insights were indeed psychological, and many of his arguments invoke psychological premises. In Genealogy, he criticizes the “English psychologists” for the “inherent psychological absurdity” of their theory of the origin of good and bad, pointing out the implausibility of the claim that the utility of unegoistic
actions would be forgotten. Tabling whether this criticism is valid, we see Nietzsche’s methodological naturalism here: moral claims should be grounded in empirical psychological claims. Later in Genealogy, Nietzsche advances his own naturalistic account of the origins of good, bad, and evil.
Three cheers for methodological naturalism, but it was not Nietzsche’s innovation, and he did not pioneer its application to morality. The list of moral naturalists who appealed to psychology arguably includes Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Bentham, and Mill, among many others. If Nietzsche’s naturalism is to be worth the candle of contemporary scholarship, it must involve more than the methodological naturalism that predated him by centuries and to which he made no serious contribution. Nietzsche’s key contribution to naturalism is not his adherence to its methodology, but his discovery of certain psychological facts. In particular, he realized that mental states are not ordinary dyadic relations between a subject and an intentional content. Nietzsche discovered the tenacity of intentional states: when an intentional state loses its object (because the subject realizes the object does not exist, because the object is forbidden, or because of something else), a new object replaces the original; the state does not disappear entirely. As Nietzsche puts it Genealogy, “Man would rather will the void than be void of will.” Nietzsche relies on the tenacity thesis in his explanation of the origin of bad conscience: “All instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward […. They turn] against [their] possessors.” When hostility towards others becomes impossible, hostility does not disappear; instead, its object is replaced.
Alfano, Mark (forthcoming). The Tenacity of the Intentional Prior to the Genealogy. Journal of Nietzsche Studies.   (Google)
Abstract: I have argued elsewhere that the psychological aspects of Nietzsche’s later works are best understood from a psychodynamic point of view. Nietzsche holds a view I dubbed the tenacity of the intentional (T): when an intentional state loses its object, a new object replaces the original; the state does not disappear entirely. In this essay I amend and clarify (T) to (T``): When an intentional state with a sub-propositional object loses its object, the affective component of the state persists without a corresponding object, and that affect will generally be redeployed in a state with a distinct object. I then trace the development of the tenacity thesis through Nietzsche’s early and middle works. Along the way, I discuss a number of related topics, including the scope of the tenacity thesis (does it apply to all intentional states?), the reflexive turn one often finds in Nietzsche’s examples (why does he so often say the new object is oneself?), and the relations among will to power, drives, and the tenacity of the intentional.
Alward, Peter (2009). The inessential quasi-indexical. Philosophical Studies 145 (2).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: As Perry originally formulated things, the primary casualty of the problem of the essential indexical was the analysis of belief as a two-place relation between a subject and a proposition.1 Strictly speaking, of course, Perry argued that the problem he identified undermined the “doctrine of propositions” which consists of this analysis of belief together with the claims that the truth-values of propositions are independent of contextual parameters (other than worlds) and that propositions are individuated more finely than truth-conditions.2 But he went on to assert that the only adequate solution to the problem involved the rejection of the “propositional-relation” (let‟s call it) analysis of belief.3 The central aim of this paper is to defend a version of the propositional-relation analysis from Perry‟s criticisms
Anderson, Michael L. & Rosenberg, Gregg H. (online). Content and action: The guidance theory of representation.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: b>. The current essay introduces the guidance theory of representation, according to which the content and intentionality of representations can be accounted for in terms of the way they provide guidance for action. The guidance theory offers a way of fixing representational content that gives the causal and evolutionary history of the subject only an indirect (non-necessary) role, and an account of representational error, based on failure of action, that does not rely on any such notions as proper functions, ideal conditions, or normal circumstances. Moreover, because the notion of error is defined in terms of failure of action, the guidance theory meets the
Antony, Michael V. (2006). How to argue against (some) theories of content. Iyyun 55 (July):265-286.   (Google)
Bogdan, Radu J. (1993). The pragmatic psyche. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (1):157-158.   (Google)
Brook, Andrew & Stainton, Robert J. (1997). Fodor's new theory of content and computation. Mind and Language 12 (3-4):459-74.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Buras, Todd (2009). An Argument against Causal Theories of Mental Content. American Philosophical Quarterly 46 (2):117-129.   (Google)
Abstract: Some mental states are about themselves. Nothing is a cause of itself. So some mental states are not about their causes; they are about things distinct from their causes. If this argument is sound, it spells trouble for causal theories of mental content—the precise sort of trouble depending on the precise sort of causal theory. This paper shows that the argument is sound (§§1-3), and then spells out the trouble (§4).
Churchland, Paul M. & Churchland, Patricia S. (1983). Stalking the wild epistemic engine. Noûs 17 (March):5-18.   (Cited by 27 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Collins, Mike (2009). The Nature and Implementation of Representation in Biological Systems. Dissertation, City University of New York   (Google)
Abstract: I defend a theory of mental representation that satisfies naturalistic constraints. Briefly, we begin by distinguishing (i) what makes something a representation from (ii) given that a thing is a representation, what determines what it represents. Representations are states of biological organisms, so we should expect a unified theoretical framework for explaining both what it is to be a representation as well as what it is to be a heart or a kidney. I follow Millikan in explaining (i) in terms of teleofunction, explicated in terms of natural selection. To explain (ii), we begin by recognizing that representational states do not have content, that is, they are neither true nor false except insofar as they both “point to” or “refer” to something, as well as “say” something regarding whatever it is they are about. To distinguish veridical from false representations, there must be a way for these separate aspects to come apart; hence, we explain (ii) by providing independent theories of what I call f-reference and f-predication (the ‘f’ simply connotes ‘fundamental’, to distinguish these things from their natural language counterparts). Causal theories of representation typically founder on error, or on what Fodor has called the disjunction problem. Resemblance or isomorphism theories typically founder on what I’ve called the non-uniqueness problem, which is that isomorphisms and resemblance are practically unconstrained and so representational content cannot be uniquely determined. These traditional problems provide the motivation for my theory, the structural preservation theory, as follows. F-reference, like reference, is a specific, asymmetric relation, as is causation. F-predication, like predication, is a non-specific relation, as predicates typically apply to many things, just as many relational systems can be isomorphic to any given relational system. Putting these observations together, a promising strategy is to explain f-reference via causal history and f-predication via something like isomorphism between relational systems. This dissertation should be conceptualized as having three parts. After motivating and characterizing the problem in chapter 1, the first part is the negative project, where I review and critique Dretske’s, Fodor’s, and Millikan’s theories in chapters 2-4. Second, I construct my theory about the nature of representation in chapter 5 and defend it from objections in chapter 6. In chapters 7-8, which constitute the third and final part, I address the question of how representation is implemented in biological systems. In chapter 7 I argue that single-cell intracortical recordings taken from awake Macaque monkeys performing a cognitive task provide empirical evidence for structural preservation theory, and in chapter 8 I use the empirical results to illustrate, clarify, and refine the theory.
Cummins, Robert E. (2002). Haugeland on representation and intentionality. In Hugh Clapin (ed.), Philosophy of Mental Representation. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Haugeland doesn’t have what I would call a theory of mental representation. Indeed, it isn’t clear that he believes there is such a thing. But he does have a theory of intentionality and a correlative theory of objectivity, and it is this material that I will be discussing in what follows. It will facilitate the discussion that follows to have at hand some distinctions and accompanying terminology I introduced in Representations, Targets and Attitudes (Cummins, 1996; RTA hereafter). Couching the discussion in these terms will, I hope, help to identify points of agreement and disagreement between Haugaland and myself. In RTA, I distinguished between the target a representation has on a given occasion of its application, and its content. RTA takes representation deployment to be the business of intenders: mechanisms whose business it is to represent some particular class of targets. Thus, on standard stories about speech perception, there is a mechanism (called a parser) whose business it is to represent the phrase structure of the linguistic input currently being processed. When this intender passes a representation R to the consumers of its products, those consumers will take R to be a representation of the phrase structure of the current input. There is no explicit vocabulary to mark the target-content distinction in ordinary language. Expressions like "what I referred to," "what I meant," and the like, are ambiguous. Sometimes they mean targets, sometimes contents. Consider the following dialogue
Cummins, Robert E. (1989). Meaning and Mental Representation. MIT Press.   (Cited by 204 | Annotation | Google)
Cummins, Robert E. (1996). Representations, Targets, and Attitudes. MIT Press.   (Cited by 139 | Google)
Abstract: "This is an important new Cummins work.
Cummins, Robert E. (2000). Reply to Millikan. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (1):113-127.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Dennett, Daniel C. (2001). Intentionality. In Richard L. Gregory (ed.), Oxford Companion to the Mind. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 37 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Intentionality is _aboutness_. Some things are about other things: a belief can be about icebergs, but an iceberg is not about anything; an idea can be about the number 7, but the number 7 is not about anything; a book or a film can be about Paris, but Paris is not about anything. Philosophers have long been concerned with the analysis of the phenomenon of intentionality, which has seemed to many to be a fundamental feature of mental states and events
Dennett, Daniel C. (1991). Ways of establishing harmony. In Brian P. McLaughlin (ed.), Dretske and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 10 | Annotation | Google)
Devitt, Michael (1991). Naturalistic representation. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (3).   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Dretske, Fred (1986). Aspects of cognitive representation. In Myles Brand & Robert M. Harnish (eds.), The Representation of Knowledge and Belief. University of Arizona Press.   (Cited by 8 | Annotation | Google)
Dunlop, Charles E. M. (2004). Mentalese semantics and the naturalized mind. Philosophical Psychology 17 (1):77-94.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In a number of important works, Jerry Fodor has wrestled with the problem of how mental representation can be accounted for within a physicalist framework. His favored response has attempted to identify nonintentional conditions for intentionality, relying on a nexus of casual relations between symbols and what they represent. I examine Fodor's theory and argue that it fails to meet its own conditions for adequacy insofar as it presupposes the very phenomenon that it purports to account for. I conclude, however, that the ontological commitments of intentional psychology survive within a broader conception of naturalism than the one adopted by Fodor
Eliasmith, Chris (2000). How Neurons Mean: A Neurocomputational Theory of Representational Content. Dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Questions concerning the nature of representation and what representations are about have been a staple of Western philosophy since Aristotle. Recently, these same questions have begun to concern neuroscientists, who have developed new techniques and theories for understanding how the locus of neurobiological representation, the brain, operates. My dissertation draws on philosophy and neuroscience to develop a novel theory of representational content
Field, Hartry (1994). Deflationist views of meaning and content. Mind 103 (411):249-285.   (Cited by 73 | Google | More links)
Fisher, Justin C. (online). Representational content and the keys to success.   (Google)
Abstract: I consider the question of whether success-linked theories of content
Garrett, Don (2006). Hume's naturalistic theory of representation. Synthese 152 (3):301-319.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Hume is a naturalist in many different respects and about many different topics; this paper argues that he is also a naturalist about intentionality and representation. It does so in the course of answering four questions about his theory of mental representation: (1) Which perceptions represent? (2) What can perceptions represent? (3) Why do perceptions represent at all? (4) Howdo perceptions represent what they do? It appears that, for Hume, all perceptions except passions can represent; and they can represent bodies, minds, and persons, with their various qualities. In addition, ideas can represent impressions and other ideas. However, he explicitly rejects the view that ideas are inherently representational, and he implicitly adopts a view according to which things (whether mental or non-mental) represent in virtue of playing, through the production of mental effects and dispositions, a significant part of the causal and/or functional role of what they represent. It is in virtue of their particular functional roles that qualitatively identical ideas are capable of representing particulars or general kinds; substances or modes; relations; past, present, or future; and individuals or compounds
Geisz, Steven F. (2009). Turning representation inside out: An adverbial approach to the metaphysics of language and mind. Philosophical Forum 40 (4):437-471.   (Google)
Abstract: In order to resolve problems about the normative aspects of representation without having to (1) provide a naturalized theory of intentional/semantic properties, (2) accept non-natural intentional/semantic properties into our worldview, or (3) eliminate intentionality, this article questions a basic assumption about the metaphysics of representation: that representation involves representation-objects. An alternative, nonreifying approach to the metaphysics of representation is introduced and developed in detail. The argumentative strategy is as follows. First, an adverbial view of linguistic representation is introduced. Two potential objections are identified and considered. To respond to these objections, relationships between physical form and linguistic/representational form are examined. In the process, two ways of idealizing away from the heterogeneous details of actual language use are introduced: idealization toward homogeneity and idealization toward complete heterogeneity. I argue that an adverbial view of linguistic representation both allows for and requires that we idealize toward complete heterogeneity and that doing so has important implications for (1) our understanding of the relationship between physical form and representational form and (2) property attribution in general. These implications provide further indirect support for the alternative metaphysics of representation developed here
Greenberg, Mark (2005). A new map of theories of mental content. Noûs 39 (1):299-320.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Gross, Steven, The nature of semantics: On Jackendoff's arguments.   (Google)
Abstract: Jackendoff defends a mentalist approach to semantics that investigates con- ceptual structures in the mind/brain and their interfaces with other structures, including specifically linguistic structures responsible for syntactic and phono- logical competence. He contrasts this approach with one that seeks to charac- terize the intentional relations between expressions and objects in the world. The latter, he argues, cannot be reconciled with mentalism. He objects in par- ticular that intentionality cannot be naturalized and that the relevant notion of object is suspect. I critically discuss these objections, arguing in part that Jackendoff’s position rests on questionable philosophical assumptions
Jackman, Henry (online). Conventionalism, objectivity, and constitution.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: John Haugeland has recently attempted to provide a naturalistic account of intentionality that explains how we can (collectively) misidentify objects in the world in terms of the interplay of two types of 'recognitional' skill. Nevertheless, it is argued here that his inegalitarian conception of the two sorts of skill leaves him with a quasi-conventionalist account of our relation to the world which lacks the more robust sort of objectivity that a more holistic theory could provide
Jackman, Henry (1998). James' pragmatic account of intentionality and truth. Transactions Of The Charles S Peirce Society 34 (1):155-181.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: William James presents a preference-sensitive and future-directed notion of truth that has struck many as wildly revisionary. This paper argues that such a reaction usually results from failing to see how his accounts of truth and intentionality are intertwined. James' forward-looking account of intentionality (or "knowing") compares favorably the 'causal' and 'resemblance-driven' accounts that have been popular since his day, and it is only when his remarks about truth are placed in the context of his account of intentionality that they come to seem as plausible as they manifestly did to James
Kelly, Sean D. (2000). Grasping at straws: Motor intentionality and the cognitive science of skillful action. In Essays in Honor of Hubert Dreyfus, Vol. II. MIT Press.   (Cited by 8 | Google)
Loewer, Barry M. (1997). A guide to naturalizing semantics. In C. Wright & Bob Hale (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language.   (Cited by 23 | Google)
Miller, Alexander (2003). Objective content. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 77 (1):73–90.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Rosenberg, Gregg H. & Anderson, Michael L., A brief introduction to the guidance theory of representation.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Recent trends in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science can be fruitfully characterized as part of the ongoing attempt to come to grips with the very idea of homo sapiens--an intelligent, evolved, biological agent--and its signature contribution is the emergence of a philosophical anthropology which, contra Descartes and his thinking thing, instead puts doing at the center of human being. Applying this agency-oriented line of thinking to the problem of representation, this paper introduces the Guidance Theory, according to which the content and intentionality of representations can be accounted for in terms of the way they provide guidance for action. We offer a brief account of the motivation for the theory, and a formal characterization
Rupert, Robert D. (forthcoming). Causal Theories of Intentionality. In Hal Pashler (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Mind. Sage.   (Google)
Ryder, Dan (2002). Neurosemantics: A Theory. Dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Ryder, Dan (2006). On thinking of kinds: A neuroscientific perspective. In David Papineau & Graham MacDonald (eds.), Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays. Oup.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Ryder, Dan (2004). SINBaD neurosemantics: A theory of mental representation. Mind and Language 19 (2):211-240.   (Cited by 9 | Google)
Ryder, Dan (ms). The brain as a model-making machine.   (Google | More links)
Shapiro, Lawrence A. (1997). The nature of nature: Rethinking naturalistic theories of intentionality. Philosophical Psychology 10 (3):309-322.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: While there is controversy over which of several naturalistic theories of the mental is most plausible, there is consensus regarding the desideratum of a naturalistically respectable theory. A naturalistic theory of the mental, it is agreed, must explicate representation in nonintentional terms. I argue that this constraint does not get at the heart of what it is to be natural. On the one hand, it fails to provide us with a meaningful distinction between the natural and the unnatural. On the other hand, it unfairly suggests that we withhold judgment on those successes our sciences of the mind have already achieved until a convincing decomposition of the mental is available. I urge a new conception of naturalism that focuses less upon ontological considerations and more upon methodological ones
Skidelsky, Liza (2003). Mental content: Many semantics, one single project. Dialogos 38 (82):31-55.   (Google)
Stalnaker, Robert (1991). How to do semantics for the language of thought. In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 13 | Annotation | Google)
Taylor, Kenneth A. (2003). Toward a naturalistic theory of rational intentionality. In Reference and the Rational Mind. CSLI Publications.   (Google)
Abstract: This essay some first steps toward the naturalization of what I call rational intentionality or alternatively type II intentionality. By rational or type II intentionality, I mean that full combination of rational powers and content-bearing states that is paradigmatically enjoyed by mature intact human beings. The problem I set myself is to determine the extent to which the only currently extant approach to the naturalization of the intentional that has the singular virtue of not being a non-starter can be aggregated up into an account of rational intentionality. I have in mind a broadly defined family of accounts whose main members are the indicator/information-theoretic approach of Dretske (1988), the asymmetric dependence theory of Jerry Fodor (1987, 1990, 1994) and the teleo-semantics of Ruth Millikan (1984, 1993). Somewhat inaccurately, I will call this family of approaches the information-theoretic family. To be sure, there is only a rough family resemblance among the members of the information-theoretic family. Indeed, several intense quarrels divide the members of that family one from another, but the precise outcome of those internecine struggles is not directly relevant to the aims of this essay.<sup> 2</sup> Taken collectively, the information-theoretic family yields a compelling picture of the place of at least a crude form of intentionality -- what I call frog-like or type I intentionality -- in the natural order. Though frog-like or type I intentionality is, I think, a genuine species of intentionality, it may subsist in the absence of rational powers. It is that species of intentionality enjoyed by irritable creatures who, following Brandom (1994)
Usher, Matthew (2004). Comment on Ryder's SINBAD neurosemantics: Is teleofunction isomorphism the way to understand representations? Mind and Language 19 (2):241-248.   (Google | More links)
Wakefield, Jerome C. (2003). Fodor on inscrutability. Mind and Language 18 (5):524-537.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Weatherall, Peter (1993). Tarski's theory of truth and field's solution to the problem of intentionality. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71 (3):291 – 304.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Wedgwood, Ralph (1995). Theories of content and theories of motivation. European Journal of Philosophy 3 (3):273-288.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

2.4 The Nature of Contents

2.4a Fregean and Russellian Contents

Zimmerman, Aaron Z. (2006). Self-verification and the content of thought. Synthese 149 (1):59-75.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Burge follows Descartes in claiming that the category of conceptually self-verifying judgments includes (but is not restricted to) judgments that give rise to sincere assertions of sentences of the form, 'I am thinking that p'. In this paper I argue that Burge’s Cartesian insight is hard to reconcile with Fregean accounts of the content of thought. Burge's intuitively compelling claim that cogito judgments are conceptually self-verifying poses a real challenge to neo-Fregean theories of content.

2.4b Indexical Contents

Bach, Kent, Content, indexical.   (Google)
Abstract: it is red. What enables this thought to latch onto that particular object? It cannot be how the Ferrari looks, for this could not distinguish one Ferrari from another just like it. In general, how a thought represents something cannot determine which thing it represents. What a singular thought latches onto seems to depend also on features of the context in which the thought occurs. This suggests that its content is essentially indexical, contextually variable much as the content of an utterance like 'I am hungry' depends on who utters it and when (see DEMONSTRATIVES AND INDEXICALS ). The indexical model of singular thought is not limited to thoughts about individuals one perceives, like the Ferrari driving by, but applies also to thoughts about individuals one remembers or has been informed of, like an old bicycle or Christopher Columbus. In each case, a certain contextual relation, based on perception, memory, or communication, connects thought to object
Egan, Andy (ms). De gustibus non disputandum est (at least, not always).   (Google)
Castañeda, Hector-Neri (1967). Omniscience and indexical reference. Journal of Philosophy 64 (7):203-210.   (Google | More links)
Chien, A. J. (1985). Demonstratives and belief states. Philosophical Studies 47 (2).   (Google)
Corazza, Eros (2004). Essential indexicals and quasi-indicators. Journal of Semantics 21 (4):341-374.   (Google)
Abstract: In this paper I shall focus on Castaneda's notion of quasi-indicators and I shall defend the following theses: (i) Essential indexicals (‘I’, ‘here’ and ‘now’) are intrinsically perspectival mechanisms of reference and, as such, they are not reducible to any other mechanism reference...
Harcourt, Edward (1999). Frege on 'I', 'now', 'today' and some other linguistic devices. Synthese 121 (3).   (Google)
Abstract:   In this paper, I argue against an influential view of Frege''s writings on indexical and other context-sensitive expressions, and in favour of an alternative. The centrepiece of the influential view, due to (among others) Evans and McDowell, is that according to Frege, context-sensitiveword-meaning plus context combine to express senses which are essentially first person, essentially present tense and so on, depending on the context-sensitive expression in question. Frege''s treatment of indexicals thus fits smoothly with his Intuitive Criterion of difference of sense. On my view, by contrast, Frege stuck by the view which he held in his unpublished 1897 Logic, namely that the senses expressed by the combination of context-sensitive word-meaning and context could just as well be expressed by means of non-context-sensitive expressions: being first person, present tense and so on are properties, in Frege''s view, only of language, not of thought. Given the irreducibility of indexicals – a phenomenon noticed by Castañeda, Perry and others – Frege''s treatment of indexicals thus turns out to be inconsistent with the Intuitive Criterion. I argue that Frege was not aware of the inconsistency because he was not aware of the irreducibility of indexicals. This oversight was possible because the source of Frege''s interest in indexicals, as inother context-sensitive expressions, differed from that of contemporary theorists. Whereas contemporary theorists are most often interested in indexicals (and in Frege''s treatment of them) because they are interested in the indexical versions of Frege''s Puzzle and their relation to psychological explanation, Frege himself was interested in them because they pose a prima facie threat to his general conception of thoughts. The only indexical expression Frege''s view of which the above account does not cover is I insofar as it is associated with special and primitive senses, but Frege did not introduce such senses with a view to explaining theirreducibility of I his real reason for introducing them remains obscure
Kapitan, Tomis (1999). Quasi-indexical attitudes. Sorites 11:24-40.   (Google)
Abstract: Indexicals are inevitably autobiographical, even when we are not talking about ourselves. For example, if you hear me say, "That portrait right there is beautiful," you can surmise not only that I ascribe beauty to an object of my immediate awareness but also something about my spatial relation to it. Again, if I praise you directly within earshot of others by using the words, "You did that very well!," my concern need not be to cause them to think the exact thought I have; they might not be in a position to address you as you and I might not care what they think of your performance. My purpose is to get them to ascribe to me an attitude that I express with a second-person indexical, to convince them that I am an encouraging and supportive person inasmuch as I addressed someone with words of praise. Indexicals are autobiographical not only because they issue from a speaker--all utterances do--but because they reveal something about the speaker's orientation toward and encounter with objects in a way that non-indexical language fails to do. For this reason, care must be taken in reporting indexically-expressed thoughts. Suppose the Chair of my Department informs me, (1)I am upset about the Dean's report. I cannot relate what he said by reiterating his words within indirect discourse, viz., (2)The Chair said that I am upset about the Dean's report. Because 'I' expresses speaker's reference, my assertion of (2) would cause a hearer to misconstrue who is said to be upset.i Alternatively, the sentence, (3)The Chair said that the Chair is upset about the Dean's report
Matthen, Mohan (2010). Is memory preservation? Philosophical Studies 148 (1).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: I want to know whether I consumed the Canada Health recommended portion of fruits and vegetables yesterday. I try to remember, and I conclude that I ate five servings of fruits and vegetables during the course of the day. Presumably, propositions like the following figure in my calculations: 1. For lunch yesterday, I ate a grilled tomato with my hamburger. Usually, the remembered image of eating the tomato will figure in the provenance of remembering 1
Perry, John (ms). Self-notions.   (Google)
Abstract: ”Self-beliefs” are beliefs of the sort one ordinarily has about oneself, and expresses with the first person. These contrast with the beliefs one has in ”Casta˜neda cases,” in which one has a belief about oneself without knowing it. This paper advances an account of the nature of self-belief. According to this account, self-belief is a special case of interacting with things via notions that serve as repositories for information about objects with certain important relations to the knower, and as motivators for actions the success of which is dependent on the object in that relation to the agent. Identity is such a relation, and ”self-notions” play this special role: they are the repositories for information gained in normally self-informative ways, and the motivators of types of action whose success normally depends on facts about the agent. Self-beliefs involve such self-notions, while the beliefs that one has about oneself in Casta˜neda cases do not
Perry, John (1979). The problem of the essential indexical. Noûs 13 (December):3-21.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Perry, John (1993). The Problem of the Essential Indexical: And Other Essays. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: A collection of twelve essays by John Perry and two essays he co-authored, this book deals with various problems related to "self-locating beliefs": the sorts of beliefs one expresses with indexicals and demonstratives, like "I" and "this." Postscripts have been added to a number of the essays discussing criticisms by authors such as Gareth Evans and Robert Stalnaker. Included with such well-known essays as "Frege on Demonstratives," "The Problem of the Essential Indexical," "From Worlds to Situations," and "The Prince and the Phone Booth" are a number of important essays that have been less accessible and that discuss important aspects of Perry's views, referred to as "Critical Referentialism," on the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind
Spencer, Cara (ms). Is there a problem of the essential indexical?   (Google)
Abstract: Some time ago, John Perry argued that the content of an indexical belief, that is, a belief expressible with a sentence containing an indexical or demonstrative, cannot be a proposition. I consider several of his arguments for this view, and show that they can be extended to show that belief expressible with other non-indexical expressions such as natural kind terms and proper names presents the very same problem for the traditional picture. I then suggest that if indexical belief has any special status, this is not because it has a special kind of content, but rather because action is impossible if agents do not have indexical belief
Spencer, Cara (ms). Shared indexical belief.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper, I take issue with the familiar view that the problem of the essential indexical is a merely technical problem, which can be solved through a straightforward revision of the familiar model of belief content. (The familiar model just says that the content of belief is a proposition.) I do not object to these technical fixes, but I think they leave some questions unanswered. Specifically, they deny us an attractive account of what it is for different people to completely agree on their conception of what the world is like, according to which complete agreement consists in having beliefs with the same propositional content, but they do not give us anything to replace it with. Here, I consider whether we can say anything general about the relation between my beliefs and your beliefs (including, of course, our indexical beliefs), when you and I completely agree about what the world is like
Zong, Desheng (forthcoming). Retention of Indexical Belief and the Notion of Psychological Continuity. The Philosophical Quarterly.   (Google)
Abstract: A widely accepted view in the discussion of personal identity is that the notion of psychological continuity expresses a one-many or many-one relation. I argue that the belief is unfounded. Briefly: a notion of psychological continuity expresses a one-many or many-one relation only if it includes as a constituent psychological properties whose relation with their bearer is one-many or many-one; but the relation between an indexical psychological state (a psychological state with indexical content) and its bearer in which it is first tokened is not a one-many or many-one relation. It follows that not all types of psychological continuity may take a one-many or many-one form. Since the Lockean account of personal identity relies on the availability of a notion of psychological continuity featuring indexical psychological states, the conclusion of this paper cast strong doubt on the plausibility of the Lockean theory.

2.4c Intentional Objects

Adams, Frederick R.; Fuller, Gary & Stecker, Robert A. (1993). Thoughts without objects. Mind and Language 8 (1):90-104.   (Cited by 13 | Google)
Blumson, Ben (2009). Images, intentionality and inexistence. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (3):522-538.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Clark, Michael (1965). Intentional objects. Analysis 25 (January):123-128.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Crane, Tim (2006). Brentano's concept of intentional inexistence. In Mark Textor (ed.), The Austrian Contribution to Analytic Philosophy. Routledge.   (Google)
Abstract: Franz Brentano’s attempt to distinguish mental from physical phenomena by employing the scholastic concept of intentional inexistence is often cited as reintroducing the concept of intentionality into mainstream philosophical discussion. But Brentano’s own claims about intentional inexistence are much misunderstood. In the second half of the 20th century, analytical philosophers in particular have misread Brentano’s views in misleading ways.1 It is important to correct these misunderstandings if we are to come to a proper assessment of Brentano’s worth as a philosopher and his position in the history of philosophy. Good corrections have been made in the recent analytic literature by David Bell (1990), Dermot Moran (1996), and Barry Smith (1994) among others. But there is also another, more purely philosophical lesson to be learned from the proper understanding of Brentano’s views on this matter. This is that Brentano’s struggles with the concept of intentionality reveal a fundamental division between different ways of thinking about intentionality, an division which Brentano himself does not make fully clear. Making the nature of this division explicit is the aim of this paper
Crane, Tim (2001). Intentional objects. Ratio 14 (4):298-317.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Is there, or should there be, any place in contemporary philosophy of mind for the concept of an intentional object? Many philosophers would make short work of this question. In a discussion of what intentional objects are supposed to be, John Searle
Dowling, Eric (1970). Intentional objects, old and new. Ratio 12 (December):95-107.   (Google)
Fitch, Gregory (1990). Thinking of something. Noûs 24 (December):675-696.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Gorman, Michael (2006). Talking about intentional objects. Dialectica 60 (2):135-144.   (Google | More links)
Kriegel, Uriah (2007). Intentional inexistence and phenomenal intentionality. Philosophical Perspectives 21 (1):307-340.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: How come we can represent Bigfoot even though Bigfoot does not exist, given that representing something involves bearing a relation to it and we cannot bear relations to what does not exist?This is the problem of intentional inexistence. This paper develops a two-step solution to this problem, involving (first) an adverbial account of conscious representation, or phenomenal inten- tionality, and (second) the thesis that all representation derives from conscious representation (all intentionality derives from phenomenal intentionality). The solution is correspondingly two-part: we can consciously represent Bigfoot because consciously representing Bigfoot does not involve bearing a relation to Bigfoot, but rather instantiating a certain non-relational (“adverbial”) property of representing Bigfoot-wise; and we can non-consciously represent Bigfoot because non-consciously representing Bigfoot does not involve bearing a relation to Bigfoot, but rather bearing a relation to conscious representations of Bigfoot
Kriegel, Uriah (2008). The dispensability of (merely) intentional objects. Philosophical Studies 141 (1):79-95.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The ontology of (merely) intentional objects is a can of worms. If we can avoid ontological commitment to such entities, we should. In this paper, I offer a strategy for accomplishing that. This is to reject the traditional act-object account of intentionality in favor of an adverbial account. According to adverbialism about intentionality, having a dragon thought is not a matter of bearing the thinking-about relation to dragons, but of engaging in the activity of thinking dragon-wise
Malcolm, Norman (1993). The mystery of thought. In Josep-Maria Terricabras (ed.), A Wittgenstein Symposium. Amsterdam: Rodopi.   (Google)
Matthen, Mohan P. (1988). Biological functions and perceptual content. Journal of Philosophy 85 (January):5-27.   (Cited by 38 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Perceptions "present" objects as red, as round, etc.-- in general as possessing some property. This is the "perceptual content" of the title, And the article attempts to answer the following question: what is a materialistically adequate basis for assigning content to what are, after all, neurophysiological states of biological organisms? The thesis is that a state is a perception that presents its object as "F" if the "biological function" of the state is to detect the presence of objects that are "F". The theory contrasts with causal/informational theories, and with internalist theories, for example those which assign content on the basis of introspected feel. Its advantages are that it permits perceptual error while at the same time allowing content to be expressed in terms of external properties. The argument of the paper is illustrated throughout by examples from biology and computational psychology.
Matthen, Mohan & Levy, Edwin (1984). Teleology, error, and the human immune system. Journal of Philosophy 81 (7):351-372.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The authors attempt to show that certain forms of behavior of the human immune system are illuminatingly regarded as errors in that system's operation. Since error-ascription can occur only within the context of an intentional/teleological characterization of the system, it follows that such a characterization is illuminating. It is argued that error-ascription is objective, non-anthropomorphic, irreducible to any purely causal form of explanation of the same behavior, and further that it is wrong to regard all errors of the immune system as due to malfunction or maladaptation.
McGinn, Colin (2004). The objects of intentionality. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Melden, Abraham I. (1940). Thought and its objects. Philosophy of Science 7 (October):434-441.   (Google | More links)
Montague, Michelle (2009). The Content of Perceptual Experience. In B. McLaughlin & A. Beckermann (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind.   (Google)
Rosenkrantz, Gary S. (1990). Reference, intentionality, and nonexistent entities. Philosophical Studies 58 (1-2):165-171.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Rozeboom, William W. (1962). Intentionality and existence. Mind 71 (January):15-32.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Voltolini, Alberto (2006). Are there non-existent intentionalia? Philosophical Quarterly 56 (224):436-441.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In his recent book on the philosophy of mind,1 Tim Crane has maintained that intentional objects are to be conceived as schematic entities, having no particular intrinsic nature. I take this metaphysical thesis as fundamentally correct. Yet in this paper I want to cast some doubts on whether this thesis prevents intentionalia, especially nonexistent ones, from belonging to the general inventory of what there is, as Crane seems to think. If my doubts are grounded, Crane’s treatment of intentionalia may further be freed from a certain tension that seems to affect it, namely the fact that he appeals to nonexistent intentionalia in order to individuate intentional states and at the same time he attempts at dispensing with them
Voltolini, Alberto (1991). Objects as intentional and real. Grazer Philosophische Studien 41:1-32.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
Abstract: In a recent paper, G. Küng has maintained that in addition to what he considers the three standard theories concerning the relationship between an intentional and a "corresponding" real object, a case might be made for a fourth. According to this new theory, the intentional and the real object are simply one and the same thing, in the sense that should it exist, the intentional object is the real object1. In this paper, I hope to show that Küng is right when he says that this theory is preferable to the others, because of its greater explanatory power and because it avoids the perplexities which those theories give rise to. I hold, however, that the thesis of the identity of the intentional and the real object stands in fundamental need of being completed to make it really convincing. Indeed, an objection to it immediately comes to mind: how is it possible for an intentional object - something apparently mental or subjective - to be identical with a real one, generally considered mindindependent or objective? I think that it is only through an appropriate ontological move that a definite answer to this problem may be provided. In actual fact, Küng attempts to support its version of the theory with a Meinongian ontology, according to which objects as such are beyond being and non-being2. It seems to me, however, that in dealing with the above problem, Küng does not employ such an ontology satisfactorily. But whether this is or not the case, I will hereafter try to show that the thesis of the identity of the intentional and the real object may be retained if we also attempt to outline an anti-realist ontology different from the ultra-realist doctrine of Meinong's - namely, an ontology of objects as basically objects of discourse

2.4d Object-Dependent Contents

Crawford, Sean (1998). In defence of object-dependent thoughts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 98 (2):201-210.   (Google | More links)
Levine, Joseph (1988). Demonstrating in mentalese. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 69 (September):222-240.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Longworth, Guy (2003). Where should we look for the mind? Think 5.   (Google)
Marques, Teresa (2006). On an Argument of Segal's Against Singular Object-Dependent Thoughts. Disputatio 2 (26).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper discusses and criticizes Segal’s 1989 argument against singular object-dependent thoughts. His argument aims at showing that object-dependent thoughts are explanatorily redundant. My criticism of Segal’s argument has two parts. First, I appeal to common anti-individualist arguments to the effect that Segal’s type of argument only succeeds in establishing that object-dependent thoughts are explanatorily redundant for those aspects of subjects’ behaviour that do not require reference to external objects. Secondly, Segal’s view on singular thoughts is at odds with his view on the semantics of proper names, which favours the singularity and object-dependency of the truth-conditions of sentences in which they occur. In particular, his views are at odds with a position he holds, that truth-conditional semantics can adequately account for all aspects of speakers’ linguistic competence in the use of proper names.
McDowell, John (1990). Peacocke and Evans on demonstrative content. Mind 99 (394):255-266.   (Google | More links)
Montague, Michelle (2009). The Content of Perceptual Experience. In B. McLaughlin & A. Beckermann (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind.   (Google)
Peacocke, Christopher (1991). Demonstrative content: A reply to John McDowell. Mind 100 (1):123-133.   (Google | More links)

2.4e Two-Dimensionalism about Content

13 / 45 entries displayed

Balog, Katalin (2001). Commentary on Frank Jackson's from metaphysics to ethics. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (3):645–652.   (Google)
Abstract: Discussion of Frank Jackson’s a priori entailment thesis – which he employs to connect metaphysics and conceptual analysis. In From Metaphysics to Ethics. (2001) he develops this thesis within the two-dimensional framework and also proposes a formal argument for the existence of a priori truths. I argue that the two-dimensional framework doesn’t provide independent support for the a priori entailment thesis since one has to build into the framework assumptions as strong as the thesis itself.
Brogaard, Berit (forthcoming). The missing dimension: Two-dimensional approaches to matters epistemic. Philosophy Compass.   (Google)
Abstract: I. Standard Semantics According to what we might call
Chalmers, David J. (online). Probability and propositions.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: What are the objects of belief? That is, what are the things we believe, when we believe that it is sunny outside and that Nietzsche is dead? Usually these things are taken to be propositions. But the nature of propositions is itself contested. What is a proposition, such that it can serve as an object of belief?
Chalmers, David J. (2002). The components of content. In David J. Chalmers (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 46 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: [[This paper appears in my anthology _Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings_ (Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 608-633. It is a heavily revised version of a paper first written in 1994 and revised in 1995. Sections 1, 7, 8, and 10 are similar to the old version, but the other sections are quite different. Because the old version has been widely cited, I have made it available (in its 1995 version) at http://consc.net/papers/content95.html
Chalmers, David (manuscript). The components of content (1995 version). .   (Google)
Abstract: (1) Is content in the head? I believe that water is wet. My twin on Twin Earth, which is just like Earth except that H2O is replaced by the superficially identical XYZ, does not. His thoughts concern not water but twin water: I believe that water is wet, but he believes that twin water is wet. It follows that that what a subject believes is not wholly determined by the internal state of the believer. Nevertheless, the cognitive similarities between me and my twin are striking. Is there some wholly internal aspect of content that we might share?
Chalmers, David J. (2003). The nature of narrow content. Philosophical Issues 13 (1):46-66.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Abstract: A content of a subject's mental state is narrow when it is determined by the subject's intrinsic properties: that is, when any possible intrinsic duplicate of the subject has a corresponding mental state with the same content. A content of a subject's mental state is..
Haukioja, Jussi (2006). Semantic externalism and A Priori self-knowledge. Ratio 19 (2):149-159.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The argument known as the 'McKinsey Recipe' tries to establish the incompatibility of semantic externalism (about natural kind concepts in particular) and _a priori _self- knowledge about thoughts and concepts by deriving from the conjunction of these theses an absurd conclusion, such as that we could know _a priori _that water exists. One reply to this argument is to distinguish two different readings of 'natural kind concept': (i) a concept which _in fact _denotes a natural kind, and (ii) a concept which _aims_ to denote a natural kind. Paul Boghossian has argued, using a _Dry Earth _scenario, that this response fails, claiming that the externalist cannot make sense of a concept aiming, but failing, to denote a natural kind. In this paper I argue that Boghossian's argument is flawed. Borrowing machinery from two-dimensional semantics, using the notion of 'considering a possible world as actual', I claim that we can give a determinate answer to Boghossian's question: which concept would 'water' express on Dry Earth?
Jackson, Frank (1994). Armchair metaphysics. In John O'Leary-Hawthorne & Michaelis Michael (eds.), Philosophy in Mind. Kluwer.   (Google)
Prosser, Simon (forthcoming). The two-dimensional content of consciousness. Philosophical Studies 136:319--349.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper I put forward a representationalist theory of conscious experience based on Robert Stalnaker
Sawyer, Sarah (2007). There is no viable notion of narrow content. In Brian P. McLaughlin & Jonathan D. Cohen (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.   (Google)
Schiffer, Stephen R. (online). Mental content and epistemic two-dimensional semantics.   (Google)
Schiffer, Stephen R. (2003). Two-dimensional semantics and propositional attitude content. In The Things We Mean. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Stalnaker, Robert (1990). Narrow content. In C. Anthony Anderson & Joseph Owens (eds.), Propositional Attitudes: The Role of Content in Logic, Language, and Mind. Stanford: CSLI.   (Cited by 27 | Annotation | Google)

2.4f The Nature of Contents, Misc

Bourget, David (2010). The representational theory of consciousness. Dissertation, Australian National University   (Google)
Abstract: A satisfactory solution to the problem of consciousness would take the form of a simple yet fully general model which specifies the precise conditions under which any given state of consciousness occurs. Science has uncovered numerous correlations between consciousness and neural activity, but it has not yet come anywhere close to this. We are still looking for the Newtonian laws of consciousness. One of the main difficulties with consciousness is that we lack a language in which to formulate illuminating generalizations about it. Philosophers and scientists talk about "what it’s like", sensations, feelings, and perceptual states such as seeing and hearing. This language does not allow a precise articulation of the internal structures of conscious states and their inter-relations. It is inadequate to capture relations of the kind we are looking for between conscious states and physical states. In this thesis I refine and defend a theory of consciousness which promises to solve this regimentation problem: the representational theory of consciousness. I argue that the representational theory can solve the regimentation problem and smooth out other important obstacles to a fruitful study of consciousness. I also make a case for the theory independently of its payoffs, and I discuss the leading opposing theories at some length. In the rest of this introduction, I will clarify what I mean by "consciousness", provide an initial characterization of the representational theory, and outline my project in more detail
Brogaard, Berit, Centered worlds and the content of perception: Short version.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: 0. Relativistic Content In standard semantics, propositional content, whether it be the content of utterances or mental states, has a truth-value relative only to a possible world. For example, the content of my utterance of ‘Jim is sitting now’ is true just in case Jim is sitting at the time of utterance in the actual world, and the content of my belief that Alice will give a talk tomorrow is true just in case Alice will give a talk on the day following the occurrence of my belief state in the actual world. Let us call propositional content which has a truth-value relative only to a possible world ‘non-relativistic content’. Non-relativistic content can be treated as either structured or unstructured. On the unstructured-content view, non-relativistic content is a set of possible worlds and bears the truth-value true just in case the actual world is a member of that set. For example, the content of my utterance of ‘Jim is working now’ at time t is the set of worlds in which Jim is working at t, and this content is true just in case the actual world is among those worlds. On the structured-content view, non-relativistic content is a set or conglomeration of properties and/or objects, where properties are features which objects possess regardless of who considers or observes them and regardless of when they are being considered or observed. Such properties are said to be (or represent) functions from possible worlds to extensions. Relative to a possible world they determine a set of objects instantiating the property. For example, relative to the actual world the property of being human determines the set of actual humans. Not all content is non-relativistic. Let us say that propositional content is relativistic just in case it possesses a truth-value only relative to a centered world. A centered world is a possible world in which an individual and a time are marked, where the marked individual..
Chalmers, David J. (online). Probability and propositions.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: What are the objects of belief? That is, what are the things we believe, when we believe that it is sunny outside and that Nietzsche is dead? Usually these things are taken to be propositions. But the nature of propositions is itself contested. What is a proposition, such that it can serve as an object of belief?
Gerken, Mikkel (2007). A false dilemma for anti-individualism. American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (4):329-42.   (Google)
Lasersohn, Peter (2007). Expressives, perspective and presupposition. Theoretical Linguistics 33 (2):223-230.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: I compare Potts’ use of a ‘‘judge’’ parameter in semantic interpretation with the use of a similar parameter in Lasersohn (2005). The latter technique portrays the content of expressives as constant across speakers, while Pott’s technique does not. The idea that the content of expressives is a kind of presupposition is also briefly defended, and a technical problem in the ‘‘dynamics’’ of Pott’s formalism is pointed out.
Matthen, Mohan & Levy, Edwin (1984). Teleology, error, and the human immune system. Journal of Philosophy 81 (7):351-372.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The authors attempt to show that certain forms of behavior of the human immune system are illuminatingly regarded as errors in that system's operation. Since error-ascription can occur only within the context of an intentional/teleological characterization of the system, it follows that such a characterization is illuminating. It is argued that error-ascription is objective, non-anthropomorphic, irreducible to any purely causal form of explanation of the same behavior, and further that it is wrong to regard all errors of the immune system as due to malfunction or maladaptation.

2.5 Aspects of Intentionality

249 / 503 entries displayed

2.5a Naturalism and Intentionality

Alfano, Mark (forthcoming). Nietzsche, naturalism, and the tenacity of the intentional. International Studies in Philosophy.   (Google)
Abstract: In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche demands that “psychology shall be
recognized again as the queen of the sciences.” While one might cast a dubious glance at the “again,” many of Nietzsche’s insights were indeed psychological, and many of his arguments invoke psychological premises. In Genealogy, he criticizes the “English psychologists” for the “inherent psychological absurdity” of their theory of the origin of good and bad, pointing out the implausibility of the claim that the utility of unegoistic
actions would be forgotten. Tabling whether this criticism is valid, we see Nietzsche’s methodological naturalism here: moral claims should be grounded in empirical psychological claims. Later in Genealogy, Nietzsche advances his own naturalistic account of the origins of good, bad, and evil.
Three cheers for methodological naturalism, but it was not Nietzsche’s innovation, and he did not pioneer its application to morality. The list of moral naturalists who appealed to psychology arguably includes Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Bentham, and Mill, among many others. If Nietzsche’s naturalism is to be worth the candle of contemporary scholarship, it must involve more than the methodological naturalism that predated him by centuries and to which he made no serious contribution. Nietzsche’s key contribution to naturalism is not his adherence to its methodology, but his discovery of certain psychological facts. In particular, he realized that mental states are not ordinary dyadic relations between a subject and an intentional content. Nietzsche discovered the tenacity of intentional states: when an intentional state loses its object (because the subject realizes the object does not exist, because the object is forbidden, or because of something else), a new object replaces the original; the state does not disappear entirely. As Nietzsche puts it Genealogy, “Man would rather will the void than be void of will.” Nietzsche relies on the tenacity thesis in his explanation of the origin of bad conscience: “All instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward […. They turn] against [their] possessors.” When hostility towards others becomes impossible, hostility does not disappear; instead, its object is replaced.
Bealer, George (1996). Materialism and the logical structure of intentionality. In Objections to Physicalism. New York: Clarendon Press.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Abstract: After a brief history of Brentano's thesis of intentionality, it is argued that intentionality presents a serious problem for materialism. First, it is shown that, if no general materialist analysis (or reduction) of intentionality is possible, then intentional phenomena would have in common at least one nonphysical property, namely, their intentionality. A general analysis of intentionality is then suggested. Finally, it is argued that any satisfactory general analysis of intentionality must share with this analysis a feature which entails the existence of a nonphysical "level of organization"
Beckermann, Ansgar (1996). Is there a problem about intentionality? Erkenntnis 45 (1):1-24.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The crucial point of the mind-body-problem appears to be that mental phenome- na (events, properties, states) seem to have features which at first sight make it impossible to integrate these phenomena into a naturalistic world view, i.e. to identify them with, or to reduce them to, physical phenomena.1 In the contemp- orary discussion, there are mainly two critical features which are important in this context. The first of these is the feature of intentional states, e.g. beliefs and desires, to have a representational or semantic content. The problem of the naturalization of these states I will call the problem of intentionality. The second critical feature is the property of other mental states, e.g. perceptions and sensations, to have a qualitative aspect, i.e. that it is somehow, or feels in a characteristic way, to be in one of those states. The problem of the naturalization of these states is generally called the qualia-problem
Beckermann, Ansgar (1988). Why tropistic systems are not genuine intentional systems. Erkenntnis 29 (July):125-142.   (Google | More links)
Bestor, Thomas W. (1991). Naturalizing semantics: New insights or old folly? Inquiry 34 (September):285-310.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Boden, Margaret A. (1970). Intentionality and physical systems. Philosophy of Science 32 (June):200-214.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Bontly, Thomas D. (2001). Should Intentionality Be Naturalized? In D. Walsh (ed.), Evolution, Naturalism and Mind. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Brentano, Franz Clemens (1874). Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint. Routledge.   (Google)
Conee, Earl (1995). Supervenience and intentionality. In Supervenience: New Essays. Needham Heights: Cambridge.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Coseru, Christian (2009). Naturalism and Intentionality: A Buddhist Epistemological Approach. Asian Philosophy 19 (3):239-264.   (Google)
Abstract: In this paper I propose a naturalist account of the Buddhist epistemological discussion of sva- samvitti (“self-awareness,” “self-cognition”) following similar attempts in the domains of phe- nomenology and analytic epistemology. I examine the extent to which recent work in naturalized epistemology and phenomenology, particularly in the areas of perception and inten- tionality could be profitably used in unpacking the implications of the Buddhist epistemological project. I am also concerned with naturalism more generally, and the ways in which spe- cific models such as that of embodied cognition, can benefit from some of the valuable insights of Buddhist epistemology.
Devitt, Michael (1994). The methodology of naturalistic semantics. Journal of Philosophy 91 (10):519-44.   (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)
Dowell, J. L. (2004). From metaphysical to substantive naturalism: A case study. Synthese 138 (2):149-173.   (Google | More links)
Egan, Frances (2003). Naturalistic inquiry: Where does mental representation fit in? In Chomsky and His Critics. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
Enc, Berent (1982). Intentional states of mechanical devices. Mind 91 (April):161-182.   (Cited by 12 | Google | More links)
Millikan, Ruth G. (2000). Naturalizing intentionality. In Bernard Elevitch (ed.), Philosophy of Mind, Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy. Philosopy Documentation Center.   (Google)
Abstract: Brentano was surely mistaken, however, in thinking that bearing a relation to something nonexistent marks only the mental. Given any sort of purpose, it might not get fulfilled, hence might exhibit Brentano's relation, and there are many natural purposes, such as the purpose of one's stomach to digest food or the purpose of one's protective eye blink reflex to keep out the sand, that are not mental, nor derived from anything mental. Nor are stomachs and reflexes "of" or"about" anything. A reply might be, I suppose, that natural purposes are "purposes" only in an analogical sense hence "fail to be fulfilled" only in an analogical way. They bear an analogy to things that have been intentionally designed by purposive minds, hence can fail to accomplish the purposes they analogically have. As such they also have only analogical "intentionality". Such a response begs the question, however, for it assumes that natural purposes are not purposes in the full sense exactly because they are not
Greenberg, Mark (2005). A new map of theories of mental content. Noûs 39 (1):299-320.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Haldane, John J. (1989). Naturalism and the problem of intentionality. Inquiry 32 (September):305-22.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
Heil, John (2004). Natural intentionality. In Richard Schantz (ed.), The Externalist Challenge. De Gruyter.   (Google)
Horowitz, Amir (1990). Intentional and physical relations. Manuscrito 13 (1):55-67.   (Google)
Horgan, Terence E. (1994). Naturalism and intentionality. Philosophical Studies 76 (2-3):301-26.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Kim, Jaegwon (2003). Chisholm's legacy on intentionality. Metaphilosophy 34 (5):649-662.   (Google | More links)
Madell, Geoffrey C. (1989). Physicalism and the content of thought. Inquiry 32 (1):107-21.   (Google)
Martin, C. B. & Pfeifer, Karl (1986). Intentionality and the non-psychological. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 46 (June):531-54.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Moran, Dermot (1996). The inaugural address: Brentano's thesis. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 70 (70):1-27.   (Google)
Nelson, Raymond J. (1988). Mechanism and intentionality: The new world knot. In Perspectives On Mind. Dordrecht: Kluwer.   (Google)
Nochlin, Philip (1953). Reducibility and intentional words. Journal of Philosophy 50 (October):625-637.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Potrc, Matjaz (2001). Nonreductive realism and preservative irrealism. Acta Analytica 16 (26):61-74.   (Google)
Puccetti, Roland (1989). The heart of the mind: Intentionality versus intelligence. In J. R. Smythies & John Beloff (eds.), The Case for Dualism. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.   (Google)
Rietveld, Erik (2008). The Skillful Body as a Concernful System of Possible Actions: Phenomena and Neurodynamics. Theory & Psychology 18 (3):341-361.   (Google)
Abstract: For Merleau-Ponty,consciousness in skillful coping is a matter of prereflective ‘I can’ and not explicit ‘I think that.’ The body unifies many domain-specific capacities. There exists a direct link between the perceived possibilities for action in the situation (‘affordances’) and the organism’s capacities. From Merleau-Ponty’s descriptions it is clear that in a flow of skillful actions, the leading ‘I can’ may change from moment to moment without explicit deliberation. How these transitions occur, however, is less clear. Given that Merleau-Ponty suggested that a better understanding of the self-organization of brain and behavior is important, I will re-read his descriptions of skillful coping in the light of recent ideas on neurodynamics. Affective processes play a crucial role in evaluating the motivational significance of objects and contribute to the individual’s prereflective responsiveness to relevant affordances.
Rowlands, Mark (2006). The normativity of action. Philosophical Psychology 19 (3):401-416.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The concept of action is playing an increasingly prominent role in attempts to explain how subjects can represent the world. The idea is that at least some of the role traditionally assigned to internal representations can, in fact, be played by the ability of subjects to act on the world, and the exercise of that ability on appropriate occasions. This paper argues that the appeal to action faces a serious dilemma. If the concept of action employed is a representational one, then the appeal to action is circular: representation has been presupposed rather than explained. However, if the concept of action employed is a non-representational one, then the appeal to action will be inadequate: in particular, the appeal will fail to account for the normativity of representation. The way out of this dilemma is to develop a conception of action that is normative, but where this normativity is not inherited from the action's connection to distinct representational states. The normative status of such actions would be sui generis. This paper argues that such a conception of action is available
Searle, John R. (1984). Intentionality and its place in nature. Synthese 38 (October):87-100.   (Cited by 21 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Silvers, Stuart (1991). On naturalizing the semantics of mental representation. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (March):49-73.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Smith, David Woodruff (1999). Intentionality naturalized? In Naturalizing Phenomenology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.   (Cited by 7 | Google)
Stich, Stephen P. & Laurence, Stephen (1994). Intentionality and naturalism. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 19:159-82.   (Cited by 16 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: ...the deepest motivation for intentional irrealism derives not from such relatively technical worries about individualism and holism as we
Thomas, Sid (1962). Professor Sellars on meaning and aboutness. Philosophical Studies 13 (5):68-74.   (Google | More links)
Tye, Michael (1994). Naturalism and the problem of intentionality. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 19 (September):122-42.   (Cited by 9 | Annotation | Google)
Ward, Andrew (1999). Naturalism and the mental realm. Southwest Philosophy Review 15 (1):157-167.   (Google)
Windes, James D. (1975). Intentionality, behavior, and identity theory. Behaviorism 3:156-161.   (Google)

2.5c Rule-Following

Ackermann, D. F. (1983). Wittgenstein, rules and origin - privacy. Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research 1:63-69.   (Google)
Alward, Peter (online). Are functional properties causally potent?   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Jaegwon Kim has recently[1] argued that a solution to the exclusion argument against the intelligibility of mental causation is to found if mental properties can be shown to be reducible to physical properties
Ammereller, Erich (2004). Puzzles about rule-following : Pi 185-242. In Erich Ammereller & Eugen Fisher (eds.), Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations. Routledge.   (Google)
Armstrong, Benjamin F. (1984). Wittgenstein on private languages: It takes two to talk. Philosophical Investigations 7 (January):46-62.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Ayer, A. J. (1954). Can there be a private language? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. vol. 28.   (Cited by 12 | Google)
Baker, Gordon P. & Hacker, P. M. S. (1990). Malcolm on language and rules. Philosophy 65 (252):167-179.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Baker, Gordon P. & Hacker, P. M. S. (1984). Scepticism, Rules and Language. Blackwell.   (Cited by 62 | Google)
Baker, Gordon P. & Hacker, P. M. S. (1985). Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity. Blackwell.   (Cited by 56 | Google | More links)
Bar-On, Dorit (1992). On the possibility of a solitary language. Noûs 26 (1):27-46.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Bernasconi-Kohn, Lorenzo (2006). How not to think about rules and rule following: A response to Stueber. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 36 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: This article offers a critique of Karsten Stueber’s account of rule following as presented in his article "How to Think about Rules and Rule Following." The task Stueber sets himself is of defending the idea that human practices are bound and guided by rules (both causally and normatively) while avoiding the discredited "cognitive model of rule following." This article argues that Stueber’s proposal is unconvincing because it falls foul of the very problems it sets out to avoid. Stueber’s defense of rules as normative guides is shown to be either circular or burdened with an infinite regress, while his account of rules as causal determinants of our actions is shown to lapse back into the "cognitive model" that he explicitly rejects. Key Words: rules • rule following • norms • causes • social science
Blackburn, Simon (1981). Reply : Rule-following and moral realism. In S. Holtzman & Christopher M. Leich (eds.), Wittgenstein: To Follow a Rule. Routledge.   (Google)
Bloor, David (1997). Wittgenstein, Rules and Institutions. Routledge.   (Cited by 76 | Google)
Abstract: David Bloor's challenging new evaluation of Wittgenstein's account of rules and rule-following brings together the rare combination of philosophical and sociological viewpoints. Wittgenstein enigmatically claimed that the way we follow rules is an "institution" without ever explaining what he meant by this term. Wittgenstein's contribution to the debate has since been subject to sharply opposed interpretations by "collectivist" and "individualist" readings by philosophers; in the light of this controversy, Bloor argues convincingly for a collectivist, sociological understanding of Wittgenstein's later work. Accessible and simply written, this book provides the first consistent sociological reading of Wittgenstein's work for many years
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Bridges, Jason (online). Rule-following skepticism, properly so called.   (Google)
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Burbules, Nicholas C. & Smith, Richard (2005). 'What it makes sense to say': Wittgenstein, rule-following and the nature of education. Educational Philosophy and Theory 37 (3):425–430.   (Google | More links)
Cain, M. J. (2006). Concept nativism and the rule following considerations. Acta Analytica 21 (38):77-101.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In this paper I argue that the most prominent and familiar features of Wittgenstein’s rule following considerations generate a powerful argument for the thesis that most of our concepts are innate, an argument that echoes a Chomskyan poverty of the stimulus argument. This argument has a significance over and above what it tells us about Wittgenstein’s implicit commitments. For, it puts considerable pressure on widely held contemporary views of concept learning, such as the view that we learn concepts by constructing prototypes. This should lead us to abandon our general default hostility to concept nativism and be much more sceptical of claims made on behalf of learning theories
Carruthers, Peter (1984). Baker and Hacker's Wittgenstein. Synthese 58 (3):451-79.   (Google | More links)
Carruthers, Peter (1985). Ruling-out realism. Philosophia 15 (1-2):61-78.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The case for anti-realism in the theory of meaning, as presented by Dummen and Wright, 1 is only partly convincing. There is, I shall suggest, a crucial lacuna in the argument, that can only be filled by the later Wittgenstein's following-a-rule considerations. So it is the latter that provides the strongest argument for the rejection of semantic realism.
By 'realism', throughout, I should be taken as referring to any conception of meaning that leaves open the possibility that a sentence may have a determinate truth-value although we are incapable - either in practice or in principle - of discovering what truth-value it has ('the possibility of veritication-transcendence' for short). 2 I shall say nothing further about what an anti-realist semantics might look like, nor about the possible consequences for logic, epistemology and metaphysics, beyond the fact that it must involve the rejection of any such conception of meaning.
Champlin, T. Stephen (1992). Solitary rule-following. Philosophy 67 (261):285-306.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Cheng, Kai-Yuan (forthcoming). A new look at the problem of rule-following: A generic perspective. Philosophical Studies.   (Google)
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to look at the problem of rule-following—notably discussed by Kripke (Wittgenstein on rules and private language, 1982 ) and Wittgenstein (Philosophical investigations, 1953 )—from the perspective of the study of generics. Generics are sentences that express generalizations that tolerate exceptions. I first suggest that meaning ascriptions be viewed as habitual sentences, which are a sub-set of generics. I then seek a proper semantic analysis for habitually construed meaning sentences. The quantificational approach is rejected, due to its persistent difficulties. Instead, a cognitive approach is adopted, where psychological considerations of meaning attributors play a crucial role. This account is then compared with the picture of meaning offered by Kripke and Wittgenstein, respectively. I show how this fresh way of conceiving of meaning sentences respects some of their insights while avoiding some of the drawbacks, and serves to improve the framework in which the current debate and inquiry about rule-following are conducted
Cozzo, Cesare (2004). Rule-following and the objectivity of proof. In Annalisa Coliva & Eva Picardi (eds.), Wittgenstein Today. Il poligrafo.   (Google)
Abstract: Ideas on meaning, rules and mathematical proofs abound in Wittgenstein’s writings. The undeniable fact that they are present together, sometimes intertwined in the same passage of Philosophical Investigations or Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, does not show, however, that the connection between these ideas is necessary or inextricable. The possibility remains, and ought to be checked, that they can be plausibly and consistently separated. I am going to examine two views detectable in Wittgenstein’s works: one about proofs, the other about meaning and rules. The first is the denial of the objectivity of proof. The second is a conception of meaning stemming from the rule-following considerations. I shall argue that, though Wittgenstein seems to conjoin the two views, they can be, and should be, separated1
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Croom, Adam M. (2010). Thick Concepts, Non-Cognitivism, and Wittgenstein's Rule Following Considerations. South African Journal of Philosophy 29.   (Google)
Abstract: Non-cognitivists claim that thick concepts can be disentangled into distinct descriptive and evaluative components and that since thick concepts have descriptive shape they can be mastered independently of evaluation. In Non-Cognitivism and Rule-Following, John McDowell uses Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations to show that such a non-cognitivist view is untenable. In this paper I do several things. I describe the non-cognitivist position in its various forms and explain its driving motivations. I then explain McDowell’s argument against non-cognitivism and the Wittgensteinian considerations upon which it relies, because this has been sufficiently misunderstood by critics and rarely articulated by commentators. After clarifying McDowell’s argument against non-cognitivism, I extend the analysis to show that commentators of McDowell have failed to appreciate his argument and that critical responses have been weak. I argue against three challenges posed to McDowell, and show that the case of thick concepts should lead us to reject non-cognitivism.
Croom, Adam M. (2010). Wittgenstein, Kripke, and the Rule Following Paradox. Dialogue 52 (2/3):103-109.   (Google)
Abstract: In §201 of Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein puts forward his famous “rule-following paradox.” The paradox is how can one follow in accord with a rule – the applications of which are potentially infinite – when the instances from which one learns the rule and the instances in which one displays that one has learned the rule are only finite? How can one be certain of rule-following at all? In Wittgenstein: On Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke concedes the skeptical position that there are no facts that we follow a rule but that there are still conditions under which we are warranted in asserting of others that they are following a rule. In this paper, I explain why Kripke’s solution to the rule-following paradox fails. I then offer an alternative.
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Ebbs, Gary (1997). Rule-Following and Realism. Harvard University Press.   (Cited by 27 | Google | More links)
Eldridge, Richard T. (1986). The normal and the normative: Wittgenstein's legacy, Kripke, and Cavell. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 46 (June):555-575.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
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Gerrans, Philip (1998). How to be a conformist, part II. simulation and rule following. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (4):566 – 586.   (Google)
Gerrans, Philip, Tacit knowledge, rule following and Pierre Bourdieu's philosophy of social science.   (Google)
Abstract: Pierre Bourdieu has developed a philosophy of social science, grounded in the phenomenological tradition, which treats knowledge as a practical ability embodied in skilful behaviour, rather than an intellectual capacity for the representation and manipulation of propositional knowledge. He invokes Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following as one way of explicating the idea that knowledge is a skill. Bourdieu’s conception of tacit knowledge is a dispositional one, adopted to avoid a perceived dilemma for methodological individualism. That dilemma requires either the explanation of regularities in social behaviour as the result of the tacit representation of procedural rules (‘legalism’) or the self-conscious representation of behavioural goals (‘voluntarism’) by individuals. After explaining the apparent dilemma, I then argue that Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule following actually undermine, rather than support, a dispositional solution. Nonetheless, the philosophy of social science can survive without a dispositional account of knowledge. Such a social science needs, firstly, to embrace one horn of the dilemma, voluntarism, provided that the relevant regularities can be explained as unintended consequences of agents’ self-represented intentions. Secondly, such a social science should treat theorists’ interpretations as unifying generalizations, not hypotheses about the acquisition of tacit knowledge. Finally, where appeal to cognitive psychology can distinguish otherwise equivalent theories in social science, social science should incorporate the data of cognitive psychology concerning tacit mental processes
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Gottlieb, D. F. (1983). Wittgenstein's critique of the "tractatus" view of rules. Synthese 56 (August):239-251.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Guardo, Andrea (forthcoming). Kripke's account of the rule-following considerations. European Journal of Philosophy.   (Google)
Abstract: Abstract: This paper argues that most of the alleged straight solutions to the sceptical paradox which Kripke (1982) ascribed to Wittgenstein can be regarded as the first horn of a dilemma whose second horn is the paradox itself. The dilemma is proved to be a by-product of a foundationalist assumption on the notion of justification, as applied to linguistic behaviour. It is maintained that the assumption is unnecessary and that the dilemma is therefore spurious. To this end, an alternative conception of the justification of linguistic behaviour is outlined, a conception that vindicates some of the insights behind Kripke's Wittgenstein's sceptical solution of the paradox. This alternative conception is defended against two objections (both familiar from McDowell's works): (1) that it would imply that for the linguistic community there is no authority, no standard to meet and, therefore, no possibility of error and (2) that it would lead to a kind of idealism
Hacking, Ian (1985). Rules, scepticism, proof, Wittgenstein. In Ian Hacking (ed.), Exercises in Analysis: Essays by Students of Casimir Lewy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (Google)
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Hattiangadi, Anandi (2003). Making it implicit: Brandom on rule-following. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (2):419-31.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Hattiangadi, Anandi (2007). Oughts and Thoughts: Rule-Following and the Normativity of Content. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Haukioja, Jussi (2006). Hindriks on rule-following. Philosophical Studies 126 (2):219-239.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper is a reply to Frank Hindriks
Haukioja, Jussi (2005). Is solitary rule-following possible? Philosophia 32 (1-4):131-154.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to discover whether or not a solitary individual, a human being isolated from birth, could become a rule-follower. The argumentation against this possibility rests on the claim that such an isolate could not become aware of a normative standard, with which her actions could agree or disagree. As a consequence, theorists impressed by this argumentation adopt a view on which the normativity of rules arises from corrective practices in which agents engage in a community. However, it has been suggested that an isolated individual could engage in such a practice by herself. Three prospective examples of such cases are considered, and the possibility of solitary rule-following is vindicated. Furthermore, the nature of the goals at which rule-following practices generally aim is clarified
Heal, Jane (2009). Rule-following and its ramifications. Analysis 69 (3).   (Google)
Heil, John & Martin, C. B. (1998). Rules and powers. Philosophical Perspectives 12:283-312.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Hershfield, Jeffrey (2005). Rule following and the background. Linguistics and Philosophy 28 (3).   (Google)
Abstract: . In his work on language John Searle favors an Austinian approach that emphasizes the speech act as the basic unit of meaning and communication, and which sees speaking a language as engaging in a rule-governed form of behavior. He couples this with a strident opposition to cognitivist approaches that posit unconscious rule following as the causal basis of linguistic competence. In place of unconscious rule following Searle posits what he calls the Background, comprised of nonintentional (nonrepresentational) mental phenomena. I argue that these two aspects of his philosophy of language cannot be reconciled. In order to preserve his view of language as a rule-governed activity, he must embrace the cognitivist idea of unconscious rule following. Finally, I try to show how such an accommodation would be far less traumatic to Searle’s philosophical system than it might otherwise seem
Hetherington, Stephen C. (1991). Kripke and McGinn on Wittgensteinian rule-following. Philosophia 21 (1-2):89-100.   (Google | More links)
Hindriks, Frank A. (2004). A modest solution to the problem of rule-following. Philosophical Studies 121 (1):65-98.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Holton, Richard & Price, Huw (2003). Ramsey on saying and whistling: A discordant note. Noûs 37 (2):325–341.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In 'General Propositions and Causality' Ramsey rejects his earlier view that universal generalizations are infinite conjunctions, arguing that they are not genuine propositions at all. We argue that his new position is unstable. The issues about infinity that lead Ramsey to the new view are essentially those underlying Wittgenstein's rule-following considerations. If they show that generalizations are not genuine propositions, they show that there are no genuine propositions. The connection raises interesting historical questions about the direction of influence between Ramsey and Wittgenstein, the origin of the rule-following argument, and the influence of writers such as Brouwer.
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Jackman, Henry (2003). Foundationalism, coherentism, and rule-following skepticism. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 11 (1):25-41.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Semantic holists view what one's terms mean as function of all of one's usage. Holists will thus be coherentists about semantic justification: showing that one's usage of a term is semantically justified involves showing how it coheres with the rest of one's usage. Semantic atomists, by contrast, understand semantic justification in a foundationalist fashion. Saul Kripke has, on Wittgenstein's behalf, famously argued for a type of skepticism about meaning and semantic justification. However, Kripke's argument has bite only if one understands semantic justification in foundationalist terms. Consequently, Kripke's arguments lead not to a type of skepticism about meaning, but rather to the conclusion that one should be a coherentist about semantic justification, and thus a holist about semantic facts
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Kraft, Tim (2009). Oughts and thoughts: Rule-following and the normativity of content, by Anandi Hattiangadi. European Journal of Philosophy 17 (2):336-341.   (Google)
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Landy, David (2008). Hegel's account of rule-following. Inquiry 51 (2):170 – 193.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: I here discuss Hegel's rule-following considerations as they are found in the first four chapters of his Phenomenology of Spirit. I begin by outlining a number of key premises in Hegel's argument that he adopts fairly straightforwardly from Kant's Transcendental Deduction. The most important of these is that the correctness or incorrectness of one's application of a rule must be recognizable as such to the rule-follower. Supplementing Hegel's text as needed, I then argue that it is possible for an experiencing subject to follow a rule only where there is a community of individuals whose agreement can provide a standard for the correctness and incorrectness of his use. I further argue that a community must consist of members that are compresent, and thus that a collection of time-slices of an individual will not serve this purpose. I conclude by raising a potential problem for Hegel's account of rule-following concerning the correctness and incorrectness of the judgments of a community, and pointing to a possible line of response to this problem
Lang, Gerald (2001). The rule-following considerations and metaethics: Some false moves. European Journal of Philosophy 9 (2):190–209.   (Google | More links)
Long, Roderick T., Rule-following, praxeology, and anarchy.   (Google)
Abstract: JEL Classification: B41, B53, B31, B2, P48, A12 Abstract: Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox has important implications for two aspects of Austrian theory. First, it makes it possible to reconcile the Misesian, Rothbardian, and hermeneutical approaches to methodology; second, it provides a way of defending a stateless legal order against the charge that such an order lacks, yet needs, a final arbiter
Lotfi, Shidan (2009). Wittgenstein's rule-following considerations and moral particularism. Theoria 75 (2):100-116.   (Google)
Abstract: Moral particularists have seen Wittgenstein as a close ally. One of the main reasons for this is that particularists such as Jonathan Dancy and John McDowell have argued that Wittgenstein's so-called "rule-following considerations" (RFCs) provide support for their skepticism about the existence and/or role of rules and principles in ethics. In this paper, I show that while Wittgenstein's RFCs challenge the notion that competence with language, i.e., the ability to apply concepts properly, is like mechanically following a rule, he does not reject the idea that there are rules that govern proper use of language. I then argue that while the RFCs may, at best, support a weak form of particularism that denies that moral competence is dependent on an explicit grasp of rules, they do not support a stronger version of particularism that denies that there are any true rules or principles in ethics
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McDowell, John (1991). Intentionality and interiority in Wittgenstein: Comment on Crispin Wright. In Klaus Puhl (ed.), Meaning Scepticism. De Gruyter.   (Cited by 12 | Google)
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Abstract: However, if Wittgenstein’s so called rule-following considerations are correct, then this reason for believing in the validity of (C), is mistaken. The conclusion of those considerations is that we must reject the idea that rules are things which determine possible cases of application before those cases are actually encountered and decided by speakers. If this is right, then there is no rule which determines the meanings of new sentences, i.e. before those sentences have actually been used. Therefore, it might seem that (C) is not valid for natural languages
Panjvani, Cyrus (2008). Rule-following, explanation-transcendence, and private language. Mind 117 (466):303-328.   (Google)
Abstract: I examine what I take to be an important consideration for the later Wittgenstein: the understanding of a rule does not exceed or transcend an understanding of explanations or instructions in the rule. I contend that this consideration plays a central role in the later Wittgenstein's views on rule-following. I first show that it serves as a key premiss in a sceptical argument concerning our ability to follow rules. I then argue that this consideration is vital to Wittgenstein's case against what I describe as a realist view of rules. This realist view requires that our understanding of a rule extend beyond what can be understood from any set of instructions or explanation. For Wittgenstein, because this is to transcend publicly available means of conveying understanding, this realist's understanding is a private understanding. He calls this private source of understanding an ‘intuition’ and the main line of argument against intuition in our understanding of a rule draws, appropriately, on what is called his ‘private language argument’. In this paper, I defend a non-verificationist reading of this argument and its use against the realist so-construed. CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    What's this?
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Abstract:   Given (1) Wittgensteins externalist analysis of the distinction between following a rule and behaving in accordance with a rule, (2) prima facie connections between rule-following and psychological capacities, and (3) pragmatic issues about training, it follows that most, even all, future artificially intelligent computers and robots will not use language, possess concepts, or reason. This argument suggests that AIs traditional aim of building machines with minds, exemplified in current work on cognitive robotics, is in need of substantial revision
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Abstract: In everyday life we often act adequately, yet without deliberation. For instance, we immediately obtain and maintain an appropriate distance from others in an elevator. The notion of normativity implied here is a very basic one, namely distinguishing adequate from inadequate, correct from incorrect, or better from worse in the context of a particular situation. In the first part of this paper I investigate such ‘situated normativity’ by focusing on unreflective expert action. More particularly, I use Wittgenstein’s examples of craftsmen (tailors and architects) absorbed in action to introduce situated normativity. Situated normativity can be understood as the normative aspect of embodied cognition in unreflective skillful action. I develop Wittgenstein’s insight that a peculiar type of affective behaviour, ‘directed discontent’, is essential for getting things right without reflection. Directed discontent is a reaction of appreciation in action and is introduced as a paradigmatic expression of situated normativity. In the second part I discuss Wittgenstein’s ideas on the normativity of what he calls ‘blind’ rule-following and the ‘bedrock’ of immediate action. What matters for understanding the normativity of (even ‘blind’) rule-following, is not that one has the capacity for linguistic articulation or reflection but that one is reliably participating in a communal custom. In the third part I further investigate the complex relationships between unreflective skillful action, perception, emotion, and normativity. Part of this entails an account of the link between normativity at the level of the expert’s socio-cultural practice and the individual’s situated and lived normativity.
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Abstract: This paper proposes a causal-dispositional account of rule-following as it occurs in reasoning and intentional agency. It defends this view against Kripke’s (1982) objection to dispositional accounts of rule-following, and it proposes a solution to the problem of deviant causal chains. In the first part, I will outline the causal-dispositional approach. In the second part, I will follow Martin and Heil’s (1998) realist response to Kripke’s challenge. I will propose an account that distinguishes between two kinds of rule-conformity and two kinds of rule-following, and I will defend the realist approach against two challenges that have recently been raised by Handfield and Bird (2008). In the third part, I will turn to the problem of deviant causal chains, and I will propose a new solution that is partly based on the realist account of rule-following.
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Abstract: Rule following is often made an unnecessary mystery in the philosophy of social science. One form of mystification is the issue of 'rule finitism', which raises the puzzle as to how a learner can possibly extend the rule to applications beyond those examples which have been given as instruction in the rule. Despite the claim that this problem originated in the work of Wittgenstein, it is clear that his philosophical method is designed to evaporate, not perpetuate, such problems. The supposed problem of rule finitism is malformed, deriving from misconceptions about the relation between understanding a rule and making an application of it
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Shogenji, T. (1995). The problem of rule-following in compositional semantics. Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (1):97-108.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
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Stahl, Titus (2007). Practices, Norms and Recognition. Human Affairs 17 (1):10-21.   (Google)
Abstract: The problem of the social foundations of normativity can be illuminated by discussing the narrower question whether rule-following is necessarily a social matter. The problems with individualistic theories of rule-following seem to make such a conclusion unavoidable. Social theories of rule-following, however, seem to only push back one level the dilemma of having to choose either an infinite regress of interpretations or a collapse into non-normative descriptions. The most plausible of these models, Haugeland's conformism, can avoid these objections if it is supplemented with an ontologically reasonable concept of the collective attitude of a group. Groups of individuals who are bound to shared norms by recognizing each other as equipped with a standard authority of criticism have the necessary properties for ascribing to those groups such collective attitudes. Given such a weak notion of a collective attitude, there is hope for a plausible collectivist theory of rule-following.
Stenning, Keith & van Lambalgen, Michiel (2007). Logic in the study of psychiatric disorders: Executive function and rule-following. Topoi 26 (1).   (Google)
Abstract:   Executive function has become an important concept in explanations of psychiatric disorders, but we currently lack comprehensive models of normal executive function and of its malfunctions. Here we illustrate how defeasible logical analysis can aid progress in this area. We illustrate using autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as example disorders, and show how logical analysis reveals commonalities between linguistic and non-linguistic behaviours within each disorder, and how contrasting sub-components of executive function are involved across disorders. This analysis reveals how logical analysis is as applicable to fast, automatic and unconscious reasoning as it is to slow deliberate cogitation
Struck, James Timothy, Law and rule following as arbitrary-excessive rule following and law following as potentially violating too many human rights and freedoms and open to slavery like treatment of persons.   (Google)
Abstract: Laws from guardianship, monopoly, corruption, and fraud are open to arbitrariness. Arbitrariness is a normal concern as human rights and freedoms of too many persons are potentially violated. Slave like treatment of many persons would follow if guardianship, monopoly, corruption and fraud laws were applied to all persons. Application of laws can give rise to significant human rights violations and abuses. Laws become discriminatory when applied to many rather than just some persons. Rule following or citation is sometimes described as helpful with regard to evaluating the worth of a scientific article, Justice or judge, but rule following with regard to application of laws can result in discrimination against persons. We look at examples with regard to corruption, monopoly, guardianship and fraud to disclose that application of laws would violate rights of too many
Stroud, Barry G. (1996). Mind, meaning and practice. In Hans D. Sluga & D. G. Stern (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 8 | Google)
Stroud, Barry G. (1965). Wittgenstein and logical necessity. Philosophical Review 74 (October):504-518.   (Cited by 28 | Google | More links)
Stueber, Karsten R. (2005). How to think about rules and rule following. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35 (3).   (Google)
Abstract: This article will discuss the difficulties of providing a plausible account of rule following in the social realm. It will show that the cognitive model of rule following is not suited for this task. Nevertheless, revealing the inadequacy of the cognitive model does not justify the wholesale dismissal of understanding human practices as rule-following practices, as social theorists like Bourdieu or Dreyfus have argued. Instead it will be shown that rule-following behavior is best understood as being based on a set of complex dispositions. In this manner one is able to account for the causal explanatory role of the notion of a rule. Key Words: rules • norms • explanation • Bourdieu • Winch
Summerfield, Donna M. (1990). On taking the rabbit of rule-following out of the hat of representation: A response to Pettit's The Reality of Rule-Following. Mind 99 (395):425-432.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Tait, William W. (1986). Wittgenstein and the 'skeptical paradoxes'. Journal of Philosophy 83 (September):475-488.   (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)
Tanney, Julia (2000). Playing the rule-following game. Philosophy 75 (292):203-224.   (Google | More links)
Temkin, J. (1986). A private language argument. Southern Journal of Philosophy 24:109-121.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Thornton, Tim (1997). Intention, rule following and the strategic role of Wright's order of determination test. Philosophical Investigations 20 (2):136–151.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: I believe that Wright’s constructivist account of intention is funda- mentally flawed [Wright 1984, 1986, 1987a, 1987b, 1988, 1989a, 1989b, 1991, 1992]. To understand why it fails it is necessary first to locate the account in its broader strategic context. That context is Wright’s response to Wittgenstein’s account of rule following. When so located the diagnosis of the account’s failure is clear. Wright’s account of intention is a species of the interpretative approach to mental content which is explicitly rejected by Wittgenstein
Traiger, Saul (1994). The secret operations of the mind. Minds and Machines 4 (3):303-315.   (Google | More links)
Verheggen, Claudine (1995). Wittgenstein and 'solitary' languages. Philosophical Investigations 18 (4):329-347.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Verheggen, Claudine (2003). Wittgenstein's rule-following paradox and the objectivity of meaning. Philosophical Investigations 26 (4):285–310.   (Google | More links)
Voltolini, Alberto (2001). Why the computational account of rule-following cannot rule out the grammatical account. European Journal of Philosophy 9 (1):82-104.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In recent works, Chomsky has once more endorsed a computational view of rulefollowing, whereby to follow a rule is to operate certain computations on a subject’s mental representations. As is well known, this picture does not conform to what we may call the grammatical conception of rule-following outlined by Wittgenstein, whereby an elucidation of the concept of rule-following is aimed at by isolating grammatical statements regarding the phrase ‘to follow a rule’. As a result, Chomskyan and Wittgensteinian treatments of topics immediately connected with rule-following, namely linguistic competence and understanding, are utterly different from one another. There are two possible stances that computationalists like Chomsky may adopt with regard to the discrepancy between the two aforementioned modes of dealing with rule-following, namely a conciliatory and a non-conciliatory attitude. According to the former attitude, grammatical remarks on and computationallyoriented theories of rule-following investigate one and the same topic although admittedly at different levels, namely a conceptual and an empirical one. According to the latter attitude, grammatical remarks are just a preliminary step in the investigation of rule-following which scientific advancement, presently represented by computationally-oriented theories on this matter, is well entitled to put aside. In what follows, however, I will try to show that both stances are problematic. The conciliatory attitude simply does not work, for it hardly copes with the fact that the concept of rule-following does not supervene, even weakly, on the property of rule-following, namely the property instantiated in the mental/cerebral phenomena that computationally-oriented theories of rule-following study. To take the contrary attitude, on the other hand, is to end up with another disappointing result, namely that the computational treatment of rule-following ultimately deals with something different from that which we wished to gain knowledge of when we began our inquiry into rule-following..
Walton, Douglas N. & Strongman, K. T. (1998). Neonate crusoes, the private language argument and psychology. Philosophical Psychology 11 (4):443-65.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This article questions social constructionists' claims to introduce Wittgenstein's philosophy to psychology. The philosophical fiction of a neonate Crusoe is introduced to cast doubt on the interpretations and use of the private language argument to support a new psychology developed by the constructionists. It is argued that a neonate Crusoe's viability in philosophy and apparent absence in psychology offends against the integrity of the philosophical contribution Wittgenstein might make to psychology. The consequences of accepting Crusoe's viability are explored as they appear in both philosophy and psychology
Whiting, Daniel (2007). Defending semantic generalism. Analysis 67 (296):303–311.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: ‘Particularism’ is a meta-ethical theory resulting from a holistic doctrine in the theory of reasons. According to Jonathan Dancy, the foremost contemporary proponent of particularism, ‘a feature that is a reason in favour of an action in one case may be no reason at all in another, or even a reason against’ (2004: 190). From this, Dancy claims, it follows that the ‘possibility of moral thought and judgement does not depend on the provision of a suitable supply of moral principles’ (2004: 7). This doctrine is of significant interest and import in its own right, and accordingly is the subject of considerable critical attention. The concern of this paper, however, is not meta-ethics but semantics
Whiting, Daniel (2008). Oughts and thoughts: Rule-following and the normativity of content – Anandi Hattiangadi. Philosophical Quarterly 58 (233):743-745.   (Google)
Whiting, Daniel (forthcoming). Particularly general and generally particular: language, rules and meaning. Logique et Analyse.   (Google)
Abstract: Semantic generalists and semantic particularists disagree over the role of rules or principles in linguistic competence and in the determination of linguistic meaning, and hence over the importance of the notions of a rule or of a principle in philosophical accounts of language. In this paper, I have argued that the particularist’s case against generalism is far from decisive and that by moderating the claims she makes on behalf of her thesis the generalist can accommodate many of the considerations that the particularist cites in support of her position.
Williams, Michael (1991). Blind obedience: Rules, community and the individual. In Klaus Puhl (ed.), Meaning Scepticism. De Gruyter.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
Williams, Michael (1983). Wittgenstein on representation, privileged objects and private language. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 13 (March):57-78.   (Google)
Wright, Crispin (ms). Rule-following without reasons: Wittgenstein's quietism and the constitutive question.   (Google)
Abstract: This is a short, and therefore necessarily very incomplete discussion of one of the great questions of modern philosophy. I return to a station at which an interpretative train of thought of mine came to a halt in a paper written almost 20 years ago, about Wittgenstein and Chomsky,[1] hoping to advance a little bit further down the track. The rule-following passages in the Investigations and Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics in fact raise a number of distinct (though connected) issues about rules, meaning, objectivity, and reasons, whose conflation is encouraged by the standard caption, "the Rule-following Considerations".[2] So, let me begin by explaining my focus here
Wright, Crispin (1981). Rule-following, objectivity and the theory of meaning. In Steven H. Holtzman & Christopher M. Leich (eds.), Wittgenstein: To Follow A Rule. Routledge.   (Cited by 12 | Google)
Wright, C. (2001). Rails to Infinity: Essays on Themes From Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Harvard University Press.   (Cited by 11 | Google)
Wright, Crispin (2007). Rule-following without reasons: Wittgenstein's quietism and the constitutive question. Ratio 20 (4):481–502.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This is a short, and therefore necessarily very incomplete discussion of one of the great questions of modern philosophy. I return to a station at which an interpretative train of thought of mine came to a halt in a paper written almost 20 years ago, about Wittgenstein and Chomsky,[1] hoping to advance a little bit further down the track. The rule-following passages in the Investigations and Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics in fact raise a number of distinct (though connected) issues about rules, meaning, objectivity, and reasons, whose conflation is encouraged by the standard caption, "the Rule-following Considerations".[2] So, let me begin by explaining my focus here
Wright, Crispin (1989). Wittgenstein's later philosophy of mind: Sensation, privacy and intention. Journal of Philosophy 86 (11):622-634.   (Cited by 23 | Google | More links)
Wright, C. (1980). Wittgenstein on the Foundations of Mathematics. Harvard University Press.   (Cited by 49 | Google)
Wright, C. (1989). Wittgenstein's rule-following considerations and the central project of theoretical linguistics. In A. George (ed.), Reflections on Chomsky. Blackwell.   (Cited by 41 | Google)
Yamada, Masahiro (2010). Rule following: A pedestrian approach. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (2):283-311.   (Google)
Zalabardo, José L. (2009). One Strand in the rule-following considerations. Synthese 171 (3).   (Google)
Abstract: I argue that a target of the rule-following considerations is the thought that there are mental episodes in which a consciously accessible item guides me in my decision to respond in a certain way when I follow a rule. I contend that Wittgenstein’s position on this issue invokes a distinction between a literal and a symbolic reading of the claim that these processes of guidance take place. In the literal sense he rejects the claim, but in the symbolic sense he sees nothing wrong with it. I consider some arguments that Wittgenstein deploys against the literal sense of the claim
Zalabardo, Jos (1989). Rules, communities and judgement. Critica 21 (63):33-58.   (Google)

2.5f Explanatory Role of Content

Adams, Frederick R. (1991). Causal contents. In Brian P. McLaughlin (ed.), Dretske and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 8 | Annotation | Google)
Bermudez, Jose Luis (1995). Syntax, semantics, and levels of explanation. Philosophical Quarterly 45 (180):361-367.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Bogdan, Radu J. (1989). Does semantics run the psyche? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (June):687-700.   (Cited by 5 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Abstract: If there is a dogma in the contemporary philosophy of the cognitive mind, it must be the notion that cognition is semantic causation or, differently put, that it is semantics that runs the psyche. This is what the notion of psychosemantics and (often) intentionality are all about. Another dogma, less widespread than the first but almost equally potent, is that common sense psychology is the implicit theory of psychosemantics. The two dogmas are jointly encapsulated in the following axiom. Mental attitudes such as beliefs and desires have essentially semantic contents, or are semantically evaluable. (This is why they are called propositional attitudes.) Mental attitudes have causal powers in virtue of their semantic properties. The content of an attitude has causal powers qua semantic, or more exactly in virtue of its syntactic structure which reflects relevant semantic properties and relations. (Propositions attitudinized cause in virtue of their semantically sensitive syntax.) It is the fact that mental attitudes cause in virtue of being semantic that explains why the cognitive mind is essentially semantic and why common sense psychology is implicitly true of the semantic mind
Braun, David M. (2000). Russellianism and psychological generalizations. Noûs 34 (2):203-236.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Abstract: (1) Harry believes that Twain is a writer. (2) Harry believes that Clemens is a writer. I say that this is Russellianism's most notorious consequence because it is so often used to argue against the view: many philosophers think that it is obvious that (1) and (2) can differ in truth value, and so they conclude that Russellianism is false. Let's call this the Substitution Objection to Russellianism
Burge, Tyler (2003). Epiphenomenalism: Reply to Dretske. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Cummins, Robert E. (1991). The role of mental meaning in psychological explanation. In Brian P. McLaughlin (ed.), Dretske and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 8 | Google)
Devitt, Michael (1991). Why Fodor can't have it both ways. In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 13 | Google)
Dretske, Fred (2003). Burge on mentalistic explanations, or why I am still epiphobic. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Dretske, Fred (1990). Does meaning matter? In Enrique Villanueva (ed.), Information, Semantics, and Epistemology. Blackwell.   (Cited by 18 | Google)
Dretske, Fred (1988). Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes. MIT Press.   (Cited by 688 | Google)
Abstract: In this lucid portrayal of human behavior, Fred Dretske provides an original account of the way reasons function in the causal explanation of behavior.
Dretske, Fred (1991). How beliefs explain: Reply to Baker. Philosophical Studies 113 (July):113-117.   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Dretske, Fred (1996). How reasons explain behaviour: Reply to Melnyk and Noordhof. Mind and Language 11 (2):223-229.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Dretske, Fred (1998). Minds, machines, and money: What really explains behavior. In Human Action, Deliberation and Causation. Dordrecht: Kluwer.   (Cited by 6 | Google)
Dretske, Fred (2004). Psychological vs. biological explanations of behavior. Behavior and Philosophy 32:167-177.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Dretske, Fred (1989). Reasons and causes. Philosophical Perspectives 3:1-15.   (Cited by 38 | Google | More links)
Dretske, Fred (1990). Reply: Causal relevance and explanatory exclusion. In Enrique Villanueva (ed.), Information, Semantics, and Epistemology. Blackwell.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Dretske, Fred (1990). Reply to reviewers of explaining behavior: Reasons in a world of causes. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (4):819-839.   (Google)
Dretske, Fred (1994). Reply to Slater and Garcia-carpintero. Mind and Language 9 (2):203-8.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Dretske, Fred (1987). The explanatory role of content. In Robert H. Grimm & D. D. Merrill (eds.), Contents of Thought. University of Arizona Press.   (Cited by 11 | Annotation | Google)
Elder, Crawford L. (1996). Content and the subtle extensionality of " -explains...". Philosophical Quarterly 46 (184):320-32.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Field, Hartry (ms). Remarks on content and its role in explanation.   (Google)
Figdor, Carrie (2003). Can mental representations be triggering causes? Consciousness and Emotion 4 (1):43-61.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Fred Dretske?s (1988) account of the causal role of intentional mental states was widely criticized for missing the target: he explained why a type of intentional state causes the type of bodily motion it does rather than some other type, when what we wanted was an account of how the intentional properties of these states play a causal role in each singular causal relation with a token bodily motion. I argue that the non-reductive metaphysics that Dretske defends for his account of behavior can be extended to the case of intentional states, and that this extension provides a way to show how intentional properties can play the causal role that we wanted explained
Fodor, Jerry A. (1986). Banish discontent. In Jeremy Butterfield (ed.), Language, Mind, and Logic. Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 27 | Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1990). Reply to Dretske's Does Meaning Matter?. In Enrique Villanueva (ed.), Information, Semantics and Epistemology. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Google)
Garcia-Carpintero, Manuel (1994). Dretske on the causal efficacy of meaning. Mind and Language 9 (2):181-202.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (1986). Why semantic properties won't earn their keep. Philosophical Studies 50 (September):223-36.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Grimaltos, Tobies & Moya, Carlos J. (1997). Belief, content, and cause. In European Review of Philosophy, Vol. 2: Cognitive Dynamics. Stanford: CSLI.   (Google)
Hassrick, B. (1995). Fred Dretske on the explanatory role of semantic content. Conference 6 (1):59-66.   (Google)
Horgan, Terence E. (1991). Actions, reasons, and the explanatory role of content. In Brian P. McLaughlin (ed.), Dretske and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 14 | Annotation | Google)
Jacob, Pierre (1998). What can the semantic properties of innate representations explain? In Human Action, Deliberation and Causation. Dordrecht: Kluwer.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Kim, Jaegwon (1991). Dretske on how reasons explain behavior. In Dretske and His Critics. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 17 | Google)
Lambert, Karel J. (1978). The place of the intentional in the explanation of behavior: A brief survey. Grazer Philosophische Studien 6:75-84.   (Google)
Mele, Alfred R. (1991). Dretske's intricate behavior. Philosophical Papers 20 (May):1-10.   (Google)
Melnyk, Andrew (1996). The prospects for Dretske's account of the explanatory role of belief. Mind and Language 11 (2):203-15.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Millikan, Ruth G. (1990). Seismograph Readings for explaining behavior. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (4):807-812.   (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)
Noordhof, Paul (1996). Accidental associations, local potency, and a dilemma for Dretske. Mind and Language 11 (2):216-22.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Perry, John & Israel, David J. (1991). Fodor and psychological explanation. In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell.   (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)
Abstract: [In Meaning in Mind, edited by Barry Loewer and Georges Rey. Oxford: Basil Black- well, 1991, 165
Power, Nicholas P. (1996). Fodor's vindication of folk psychology and the charge of epiphenomenalism. Journal of Philosophical Research 21 (January):183-196.   (Google)
Pylyshyn, Zenon W. (1987). What's in a mind? Synthese 70 (January):97-122.   (Cited by 6 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Baker, Lynne Rudder (1991). Dretske on the explanatory role of belief. Philosophical Studies 63 (July):99-111.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Schiffer, Stephen R. (online). An introduction to content and its role in explanation.   (Google)
Slater, Carol (1994). Discrimination without indication: Why Dretske can't lean on learning. Mind and Language 9 (2):163-80.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Tanney, Julia (2005). Reason-explanation and the contents of the mind. Ratio 18 (3):338-351.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: i> This paper takes a close look at the kinds of considerations we use to reach agreement in our ordinary (non-philosophical and non- theoretical) judgments about a person
Toribio, Josefa (1991). Causal efficacy, content and levels of explanation. Logique Et Analyse 34 (September-December):297-318.   (Google)
Tuomela, Raimo (1990). Are reason-explanations explanations by means of structuring causes? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (4):813-818.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Wallis, Charles (1994). Using representation to explain. In Eric Dietrich (ed.), Thinking Computers and Virtual Persons. Academic Press.   (Google)
Ward, Andrew (2001). The compatibility of psychological naturalism and representationalism. Disputatio 11.   (Google)

2.5g Collective Intentionality

Becchio, Cristina & Bertone, Cesare (2004). Wittgenstein running: Neural mechanisms of collective intentionality and we-mode. Consciousness and Cognition 13 (1):123-133.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Chant, Sara Rachel & Ernst, Zachary (2007). Group intentions as equilibria. Philosophical Studies 133 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: In this paper, we offer an analysis of ‘group intentions.’ On our proposal, group intentions should be understood as a state of equilibrium among the beliefs of the members of a group. Although the discussion in this paper is non-technical, the equilibrium concept is drawn from the formal theory of interactive epistemology due to Robert Aumann. The goal of this paper is to provide an analysis of group intentions that is informed by important work in economics and formal epistemology
Chant, Sara Rachel (2007). Unintentional collective action. Philosophical Explorations 10 (3):245 – 256.   (Google)
Abstract: In this paper, I examine the manner in which analyses of the action of single agents have been pressed into service for constructing accounts of collective action. Specifically, I argue that the best analogy to collective action is a class of individual action that Carl Ginet has called 'aggregate action.' Furthermore, once we use aggregate action as a model of collective action, then we see that existing accounts of collective action have failed to accommodate an important class of (what I shall call) 'unintentional collective actions.'
Giere, Ronald N. (2004). The problem of agency in scienti?c distributed cognitive systems. Journal of Cognition and Culture 4 (3-4):759-774.   (Google)
Abstract: From the perspective of cognitive science, it is illuminating to think of much contemporary scienti?c research as taking place in distributed cognitive systems. This is particularly true of large-scale experimental and observational systems such as the Hubble Telescope. Clark, Hutchins, Knorr-Cetina, and Latour insist or imply such a move requires expanding our notions of knowledge, mind, and even consciousness. Whether this is correct seems to me not a straightforward factual question. Rather, the issue seems to be how best to develop a theoretical understanding of such systems appropriate to the study of science and technology. I argue that there is no need to attribute to such systems as a whole any form of cognitive agency. We can well understand the importance of such systems while restricting agency to the human components. The implication is that we think of these large-scale distributed cognitive systems not so much as uni?ed wholes, but as hybrid systems including both physical artifacts and ordinary humans
Gureckis, Todd M. & Goldstone, Robert L. (2006). Thinking in groups. Pragmatics and Cognition 14 (2):293-311.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Harnad, Stevan (2005). Distributed processes, distributed cognizers and collaborative cognition. [Journal (Paginated)] (in Press) 13 (3):01-514.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Cognition is thinking; it feels like something to think, and only those who can feel can think. There are also things that thinkers can do. We know neither how thinkers can think nor how they are able do what they can do. We are waiting for cognitive science to discover how. Cognitive science does this by testing hypotheses about what processes can generate what doing (“know-how”) This is called the Turing Test. It cannot test whether a process can generate feeling, hence thinking -- only whether it can generate doing. The processes that generate thinking and know-how are “distributed” within the heads of thinkers, but not across thinkers’ heads. Hence there is no such thing as distributed cognition, only collaborative cognition. Email and the Web have spawned a new form of collaborative cognition that draws upon individual brains’ real-time interactive potential in ways that were not possible in oral, written or print interactions
Hornsby, Jennifer (1997). Collectives and intentionality. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (2):429-434.   (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)
Hutchins, Edwin (1995). Cognition in the Wild. MIT Press.   (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)
List, Christian (2003). Distributed cognition: A perspective from social choice theory. In M. Albert, D. Schmidtchen & S Voigt (eds.), Scientific Competition: Theory and Policy, Conferences on New Political Economy. Mohr Siebeck.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: Distributed cognition refers to processes which are (i) cognitive and (ii) distributed across multiple agents or devices rather than performed by a single agent. Distributed cognition has attracted interest in several fields ranging from sociology and law to computer science and the philosophy of science. In this paper, I discuss distributed cognition from a social-choice-theoretic perspective. Drawing on models of judgment aggregation, I address two questions. First, how can we model a group of individuals as a distributed cognitive system? Second, can a group acting as a distributed cognitive system be ‘rational’ and ‘track the truth’ in the outputs it produces? I argue that a group’s performance as a distributed cognitive system depends on its ‘aggregation procedure’ – its mechanism for aggregating the group members’ inputs into collective outputs – and I investigate the properties of an aggregation procedure that matter
List, Christian & Pettit, Philip (2006). Group agency and supervenience. Southern Journal of Philosophy 44:85-105.   (Cited by 8 | Google)
Abstract: Can groups be rational agents over and above their individual members? We argue that group agents are distinguished by their capacity to mimic the way in which individual agents act and that this capacity must 'supervene' on the group members' contributions. But what is the nature of this supervenience relation? Focusing on group judgments, we argue that, for a group to be rational, its judgment on a particular proposition cannot generally be a function of the members' individual judgments on that proposition. Rather, it must be a function of their individual sets of judgments across many propositions. So, knowing what the group members individually think about some proposition does not generally tell us how the group collectively adjudicates that proposition: the supervenience relation must be 'set-wise', not 'proposition-wise'. Our account preserves the individualistic view that group agency is nothing mysterious, but also suggests that a group agent may hold judgments that are not directly continuous with its members' corresponding individual judgments
Ludwig, Kirk (2007). Collective intentional behavior from the standpoint of semantics. Noûs 41 (3):355–393.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The mutual dependence of men is so great in all societies that scarce any human action is entirely complete in itself, or is performed without some reference to the actions of others, which are requisite to make it answer fully the intention of the agent
Mathiesen, Kay (2006). The epistemic features of group belief. Episteme 2 (3):161-175.   (Google)
Moffatt, Barton & Giere, Ronald N. (2003). Distributed cognition: Where the cognitive and the social merge. Social Studies of Science 33 (2):301-310.   (Google)
Abstract: Among the many contested boundaries in science studies is that between the cognitive and the social. Here, we are concerned to question this boundary from a perspective within the cognitive sciences based on the notion of distributed cognition. We first present two of many contemporary sources of the notion of distributed cognition, one from the study of artificial neural networks and one from cognitive anthropology. We then proceed to reinterpret two well-known essays by Bruno Latour, ‘Visualization and Cognition: Thinking with Eyes and Hands’ and ‘Circulating Reference: Sampling the Soil in the Amazon Forest’. In both cases we find the cognitive and the social merged in a system of distributed cognition without any appeal to agonistic encounters. For us, results do not come to be regarded as veridical because they are widely accepted; they come to be widely accepted because, in the context of an appropriate distributed cognitive system, their apparent veracity can be made evident to anyone with the capacity to understand the workings of the system
Pettit, Philip (1993). The Common Mind. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 184 | Google | More links)
Abstract: What makes human beings intentional and thinking subjects? How does their intentionality and thought connect with their social nature and their communal experience? How do the answers to these questions shape the assumptions which it is legitimate to make in social explanation and political evaluation? These are the broad-ranging issues which Pettit addresses in this novel study. The Common Mind argues for an original way of marking off thinking subjects, in particular human beings, from other intentional systems, natural and artificial. It holds by the holistic view that human thought requires communal resources while denying that this social connection compromises the autonomy of individuals. And, in developing the significance of this view of social subjects--this holistic individualism--it outlines a novel framework for social and political theory. Within this framework, social theory is allowed to follow any of a number of paths: space is found for intentional interpretation and decision-theoretic reconstruction, for structural explanation and rational choice derivation. But political theory is treated less ecumenically. The framework raises serious questions about contractarian and atomistic modes of thought and it points the way to a republican rethinking of liberal commitments
Poirier, Pierre & Chicoisne, Guillaume (2006). A framework for thinking about distributed cognition. Pragmatics and Cognition 14 (2):215-234.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Rakoczy, Hannes (2008). Pretence as individual and collective intentionality. Mind and Language 23 (5):499-517.   (Google)
Abstract: Abstract:  Focusing on early child pretend play from the perspective of developmental psychology, this article puts forward and presents evidence for two claims. First, such play constitutes an area of remarkable individual intentionality of second-order intentionality (or 'theory of mind'): in pretence with others, young children grasp the basic intentional structure of pretending as a non-serious fictional form of action. Second, early social pretend play embodies shared or collective we-intentionality. Pretending with others is one of the ontogenetically primary instances of truly cooperative actions. And it is a, perhaps the, primordial form of cooperative action with rudimentary rule-governed, institutional structure: in joint pretence games, children are aware that objects collectively get assigned fictional status, 'count as' something, and that this creates a normative space of warranted moves in the game. Developmentally, pretend play might even be a cradle for institutional phenomena more generally
Rupert, Robert D. (2005). Minding one's cognitive systems: When does a group of minds constitute a single cognitive unit? Episteme 1 (3):177-188.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Abstract: The possibility of group minds or group mental states has been considered by a number of authors addressing issues in social epistemology and related areas (Goldman 2004, Pettit 2003, Gilbert 2004, Hutchins 1995). An appeal to group minds might, in the end, do indispensable explanatory work in the social or cognitive sciences. I am skeptical, though, and this essay lays out some of the reasons for my skepticism. The concerns raised herein constitute challenges to the advocates of group minds (or group mental states), challenges that might be overcome as theoretical and empirical work proceeds. Nevertheless, these hurdles are, I think, genuine and substantive, so much so that my tentative conclusion will not be optimistic. If a group mind is supposed to be a single mental system having two or more minds as proper parts,1 the prospects for group minds seem dim
Saaristo, Antti (2006). There is no escape from philosophy: Collective intentionality and empirical social science. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 36 (1):40-66.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This article examines two empirical research traditions—experimental economics and the social identity approach in social psychology—that may be seen as attempts to falsify and verify the theory of collective intentionality, respectively. The article argues that both approaches fail to settle the issue. However, this is not necessarily due to the alleged immaturity of the social sciences but, possibly, to the philosophical nature of intentionality and intentional action. The article shows how broadly Davidsonian action theory, including Hacking’s notion of the looping effect of the human sciences, can be developed into an argument for the view that there is no theory-independent true nature of intentional action. If the Davidsonian line of thought is correct, the theory of collective intentionality is, in a sense, true if we accept the theory. Key Words: collective intentionality • experimental economics • social identity theory • Donald Davidson • Ian Hacking • constructivism • action • agency • philosophy of the social sciences
Schmid, Hans B. (2003). Can brains in vats think as a team? Philosophical Explorations 6 (3):201-218.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Tollefsen, Deborah (online). Collective intentionality. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   (Google)
Tollefsen, Deborah Perron (2002). Collective intentionality and the social sciences. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 32 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: In everyday discourse and in the context of social scientific research we often attribute intentional states to groups. Contemporary approaches to group intentionality have either dismissed these attributions as metaphorical or provided an analysis of our attributions in terms of the intentional states of individuals in the group.Insection1, the author argues that these approaches are problematic. In sections 2 and 3, the author defends the view that certain groups are literally intentional agents. In section 4, the author argues that there are significant reasons for social scientists and philosophers of social science to acknowledge the adequacy of macro-level explanations that involve the attribution of intentional states to groups. In section 5, the author considers and responds to some criticisms of the thesis she defends
Tomasello, Michael & Rakoczy, Hannes (2003). What makes human cognition unique? From individual to shared to collective intentionality. Mind and Language 18 (2):121-147.   (Cited by 54 | Google | More links)
Tuomela, Raimo (online). Collective intentionality and social agents.   (Cited by 4 | Google)
Abstract: In this paper I will discuss a certain philosophical and conceptual program -- that I have called philosophy of social action writ large -- and also show in detail how parts of the program have been, and is currently being carried out. In current philosophical research the philosophy of social action can be understood in a broad sense to encompass such central research topics as action occurring in a social context (this includes multi-agent action); shared we-attitudes (such as we-intention, mutual belief) and other social attitudes expressing collective intentionality and needed for the explication and explanation of social action; social macro-notions, such as actions performed by social groups and properties of social groups such as their goals and beliefs; social practices, and institutions (see e.g. Tuomela, 1995, 2000a, 2001). The theory of social action understood analogously in a broad sense would then involve not only philosophical but all other relevant theorizing about social action. Thus, in this sense, such fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as Distributed AI (DAI) and the theory of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) fall within the scope of the theory of social action. DAI studies the social side of computer systems and includes various well-known areas ranging from human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, organizational processing, and distributed problem solving to the simulation of social systems
Tuomela, Raimo (1996). Philosophy and distributed artificial intelligence: The case of joint intention. In N. Jennings & G. O'Hare (eds.), Foundations of Distributed Artificial Intelligence. Wiley.   (Cited by 16 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In current philosophical research the term 'philosophy of social action' can be used - and has been used - in a broad sense to encompass the following central research topics: 1) action occurring in a social context; this includes multi-agent action; 2) joint attitudes (or "we-attitudes" such as joint intention, mutual belief) and other social attitudes needed for the explication and explanation of social action; 3) social macro-notions, such as actions performed by social groups and properties of social groups such as their goals and beliefs; 4) social norms and social institutions (see Tuomela, 1984, 1995). The theory of social action understood analogously in a broad sense would then involve not only philosophical but all other relevant theorizing about social action. Thus, in this sense, such fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as Distributed AI (DAI) and the theory of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) fall within the scope of the theory of social action. DAI studies the social side of computer systems and includes various well-known areas ranging from Human Computer Interaction, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Organizational Processing, Distributed Problem Solving to Simulation of Social Systems and Organizations. Even if I am a philosopher with low artificial intelligence I will below try to say something about what the scope of DAI should be taken to be on conceptual and philosophical grounds. (In the later sections of the paper the central notion of joint intention will be the main topic - in order to illustrate how philosophers and DAI-researchers approach this issue.) Let us now consider the relationship between philosophy - especially philosophy of social action - and DAI. Both are concerned with social matters and in this sense seem to have a connection to social science proper. What kinds of questions should these areas of study be concerned with? In principle, ordinary social science should study all aspects of social life (in various societies and cultures), try to describe it and create general theories to explain it.
Vromen, Jack J. (2003). Collective intentionality, evolutionary biology and social reality. Philosophical Explorations 6 (3):251-265.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The paper aims to clarify and scrutinize Searle"s somewhat puzzling statement that collective intentionality is a biologically primitive phenomenon. It is argued that the statement is not only meant to bring out that "collective intentionality" is not further analyzable in terms of individual intentionality. It also is meant to convey that we have a biologically evolved innate capacity for collective intentionality.The paper points out that Searle"s dedication to a strong notion of collective intentionality considerably delimits the scope of his endeavor. Furthermore, evolutionary theory does not vindicate that an innate capacity for collective intentionality is a necessary precondition for cooperative behavior. 1
Wilson, Robert A. (2001). Group-level cognition. Philosophy of Science 3 (September):S262-S273.   (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)
Zhang, Jiajie & Patel, Vimla L. (2006). Distributed cognition, representation, and affordance. Pragmatics and Cognition 14 (2):333-341.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)

2.5h Aspects of Intentionality, Misc

Crane, Tim (2008). Reply to Nes. Analysis 68 (299):215–218.   (Google | More links)
King, Peter, Mediæval intentionality and pseudo-intentionality.   (Google)
Abstract: Wilfrid Sellars, in his essay “Being and Being Known,”1 sets out to explore “the profound truth contained in the Thomistic thesis that the senses in their way and the intellect in its way are informed by the natures of external objects and events” [§1]. Profound truth there may be, but Sellars also finds a profound error in the mediæval treatment of the intentionality of sensing on a par with the intentionality of thinking: There are many reasons for the plausibility of the idea that sense belongs to the intentional order. . . It is primarily due, however, to the fact that sensations have what I shall call a pseudo-intentionality which is easily mistaken for the genuine intentionality of the cognitive order. [§18] Sellars argues that thought is genuinely intentional, for it is (in good linguistic fashion) about the world, whereas sense merely seems to be about the world but in fact is not, although it is systematically correlated with the world—the ‘pseudo-intentionality’ he alludes to here. On Sellars’s reading, the ‘Thomistic’ view gets certain things right that the later Cartesian view gets wrong, such as distinguishing mental acts intrinsically rather than by their ‘content’, but it also gets some things wrong in its own right, notably in its claim that sensing has “genuine intentionality” the way thinking does, and so to take sensing as properly belonging to “the cognitive order” (i. e. to qualify as a kind of knowledge strictly speaking). Sellars is out to right the Thomistic wrongs, beginning with intentionality, where the mistake is easily made. For Sellars has his eye not only on intentionality, but on the consequent claim that episodes of (intentional) sensing play a foundationalist epistemological role, a view he elsewhere famously calls ‘The Myth of the Given’.2 There is no question that Sellars wants to make room for his own brand of social epistemology; his agenda is not historical but systematic. Yet in “Being and Being Known,” Sellars puts his case in historical rather than systematic terms..
Lawlor, Krista (2007). A notional worlds approach to confusion. Mind and Language 22 (2):150–172.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: People often become confused, mistaking one thing for another, or taking two things to be the same. How should we assign semantic values to confused statements? Recently, philosophers have taken a pessimistic view of confusion, arguing that understanding confused belief demands significant departure from our normal interpretive practice. I argue for optimism. Our semantic treatment of confusion can be a lot like our semantic treatment of empty names. Surprisingly, perhaps, the resulting semantics lets us keep in place more of our everyday interpretive practices in the face of confused belief

2.6 Representation

Adams, Frederick R. (2002). Mental representation. In Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.   (Google)
Bickhard, Mark H. (2001). Function, anticipation, representation. AIP Conference Proceedings 573:459-469.   (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Function emerges in certain kinds of far-from-equilibrium systems. One important kind of function is that of interactive anticipation, an adaptedness to temporal complexity. Interactive anticipation is the locus of the emergence of normative representational content, and, thus, of representation in general: interactive anticipation is the naturalistic core of the evolution of cognition. Higher forms of such anticipation are involved in the subsequent macro-evolutionary sequence of learning, emotions, and reflexive consciousness
Bickhard, Mark H. (2000). Information and representation in autonomous agents. Cognitive Systems Research 1 (2):65-75.   (Cited by 13 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Information and representation are thought to be intimately related. Representation, in fact, is commonly considered to be a special kind of information. It must be a _special_ kind, because otherwise all of the myriad instances of informational relationships in the universe would be representational -- some restrictions must be placed on informational relationships in order to refine the vast set into those that are truly representational. I will argue that information in this general sense is important to genuine agents, but that it is a blind alley with regard to the attempt to understand representation. On the other hand, I will also argue that a different, quite non-standard, form of information is central to genuine representation. First I turn to some of the reasons why information as usually considered is the wrong category for understanding representation; second to an alternative model of representation -- one that is naturally emergent in autonomous agents, and that does involve information, but not in any standard form; and third I return to standard notions of informational relationships and show what they are in fact useful for
Bickhard, Mark H. (1998). Levels of representationality. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 10 (2):179-215.   (Cited by 83 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The dominant assumptions -- throughout contemporary philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence -- about the ontology underlying intentionality, and its core of representationality, is that of encodings -- some sort of informational or correspondence or covariation relationship between the represented and its representation that constitutes that representational relationship. There are many disagreements concerning details and implementations, and even some suggestions about claimed alternative ontologies, such as connectionism (though none that escape what I argue is the fundamental flaw in these dominant approaches). One assumption that seems to be held by all, however, usually without explication or defense, is that there is _one_ singular underlying ontology to representationality. In this paper, I argue that there are in fact quite a number of ontologies that manifest representationality -- levels of representationality -- and that _none_ of them are the standard "manipulations of encoded symbols" ontology, nor any other variation on the informational approach to representation. Collectively, these multiple representational ontologies constitute a framework for cognition, whether natural or artificial
Bickhard, Mark H. (2002). Mind as process. In F.G. Riffert & Marcel Weber (eds.), Searching for New Contrasts. Vienna: Peter Lang.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: assumptions about the phenomena of interest with process models. Thus, phlogiston has been replaced by combustion, caloric by random thermal motion, and vital fluid by far- from-equilibrium self-reproducing organizations of process. The most significant exceptions to this historical pattern are found in studies of the mind. Here, substance assumptions are still ubiquitous, ranging from models of representation to those of emotions to personality and psychopathology. Substance assumptions do pernicious damage to our ability to understand such phenomena. In this discussion, I will focus on the problem of representation
Bickhard, Mark H. (1993). Representational content in humans and machines. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 5:285-33.   (Cited by 207 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This article focuses on the problem of representational content. Accounting for representational content is the central issue in contemporary naturalism: it is the major remaining task facing a naturalistic conception of the world. Representational content is also the central barrier to contemporary cognitive science and artificial intelligence: it is not possible to understand representation in animals nor to construct machines with genuine representation given current (lack of) understanding of what representation is. An elaborated critique is offered to current approaches to representation, arguing that the basic underlying approach is, at root, logically incoherent, and, thus, that standard approaches are doomed to failure. An alternative model of representation - interactivism - is presented that avoids or solves the problems facing standard approaches. Interactivism is framed by a version of functionalism, and a naturalization of that functionalism completes an outline of a naturalization of representation and representational content
Bickhard, Mark H. (2003). Some notes on internal and external relations and representation. Consciousness and Emotion 4 (1):101-110.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Internal relations are those relations that are intrinsic to the nature of one or more of the relata. They are a kind of essential relation, rather than an essential property. For example, an arc of a circle is internally related to the center of that circle in the sense that
Bickhard, Mark H. (2004). The dynamic emergence of representation. In Hugh Clapin (ed.), Representation in Mind. Elsevier.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Abstract: A final version of this paper is in press as: Bickhard, M. H. (in press). The Dynamic Emergence of Representation. In H. Clapin, P. Staines, P. Slezak (Eds.) Representation in Mind: New Approaches to Mental Representation. Praeger
Böök, L. (1999). Representationalism and the metonymic fallacy. Synthese 118 (1):13-30.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Blachowicz, James A. (1997). Analog representation beyond mental imagery. Journal of Philosophy 94 (2):55-84.   (Cited by 47 | Google | More links)
Brand, Myles (ed.) (1986). The Representation Of Knowledge And Belief. Tucson: University Of Arizona Press.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
Brinck, Ingar & G, (1999). Representation and self-awareness in intentional agents. Synthese 118 (1):89-104.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)
Butterfill, Stephen (online). Using and understanding maps.   (Google)
Abstract: Many philosophers who advocate broadly pragmatist accounts of belief or language treat maps as paradigm examples of representation and they often assume that a pragmatic account of representation is obviously correct for maps (e.g. Dewey, Dretske, Millikan, Putnam and Ramsey). By examining mapping activities and the representational properties of maps in detail, this paper argues that no single notion of representation can fit every map or every mapping activity. This is bad news for pragmatists: if there are maps they can’t cope with, we should question whether they can tell the full story about belief or language
Chomsky, Noam A. (1980). Rules and representations. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3:1-61.   (Cited by 1367 | Google | More links)
Christensen, Wayne D. (2004). Representation and the meaning of life. In Hugh Clapin (ed.), Representation in Mind. Elsevier.   (Cited by 15 | Google)
Churchland, Patricia S.; Farber, Ilya B. & Peterman, Will (2001). The view from here: The nonsymbolic structure of spatial representation. In Joao Branquinho (ed.), The Foundations of Cognitive Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press.   (Google)
Clark, Andy (2002). Minds, brains and tools. In Hugh Clapin (ed.), Philosophy of Mental Representation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The selected texts for this discussion were two recent pieces by Dennett (
Clapin, Hugh (ed.) (2002). Philosophy of Mental Representation. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)
Abstract: In Philosophy of Mental Representation five of the most original and important thinkers in philosophy of mind engage in an overlapping dialogue about mental representation. In new papers, contributors Andy Clark, Robert Cummins, Daniel Dennett, John Haugeland, and Brian Cantwell Smith each investigate the views and claims of one of the other contributors regarding mental representation. The subject then offers a reply. An exciting feature of this collection is the dynamic discussion among all contributors following each exchange. This collection offers the latest thinking on mental representation carefully and critically analyzed by the leading thinkers in the field
Clapin, Hugh (ed.) (2004). Representation in Mind: New Approaches to Mental Representation. Elsevier.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Abstract: 'Representation in Mind' is the first book in the new series 'Perspectives on Cognitive Science' and includes well known contributors in the...
Clapin, Hugh (2002). Tacit representation in functional architecture. In Hugh Clapin (ed.), Philosophy of Mental Representation. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Clark, Andy (2002). The roots of 'norm-hungriness'. In Hugh Clapin (ed.), Philosophy of Mental Representation. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Cummins, Robert E. (1991). Form, interpretation, and the uniqueness of content: A response to Morris. Minds and Machines 1 (1):31-42.   (Cited by 2 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Cummins, Robert E. & Poirier, Pierre (2004). Representation and indication. In Hugh Clapin (ed.), Representation in Mind. Elsevier.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Abstract: This paper is about two kinds of mental content and how they are related. We are going to call them representation and indication. We will begin with a rough characterization of each. The differences, and why they matter, will, hopefully, become clearer as the paper proceeds
Dalenoort, G. J. (1990). Toward a general theory of representation. Psychological Research 52:229-237.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Dennett, Daniel C. (1983). Styles of mental representation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 83:213-226.   (Cited by 27 | Google)
Dennett, Daniel C. (2001). Things about things. In The Foundations of Cognitive Science. Oup.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
Dietrich, Eric & Markman, A. (2003). Discrete thoughts: Why cognition must use discrete representations. Mind and Language 18 (1):95-119.   (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)
Dilworth, John B. (2006). Representation as epistemic identification. Philo 9 (1):12-31.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In a previous Philo article, it was shown how properties could be ontologically dispensed with via a representational analysis: to be an X is to comprehensively represent all the properties of an X. The current paper extends that representationalist (RT) theory by explaining representation itself in parallel epistemic rather than ontological terms. On this extended RT (ERT) theory, representations of X, as well as the real X, both may be identified as providing information about X, whether partial or comprehensive. But that information does not match ontological, property-based analyses of X, so it is epistemically fundamental–hence supporting a broadly conceptualist rather than nominalist metaphysics
Dreyfus, Hubert L. (2002). Intelligence without representation: Merleau-ponty's critique of mental representation. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1:367-83.   (Cited by 36 | Google | More links)
Dreyfus, Hubert L. (2002). Refocusing the question: Can there be skillful coping without propositional representations or brain representations? Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1 (4):413-25.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Eco, Umberto (ed.) (1988). Meaning And Mental Representations. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.   (Cited by 26 | Google)
Edelman, Shimon (1998). Representation is representation of similarities. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (4):449-467.   (Cited by 133 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Intelligent systems are faced with the problem of securing a principled (ideally, veridical) relationship between the world and its internal representation. I propose a unified approach to visual representation, addressing both the needs of superordinate and basic-level categorization and of identification of specific instances of familiar categories. According to the proposed theory, a shape is represented by its similarity to a number of reference shapes, measured in a high-dimensional space of elementary features. This amounts to embedding the stimulus in a low-dimensional proximal shape space. That space turns out to support representation of distal shape similarities which is veridical in the sense of Shepard's (1968) notion of second-order isomorphism (i.e., correspondence between distal and proximal similarities among shapes, rather than between distal shapes and their proximal representations). Furthermore, a general expression for similarity between two stimuli, based on comparisons to reference shapes, can be used to derive models of perceived similarity ranging from continuous, symmetric, and hierarchical, as in the multidimensional scaling models (Shepard, 1980), to discrete and non-hierarchical, as in the general contrast models (Tversky, 1977; Shepard and Arabie, 1979)
Edelman, Shimon (1995). Representation, similarity, and the chorus of prototypes. Minds and Machines 5 (1):45-68.   (Cited by 82 | Google | More links)
Elkins, James (2008). Six Stories From the End of Representation: Images in Painting, Photography, Astronomy, Microscopy, Particle Physics, and Quantum Mechanics, 1980-2000. Stanford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: James Elkins has shaped the discussion about how we—as artists, as art historians, or as outsiders—view art. He has not only revolutionized our thinking about the purpose of teaching art, but has also blazed trails in creating a means of communication between scientists, artists, and humanities scholars. In Six Stories from the End of Representation , Elkins weaves stories about recent images from painting, photography, physics, astrophysics, and microscopy. These images, regardless of origin, all fail as representations: they are blurry, dark, pixellated, or otherwise unclear. In these opaque images, Elkins finds an opportunity to create stories that speak simultaneously to artists and to scientists, and to open both those fields to those of us who have little purchase in either. Regarding each image through the lens of the discipline that produced it, Elkins simultaneously affirms the unique structure of each way of viewing the world and brings those views together into a vibrant conversation
Emmett, Kathleen (1988). Meaning and mental representation. In Perspectives On Mind. Dordrecht: Kluwer.   (Google)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1986). Why paramecia don't have mental representations. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 10:3-23.   (Annotation | Google)
Freed, B.; Marras, Ausonio & Maynard, Patrick (eds.) (1975). Forms of Representation: Proceedings of the 1972 Philosophy Colloquium of the University of Western Ontario. American Elsevier Pub. Co..   (Google)
Freeman, Walter J. & Skarda, Christine A. (1990). Representations: Who needs them? In J. McGaugh, Jerry Weinberger & G. Lynch (eds.), Brain Organization and Memory. Guilford Press.   (Cited by 32 | Google)
Gallagher, Shaun (2000). Representation and deliberate action. Houston Studies in Cognitive Science 1.   (Google)
Abstract: Dreyfus enlists the aid of Merleau-Ponty in his critique of representationalist theories of cognition. Such theories posit a representational element at some level of cognitive activity. The nature of the representation and how we think of it will depend upon the level at which one claims to find it. If we consider the case of perception, at one extreme it might be claimed that the representation is a conscious one, that is, that the perceiving subject is conscious of a representation, a _Vorstellung_ in the Kantian sense. In this case, it would clearly come between the perceiving subject and the world and in that sense interfere with a direct perception of the world. This sort of representational theory would be equivalent to idealism, and for good phenomenological reasons it is rejected by Merleau-Ponty and Dreyfus. At the other extreme, it is possible to find cognitive scientists talking about representations at the level of brain activity. Neural representations, either firing patterns or the actual "hard wiring" of neuronal connections (as, for example, neural maps in the somatosensory and motor areas responsible for the experience of the subject's own body), in some way enable perception. At this level of description there are various debates about how these mechanisms can be called representational. If the concept of representation involves reference to the perceptual field, in what sense does a neuronal pattern refer? There are also the familiar debates about how such mechanisms actually function, as well as the difficult problem of how such functions actually translate into personal level experience. Before these debates get off the ground, however, Dreyfus wants to steal the ammunition. He denies that there are representations at the level of brain processes
Gamble, D. D. (1992). Meaning and mental representation. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 70 (3):343-357.   (Google)
Millikan, Ruth G. (1996). Pushmi-pullyu representations. In James Tomberlin (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives. Ridgeview Publishing.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: A list of groceries, Professor Anscombe once suggested, might be used as a shopping list, telling what to buy, or it might be used as an inventory list, telling what has been bought (Anscombe 1957). If used as a shopping list, the world is supposed to conform to the representation: if the list does not match what is in the grocery bag, it is what is in the bag that is at fault. But if used as an inventory list, the representation is supposed to conform to the world: if the list does not match what is in the bag, it is the list that is at fault. The first kind of representation, where the world is supposed to conform to the list, can be called "directive"; it represents or directs what is to be done. The second, where the list is supposed to conform to the world, can be called "descriptive"; it represents or describes what is the case. I wish to propose that there exist representations that face both these ways at once. With apologies to Dr. Doolittle, I call them pushmi-pullyu representations or PPRs
Georgalis, Nicholas (1986). Intentionality and representation. International Studies in Philosophy 18:45-58.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Gillett, Grant R. (1989). Representations and cognitive science. Inquiry 32 (September):261-77.   (Google)
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (ms). Model-based science and the representational theory of mind.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: Over the past 30 years, one topic much discussed in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology has been the status of "the representational theory of mind," or "RTM." As usually conceived, the representational theory holds that the mind operates (in part) by creating, storing, and using internal representations of objects and events in the world
Goldman, A. (1986). Constraints on representation. In Myles Brand & Robert M. Harnish (eds.), The Representation of Knowledge and Belief. University of Arizona Press.   (Google)
Gardenfors, Peter (1996). Mental representation, conceptual spaces and metaphors. Synthese 106 (1):21-47.   (Cited by 60 | Google | More links)
Grush, Rick (1997). The architecture of representation. Philosophical Psychology 10 (1):5-23.   (Cited by 58 | Google | More links)
Abstract: b>: In this article I outline, apply, and defend a theory of natural representation. The main consequences of this theory are: i) representational status is a matter of how physical entities are used, and specifically is not a matter of causation, nomic relations with the intentional object, or information; ii) there are genuine (brain-)internal representations; iii) such representations are really representations, and not just farcical pseudo-representations, such as attractors, principal components, state-space partitions, or what-have-you;and iv) the theory allows us to sharply distinguish those complex behaviors which are genuinely cognitive from those which are merely complex and adaptive
Grush, Rick (2004). The emulation theory of representation: Motor control, imagery, and perception. Behavioral And Brain Sciences 27 (3):377-396.   (Cited by 90 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The emulation theory of representation is developed and explored as a framework that can revealingly synthesize a wide variety of representational functions of the brain. The framework is based on constructs from control theory (forward models) and signal processing (Kalman filters). The idea is that in addition to simply engaging with the body and environment, the brain constructs neural circuits that act as models of the body and environment. During overt sensorimotor engagement, these models are driven by efference copies in parallel with the body and environment, in order to provide expectations of the sensory feedback, and to enhance and process sensory information. These models can also be run off-line in order to produce imagery, estimate outcomes of different actions, and evaluate and develop motor plans. The framework is initially developed within the context of motor control, where it has been shown that inner models running in parallel with the body can reduce the effects of feedback delay problems. The same mechanisms can account for motor imagery as the off-line driving of the emulator via efference copies. The framework is extended to account for visual imagery as the off-line driving of an emulator of the motor-visual loop. I also show how such systems can provide for amodal spatial imagery. Perception, including visual perception, results from such models being used to form expectations of, and to interpret, sensory input. I close by briefly outlining other cognitive functions that might also be synthesized within this framework, including reasoning, theory of mind phenomena, and language. Key Words: efference copies; emulation theory of representation; forward models; Kalman filters; motor control; motor imagery; perception; visual imagery
Gulicvank, Robert (1982). Mental representation-a functionalist view. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 63 (January):3-20.   (Google)
Hatfield, Gary (1989). Computation, representation and content in noncognitive theories of perception. In Stuart Silvers (ed.), ReRepresentation. Kluwer.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Haugeland, John (2002). Andy Clark on cognition and representation. In Philosophy of Mental Representation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Heil, John (1980). Cognition and representation. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (June):158-168.   (Google | More links)
Hoepelman, Jakob (ed.) (1988). Representation and Reasoning: Proceedings of the Stuttgart Conference Workshop on Discourse Representation, Dialogue Tableaux, and Logic Programming. M. Niemeyer Verlag.   (Google)
Hogan, Melinda (1994). What is wrong with an atomistic account of mental representation. Synthese 100 (2):307-27.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Horst, Steven (1992). Notions of 'representation' in philosophy and empirical research. In Proceedings of the Conference on Cognition and Representation.   (Google)
Jackendoff, Ray S. (1991). The problem of reality. Noûs 25 (September):411-33.   (Cited by 7 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Jacobson, Anne Jaap (ms). The uninviting room: Representations without contents.   (Google)
Jovchelovitch, Sandra (2006). Knowledge in Context: Representations, Community, and Culture. Routledge.   (Google)
Abstract: This authored book provides an innovative and systematic account of key debates within the social psychology of knowledge, using the theory of social representations as a guide. This account is then elaborated and integrated into a conceptually coherent theoretical framework to further the social psychological dimensions of the relationship between representations, knowledge and context. Jovchelovitch highlights the social psychological components of the process of knowledge formation and their impact in the constitution of communities, culture and public spheres. Whilst this exploration contributes to an understanding of the genesis, logic and function of knowledge in social life, it also shows that context is essential to understanding the dynamics of representation and emphasises the fundamental unity between the two. This book offers a significant and stimulating contribution to the field of social representations and will make essential reading for those wanting to follow this debate at thecutting edge of social, cultural and developmental psychology as well as sociology, anthropology and cultural studies
Press, Joel Kenton (2008). The scientific use of 'representation' and 'function': Avoiding explanatory vacuity. Synthese 161 (1).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Nearly all of the ways philosophers currently attempt to define the terms ‘representation’ and ‘function’ undermine the scientific application of those terms by rendering the scientific explanations in which they occur vacuous. Since this is unacceptable, we must develop analyses of these terms that avoid this vacuity. Robert Cummins argues in this fashion in Representations, Targets, and Attitudes. He accuses ‘use theories’ of representational content of generating vacuous explanations, claims that nearly all current theories of representational content are use theories, and offers a non-use theory of representational content which avoids explanatory vacuity. One task I undertake in this article is to develop an alternative non-use theory which avoids an objection fatal to that theory
Kriegel, Uriah (forthcoming). Personal-level representation. Protosociology.   (Google)
Abstract: The current orthodoxy on mental representation can be characterized in terms of three
central ideas. The first is ontological, the second semantic, and the third methodological. After
elucidating those, I argue that the emerging picture of mental representation is satisfactory only as
an account of mental representation at the sub-personal level. It is unsatisfactory, in a principled
way, as an account of mental representation at the personal level.
Kukla, Rebecca (1992). Cognitive models and representation. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 43 (2):219-32.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Several accounts of representation in cognitive systems have recently been proposed. These look for a theory that will establish how a representation comes to have a certain content, and how these representations are used by cognitive systems. Covariation accounts are unsatisfactory, as they make intelligent reasoning and cognition impossible. Cummins' interpretation-based account cannot explain the distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive systems, nor how certain cognitive representations appear to have intrinsic meaning. Cognitive systems can be defined as model-constructers, or systems that use information from interpreted models as arguments in the functions they execute. An account based on this definition solves many of the problems raised by the earlier proposals
Lloyd, Dan (1987). Mental representation from the bottom up. Synthese 70 (January):23-78.   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Lloyd, Dan (1986). The limits of cognitive liberalism. Behaviorism 14:1-14.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Lloyd, Dan (1989). What is representation? A reply to Smythe. Behaviorism 17 (2):151-154.   (Google)
Lycan, William G. (1989). Ideas of representation. In David Weissbord (ed.), Mind, Value and Culture: Essays in Honor of E. M. Adams. Ridgeview.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Malmgren, Helge (online). The essential connection between representation and learning.   (Google)
Abstract: No doubt, we human beings often think about objects, remember facts and imagine events
Mandik, Pete & Grush, Rick (2002). Representational parts. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1 (389):394.   (Google)
Abstract: In this reply we claim that, contra Dreyfus, the kinds of skillful performances Dreyfus discusses _are_ representational. We explain this proposal, and then defend it against an objection to the effect that the representational notion we invoke is a weak one countenancing only some global state of an organism as a representation. According to this objection, such a representation is not a robust, projectible property of an organism, and hence will gain no explana- tory leverage in cognitive scientific explanations. We argue on conceptual and empirical grounds that the representations we have identified are not weak unprojectible global states of organisms, but instead genuinely explanatory representational parts of persons
Markman, Arthur B. & Dietrich, Eric (2000). Extending the classical view of representation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4 (12):470-475.   (Cited by 35 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Representation is a central part of models in cognitive science, but recently this idea has come under attack. Researchers advocating perceptual symbol systems, situated action, embodied cognition, and dynamical systems have argued against central assumptions of the classical representational approach to mind. We review the core assumptions of the dominant view of representation and the four suggested alternatives. We argue that representation should remain a core part of cognitive science, but that the insights from these alternative approaches must be incorporated into models of cognitive processing
Matthews, Robert J. (1984). Troubles with representationalism. Social Research 51:1065-97.   (Cited by 5 | Google)
McCulloch, Gregory (2002). Mental representation and mental presentation. In Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Logic, Thought, and Language. Cambridge University Press.   (Google)
McCulloch, Gregory (2001). Mental representation and mental presentation. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.   (Google)
Abstract: Conceptual atomists argue that most of our concepts are primitive. I take up three arguments that have been thought to support atomism and show that they are inconclusive. The evidence that allegedly backs atomism is equally compatible with a localist position on which concepts are structured representations with complex semantic content. I lay out such a localist position and argue that the appropriate position for a non-atomist to adopt is a pluralist view of conceptual structure. I show several ways in which conceptual pluralism provides an advantage in satisfying the empirical and philosophical demands on a theory of conceptual structure and content
Meeker, Natania (2006). Voluptuous Philosophy: Literary Materialism in the French Enlightenment. Fordham University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Eighteenth-century France witnessed the rise of matter itself—in forms ranging from atoms to anatomies—as a privileged object of study. Voluptuous Philosophy redefines what is at stake in the emergence of an enlightened secular materialism by showing how questions of figure—how should a body be represented? What should the effects of this representation be on readers?—are tellingly and consistently located at the very heart of 18th-century debates about the nature of material substance. French materialisms of the Enlightenment are crucially invested not only in the development of a sophisticated theoretical apparatus around the notion of matter but in the production of specific relationships between readers and the "matter" of the texts that they consume. How, the book asks, did the period's fascination with a markedly immaterial and ephemeral event—the reading of works of fiction—come to coincide with what appears to be a gradual materialization of human subjects: men and women who increasingly manage to envision themselves transfigured, as the century wears on, into machines, animals, and even, in the work of the Marquis de Sade, tables and chairs? In what way did the spread of new philosophies of matter depend upon the ability of readers to perceive certain figures of speech as literally and immediately true—to imagine themselves as fully material bodies even as they found themselves most deeply compelled by disembodied literary forms? More broadly, in what sense does the act of reading literature alter and transfigure our perceptions of what is, and can be, real? Voluptuous Philosophy articulates the gradual coming into being of literature as a distinct arena of textual production with the rise of an enlightened reader who remains abstracted from the bodily symptoms that any given piece of writing may induce in him. The very definition of "the literary" as an autonomous field, this book suggests, may, ironically, be dependent upon the simultaneous construction of a material world that remains fully immune to its effects
Millikan, Ruth G. (1993). Content and vehicle. In Spatial Representation. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 14 | Google)
Millikan, Ruth G. (1995). Pushmi-pullyu representations. Philosophical Perspectives 9:185-200.   (Cited by 46 | Google | More links)
Morris, Michael (1992). Beyond interpretation: Reply to Cummins' response. Minds and Machines 2 (1).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: In his response to my Why There Are No Mental Representations, Robert Cummins accused me of having misinterpreted his views, and attempted to undermine a crucial premise of my argument, which claimed that one could only define a semantic type non-semantically by stipulating which tokens should receive a uniform interpretation. I respond to the charge and defend the premise
Morris, M. (1991). Why there are no mental representations. Minds and Machines 1 (1):1-30.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google | More links)
Motzkin, Gabriel (2002). Representation. Synthese 130 (2):201-212.   (Google | More links)
Opie, Jonathan & O'Brien, Gerard (2004). Notes toward a structuralist theory of mental representation. In Hugh Clapin, Phillip Staines & Peter Slezak (eds.), Representation in Mind: New Approaches to Mental Representation. Elsevier.   (Google | More links)
Perry, John (1986). Thought without representation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 137:137-152.   (Cited by 94 | Google)
Pitt, David (online). Mental representation. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   (Cited by 12 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The notion of a "mental representation" is, arguably, in the first instance a theoretical construct of cognitive science. As such, it is a basic concept of the Computational Theory of Mind, according to which cognitive states and processes are constituted by the occurrence, transformation and storage (in the mind/brain) of information-bearing structures (representations) of one kind or another
Possin, Kevin (1988). Sticky problems with Stampe on representations. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 66 (March):75-82.   (Google | More links)
Pribram, Karl H. (1982). Computations and representations. In Language, Mind, And Brain. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Pylyshyn, Zenon W. (online). Rules and representations: Chomsky and representational realism.   (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)
Abstract: called,_ Cognitive Science_ was to bring back scienti?c realism. This may strike you as a very odd claim, for one does not usually think of science as needing to be talked into scienti?c realism. Science is, after all, the study of reality by the most precise instruments of measurement and
Ramsey, William (2007). Representation Reconsidered. Cambridge University Press.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: This book critically examines the ways in which philosophers and cognitive scientists appeal to representations in their theories, and argues that there is...
Redner, Harry (1994). A New Science of Representation: Towards an Integrated Theory of Representation in Science, Politics, and Art. Westview Press.   (Google)
Rescorla, Michael (forthcoming). Chrysippus's Dog as a Case Study in Non-Linguistic Cognition. In Robert Lurz (ed.), Philosophy of Animal Minds. Cambridge University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: I critique an ancient argument for the possibility of non-linguistic deductive inference. The argument, attributed to Chrysippus, describes a dog whose behavior supposedly reflects disjunctive syllogistic reasoning. Drawing on contemporary robotics, I urge that we can equally well explain the dog's behavior by citing probabilistic reasoning over cognitive maps. I then critique various experimentally-based arguments from scientific psychology that echo Chrysippus's anecdotal presentation.
Rescorla, Michael (2009). Cognitive maps and the language of thought. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (2).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Fodor advocates a view of cognitive processes as computations defined over the language of thought (or Mentalese). Even among those who endorse Mentalese, considerable controversy surrounds its representational format. What semantically relevant structure should scientific psychology attribute to Mentalese symbols? Researchers commonly emphasize logical structure, akin to that displayed by predicate calculus sentences. To counteract this tendency, I discuss computational models of navigation drawn from probabilistic robotics. These models involve computations defined over cognitive maps, which have geometric rather than logical structure. They thereby demonstrate the possibility of rational cognitive processes in an exclusively non-logical representational medium. Furthermore, they offer much promise for the empirical study of animal navigation.
Rescorla, Michael (2009). Predication and cartographic representation. Synthese 169 (1).   (Google | More links)
Abstract: I argue that maps do not feature predication, as analyzed by Frege and Tarski. I take as my foil (Casati and Varzi, Parts and places, 1999), which attributes predication to maps. I argue that the details of Casati and Varzi’s own semantics militate against this attribution. Casati and Varzi emphasize what I call the Absence Intuition: if a marker representing some property (such as mountainous terrain) appears on a map, then absence of that marker from a map coordinate signifies absence of the corresponding property from the corresponding location. Predication elicits nothing like the Absence Intuition. “F(a)” does not, in general, signify that objects other than a lack property F. On the basis of this asymmetry, I argue that attaching a marker to map coordinates is a different mode of semantic composition than attaching a predicate to a singular term
Riegler, Alexander (ed.) (1999). Understanding Representation in the Cognitive Sciences: Does Representation Need Reality. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Pub.   (Cited by 13 | Google)
Abstract: This volume argues in favor of rethinking basic issues in cognitive science in the context of recent developments.
Robinson, William S. (1999). Representation and cognitive explanation. In Understanding Representation in the Cognitive Sciences: Does Representation Need Reality, Riegler. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Pub.   (Google)
Rolls, Edmund T. (2001). Representations in the brain. Synthese 129 (2):153-171.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Rosenberg, Gregg H. & Anderson, Michael L. (online). Content and action: The guidance theory of representation.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: b>. The current essay introduces the guidance theory of representation, according to which the content and intentionality of representations can be accounted for in terms of the way they provide guidance for action. We offer a brief account of the biological origins of representation, a formal characterization of the guidance theory, some examples of its use, and show how the guidance theory handles some traditional problem cases for representation: the problems of error and of representation of fictional and abstract entities
Rutgers Marshall, Henry (1906). Presentation and representation. Mind 15 (57):53-80.   (Google | More links)
Scheutz, Matthias (1999). The ontological status of representations. In Alexander Riegler, Markus F. Peschl & A. von Stein (eds.), Understanding Representation in the Cognitive Sciences. Kluwer.   (Google)
Sedivy, Sonia (2004). Minds: Contents without vehicles. Philosophical Psychology 17 (2):149-181.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This paper explores a new understanding of mind or mental representation by arguing that contents at the personal level are not carried by vehicles. Contentful mental states at the personal level are distinctive by virtue of their vehicle-less nature: the subpersonal physiological or functional states that are associated with and enable personal level contents cannot be understood as their vehicles, neither can the sensations or the sensory conditions associated with perceptual contents. This result is obtained by first extending the interpretationist ideas of Davidson and Dennett to show that subpersonal physiological or functional states cannot be construed as the vehicles of personal level contents. Then the anti-foundationalist arguments of Sellars are extended to show that sensory states cannot stand as vehicles to perceptual contents. The line of argumentation extended from Sellars also provides a critique of the current trend to posit non-conceptual contents
Shanon, Benny (1991). Representations - senses and reasons. Philosophical Psychology 4:355-74.   (Cited by 7 | Annotation | Google)
Shanon, Benny (1993). The Representational and the Presentational: An Essay on Cognition and the Study of Mind. Prentice-Hall.   (Cited by 53 | Google)
Silvers, Stuart (ed.) (1989). Representation: Readings In The Philosophy Of Mental Representation. Dordrecht: Kluwer.   (Cited by 8 | Google)
Slezak, Peter (2002). The tripartite model of representation. Philosophical Psychology 15 (3):239-270.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Robert Cummins [(1996) Representations, targets and attitudes, Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT, p. 1] has characterized the vexed problem of mental representation as "the topic in the philosophy of mind for some time now." This remark is something of an understatement. The same topic was central to the famous controversy between Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld in the 17th century and remained central to the entire philosophical tradition of "ideas" in the writings of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid and Kant. However, the scholarly, exegetical literature has almost no overlap with that of contemporary cognitive science. I show that the recurrence of certain deep perplexities about the mind is a systematic and pervasive pattern arising not only throughout history, but also in a number of independent domains today such as debates over visual imagery, symbolic systems and others. Such historical and contemporary convergences suggest that the fundamental issues cannot arise essentially from the theoretical guise they take in any particular case
Slezak, Peter (2004). The world gone wrong? Images, illusions, mistakes and misrepresentations. In Hugh Clapin, Phillip Staines & Peter Slezak (eds.), Representation in Mind: New Approaches to Mental Representation. Elsevier.   (Google)
Abstract: In seeking to understand the extraordinary persistence and recalcitrance of the problems of intentionality, it is instructive to focus attention on one particular facet of the issue. The question of misrepresentation has been discussed recently as a puzzling aspect of the overall problem of the semantics of mental representation (Fodor 1984, 1994, Dretske 1994) and I propose to explore this issue as a loose thread which may be pulled to unravel the rest of the tangled ball
Sloman, Aaron (ms). Toward a general theory of representations.   (Cited by 28 | Google | More links)
Smythe, William E. (1989). The case for cognitive conservatism: A critique of Dan Lloyd's approach to mental representation. Behaviorism 17:63-73.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Sober, Elliott (1976). Mental representations. Synthese 33 (June):101-48.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)
Stalnaker, Robert (1993). What is the representation theory of thinking?: A comment on William G. Lycan. Mind and Language 8 (3):423-430.   (Google | More links)
Sterelny, Kim (1990). The Representational Theory of Mind. Blackwell.   (Cited by 120 | Google)
Stich, Stephen P. (ed.) (1994). Mental Representation: A Reader. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 41 | Google)
Tegtmeier, Erwin (2005). Intentionality is not representation. Metaphysica 6 (1):77-84.   (Google)
Thomas, Nigel J. T. (online). A non-symbolic theory of conscious content: Imagery and activity.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Abstract: Until a few years ago, Cognitive Science was firmly wedded to the notion that cognition must be explained in terms of the computational manipulation of internal representations or symbols. Although many people still believe this, the consensus is no longer solid. Whether it is truly threatened by connectionism is, perhaps, controversial, but there are yet more radical approaches that explicitly reject it. Advocates of "embodied" or "situated" approaches to cognition (e.g., Smith, 1991; Varela _et al_ , 1991, Clancey, 1997) argue that thought cannot be understood as entirely internal. Furthermore, it is argued that autonomous robots can be designed to behave more intelligently if representationalist programming techniques are avoided (Brooks, 1991), and that the way our brains control our behavior is better understood in terms of chaos and dynamical systems theory rather than as any sort computation (e.g., Freeman & Skarda, 1990; Van Gelder & Port, 1995; Van Gelder, 1995; Garson, 1996)
Thomas, Nigel J. T. (2005). Mental Imagery, Philosophical Issues About. In Lynn Nadel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Volume 2, pp. 1147-1153.   (Google)
Abstract: An introduction to the science and philosophy of mental imagery.
Thompson, David L. (ms). What, if anything, is represented? Objects in their worlds.   (Google)
Abstract: Up to David L. Thompson's Homepage Outline by Section: I INTRODUCTION II A COLOURED ILLUSTRATION III THE NATURE OF WORLDS #1. Generalization from colour to all perceived #2. Chess as a model world. #3. Worlds depend on supervenience #4. Supervenience #5. Supervenience applied to worlds #6. Five dependencies #6. Interrelationships between the five #7. The enactive approach to transformation #8. The transformation of worlds #9. A world is a condensed history #10. A shared world defined by individuals #11. Summary VI ONTOLOGY #1. Are perceived objects duplicates of physical #2. Are objects in the world real or illusory? #3. Ontological status of worlds and objects #3. Ontological status of worlds and objects V. CONCLUSION ENDNOTES
Travis, Charles S. (2000). Unshadowed Thought: Representation in Thought and Language. Harvard University Press.   (Cited by 32 | Google | More links)
van Gulick, Robert (1982). Mental representation: A functionalist view. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 63 (January):3-20.   (Cited by 4 | Annotation | Google)
Velmans, Max (1998). Physical, psychological and virtual realities. In Joanne A. Wood (ed.), [Book Chapter]. Routledge.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This chapter examines the similarities and differences between physical, psychological and virtual realities, and challenges some conventional, implicitly dualist assumptions about how these relate to each other. Virtual realities are not easily understood in either dualist or materialist reductive terms, as they exemplify the reflexive nature of perception. The chapter summarises some of the evidence for this “reflexive model”—and examines some of its consequences for the “hard” problem of consciousness. The chapter then goes on to consider how these realities might relate to some grounding reality or thing-itself, and considers some of the personal and social consequences of becoming increasingly immersed in virtual realities. Although this chapter was published in 1998 and develops work published in 1990, it presents a form of “radical externalism” that anticipates many themes in current (2006) internalism versus externalism debates about the nature of mind. It is also relevant to an understanding of virtual reality “presence.”
Wallis, Charles (1994). Representation and the imperfect ideal. Philosophy of Science 61 (3):407-28.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Ward, Andrew (1993). The failure of Dennett's representationalism: A Wittgensteinian resolution. Journal of Philosophical Research 18:285-307.   (Google)
Wheeler, Michael (2001). Two threats to representation. Synthese 129 (2):211-231.   (Cited by 8 | Google | More links)
Wilder, Hugh T. (1988). Representation redux. Metaphilosophy 19 (July-October):185-195.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

2.6a The Concept of Representation

2.6b Varieties of Representation

2.6c Theories of Representation

Gauker, Christopher (1995). Thinking Out Loud: An Essay on the Relation Between Thought and Language. Princeton University Press.   (Cited by 30 | Google)

2.6d Skepticism about Representations

2.6e Representation, Misc

Matthen, Mohan (2009). Truly blue: An adverbial aspect of perceptual representation. Analysis 69 (1).   (Google)
Abstract: It commonly occurs that one person sees a particular colour chip B as saturated blue with no admixture of red or green (i.e., as “uniquely blue”), while another sees it as a somewhat greenish blue. Such a difference is often accompanied by agreement with respect to colour matching – the two persons may mostly agree when asked whether two chips are of the same colour, and this may be so across the whole range of colours. Asked whether B is the same or different from other chips, they mostly agree – though they continue to disagree about whether B is uniquely blue. I shall argue that in such cases neither individual misperceives what colour B is. They differ, rather, in how they perceive the colour of B
Thompson, Brad J. (2010). The spatial content of experience. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (1):146-184.   (Google | More links)

2.7 Concepts

Alvarez, Asuncion (2006). On Peacocke's theory of concepts. In E. Di Nucci & C McHugh (eds.), Content, Consciousness, and Perception: Essays in Contemporary Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge Scholars Press.   (Google)
Abstract: How are we to understand the notion of concept, the very concept of concept itself? One natural way, it seems to me, is to take Fregean sense as a model, and imposing similar constraints on a theory of concepts. This approach has the advantage, among others, of allowing for a distinction to be made between publicly shared, objective concepts, on the one hand, and private, subjective mental representations on the other - a distinction which, I believe, is desirable for various reasons. One problem with Frege
Atran, Scott (1989). Basic conceptual domains. Mind and Language 4:7-16.   (Cited by 16 | Google | More links)
Aydede, Murat (1998). Fodor on concepts and Frege puzzles. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (4):289-294.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)
Abstract: ABSTRACT. Fodor characterizes concepts as consisting of two dimensions: one is content, which is purely denotational/broad, the other the Mentalese vehicle bearing that content, which Fodor calls the Mode of Presentation (MOP), understood "syntactically." I argue that, so understood, concepts are not interpersonally sharable; so Fodor's own account violates what he calls the Publicity Constraint in his (1998) book. Furthermore, I argue that Fodor's non-semantic, or "syntactic," solution to Frege cases succumbs to the problem of providing interpersonally applicable functional roles for MOPs. This is a serious problem because Fodor himself has argued extensively that if Fregean senses or meanings are understood as functional/conceptual roles, then they can't be public, since, according to Fodor, there are no interpersonally applicable functional roles in the relevant senses. I elaborate on these relevant senses in the paper
Aydede, Murat (1999). What makes perceptual symbols perceptual? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (4):610-611.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: It is argued that three major attempts by Barsalou to specify what makes a perceptual symbol perceptual fail. It is suggested that one way to give such an account is to employ the symbols
Bach, Kent (2000). Review of Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong. Philosophical Review.   (Google | More links)
Barsalou, Lawrence W. (1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (4):577-660.   (Cited by 1129 | Google | More links)
Barber, Alex (1998). The pleonasticity of talk about concepts. Philosophical Studies 89 (1):53-86.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Bealer, George (1998). A theory of concepts and concepts possession. Philosophical Issues 9:261-301.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)
Bealer, George (1998). Concept possession. Philosophical Issues 9:331-338.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)
Bengson, John & Moffett, Marc A. (2007). Know-how and concept possession. Philosophical Studies 136 (1).   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: We begin with a puzzle: why do some know-how attributions entail ability attributions while others do not? After rejecting the tempting response that know-how attributions are ambiguous, we argue that a satisfactory answer to the puzzle must acknowledge the connection between know-how and concept possession (specifically, reasonable conceptual mastery, or understanding). This connection appears at first to be grounded solely in the cognitive nature of certain activities. However, we show that, contra anti-intellectualists, the connection between know-how and concept possession can be generalized via reflection on the cognitive nature of intentional action and the potential of certain misunderstandings to undermine know-how even when the corresponding abilities and associated propositional knowledge are in place. Such considerations make explicit the intimate relation between know-how and understanding, motivating a general intellectualist analysis of the former in terms of the latter
Bermudez, Jose Luis (1999). Naturalism and conceptual norms. Philosophical Quarterly 50 (194):77-85.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Bogdan, Radu J. (1989). What do we need concepts for? Mind and Language 4:17-23.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Abstract: If we are serious about concepts, we must begin by addressing two questions: What are concepts for, what is their job? And what means are available in an organism for concepts to do their job? One is a question of raison d'
Braisby, Nick (1998). Compositionality and the modelling of complex concepts. Minds and Machines 8 (4):479-508.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Brandom, Robert B. (2002). Overcoming aduality of concepts and causes: A unifying thread in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. In R.M. Gale (ed.), Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics. Blackwell.   (Google)
Bradshaw, Denny E. (1992). The nature of concepts. Philosophical Papers 21 (1):1-20.   (Cited by 2 | Google)
Brigandt, Ingo (2003). Homology in comparative, molecular, and evolutionary developmental biology: The radiation of a concept. Journal of Experimental Zoology (Molecular and Developmental Evolution) 299:9-17.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The present paper analyzes the use and understanding of the homology concept across different biological disciplines. It is argued that in its history, the homology concept underwent a sort of adaptive radiation. Once it migrated from comparative anatomy into new biological fields, the homology concept changed in accordance with the theoretical aims and interests of these disciplines. The paper gives a case study of the theoretical role that homology plays in comparative and evolutionary biology, in molecular biology, and in evolutionary developmental biology. It is shown that the concept or variant of homology preferred by a particular biological field is used to bring about items of biological knowledge that are characteristic for this field. A particular branch of biology uses its homology concept to pursue its specific theoretical goals
Brigandt, Ingo (2010). Scientific Reasoning Is Material Inference: Combining Confirmation, Discovery, and Explanation. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 24 (1):31-43.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: Whereas an inference (deductive as well as inductive) is usually viewed as being valid in virtue of its argument form, the present paper argues that scientific reasoning is material inference, i.e., justified in virtue of its content. A material inference is licensed by the empirical content embodied in the concepts contained in the premisses and conclusion. Understanding scientific reasoning as material inference has the advantage of combining different aspects of scientific reasoning, such as confirmation, discovery, and explanation. This approach explains why these different aspects (including discovery) can be rational without conforming to formal schemes, and why scientific reasoning is local, i.e., justified only in certain domains and contingent on particular empirical facts. The notion of material inference also fruitfully interacts with accounts of conceptual change and psychological theories of concepts.
Brown, Harold I. (online). Conceptual comparison and conceptual innovation.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Brown, Harold I. (1986). Sellars, concepts, and conceptual change. Synthese 68 (August):275-307.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)
Burge, Tyler (2003). Concepts, conceptions, reflective understanding: Reply to Peacocke. In Martin Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.   (Google)
Burge, Tyler (1993). Concepts, definitions, and meaning. Metaphilosophy 24 (4):309-25.   (Cited by 12 | Google)
Byrne, Darragh (2004). The 'compositional rigidity' of recognitionality. Philosophical Papers 33 (2):147-169.   (Google | More links)
Cain, M. J. (2004). The return of the nativist. Philosophical Explorations 7 (1):1-20.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Radical Concept Nativism (RCN) is the doctrine that most of our concepts are innate. In this paper I will argue in favour of RCN by developing a speculative account of concept acquisition that has considerable nativist credentials and can be defended against the most familiar anti-nativist objections. The core idea is that we have a whole battery of hard-wired dispositions that determine how we group together objects with which we interact. In having these dispositions we are effectively committed to an implicit conceptual scheme and acquiring concepts is a matter of labelling the elements of that scheme
Campbell, John (1985). Possession of concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 85:149-170.   (Cited by 7 | Google)
Camp, Elisabeth (online). Putting thoughts to work: Concepts, systematicity, and stimulus-independence and the generality constraint.   (Google)
Abstract: A venerable philosophical tradition claims that only language users possess concepts. But this makes conceptual thought out to be an implausibly rarified achievement. A more recent tradition, based in cognitive science, maintains that any creature who can systematically recombine its representational capacities thereby deploys concepts. But this makes conceptual thought implausibly widespread. I argue for a middle ground: it is sufficient for conceptual thought that one be able to entertain many of the thoughts produced by recombining one
Carey, Susan (2009). The Origin of Concepts. Oxford University Press.   (Google)
Abstract: Only human beings have a rich conceptual repertoire with concepts like tort, entropy, Abelian group, mannerism, icon and deconstruction. How have humans constructed these concepts? And once they have been constructed by adults, how do children acquire them? While primarily focusing on the second question, in The Origin of Concepts , Susan Carey shows that the answers to both overlap substantially. Carey begins by characterizing the innate starting point for conceptual development, namely systems of core cognition. Representations of core cognition are the output of dedicated input analyzers, as with perceptual representations, but these core representations differ from perceptual representations in having more abstract contents and richer functional roles. Carey argues that the key to understanding cognitive development lies in recognizing conceptual discontinuities in which new representational systems emerge that have more expressive power than core cognition and are also incommensurate with core cognition and other earlier representational systems. Finally, Carey fleshes out Quinian bootstrapping, a learning mechanism that has been repeatedly sketched in the literature on the history and philosophy of science. She demonstrates that Quinian bootstrapping is a major mechanism in the construction of new representational resources over the course of childrens cognitive development. Carey shows how developmental cognitive science resolves aspects of long-standing philosophical debates about the existence, nature, content, and format of innate knowledge. She also shows that understanding the processes of conceptual development in children illuminates the historical process by which concepts are constructed, and transforms the way we think about philosophical problems about the nature of concepts and the relations between language and thought
Carey, Susan (2009). Where our number concepts come from. Journal of Philosophy 106 (4).   (Google)
Carey, Susan (ms). The Origin of Concepts, chapter.   (Google)
Chen, Xiang (2001). Perceptual symbols and taxonomy comparison. Philosophy of Science 3 (September):S200-S212.   (Google | More links)
Clark, Andy & Prinz, Jesse J. (2004). Putting concepts to work: Some thoughts for the twenty-first century. Mind and Language 19 (1):57-69.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Hoerl, Christoph (forthcoming). Causal Reasoning. Philosophical Studies.   (Google | More links)
Abstract: The main focus of this paper is the question as to what it is for an individual to think of her environment in terms of a concept of causation, or causal concepts, in contrast to some more primitive ways in which an individual might pick out or register what are in fact causal phenomena. I show how versions of this question arise in the context of two strands of work on causation, represented by Elizabeth Anscombe and Christopher Hitchcock, respectively. I then describe a central type of reasoning that, I suggest, a subject has to be able to engage in, if we are to credit her with causal concepts. I also point out that this type of reasoning turns on the idea of a physical connection between cause and effect, as articulated in recent singularist approaches of causation.
Cussins, Adrian (1990). The connectionist construction of concepts. In Margaret A. Boden (ed.), The Philosophy of AI. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 107 | Annotation | Google)
Abstract: The character of computational modelling of cognition depends on an underlying theory of representation. Classical cognitive science has exploited the syntax/semantics theory of representation that derives from logic. But this has had the consequence that the kind of psychological explanation supported by classical cognitive science is
_conceptualist_:
psychological phenomena are modelled in terms of relations that hold between concepts, and between the sensors/effectors and concepts. This kind of explanation is inappropriate for the Proper Treatment of Connectionism (Smolensky 1988)
Daly, Chris (2007). Wandering significance: An essay on conceptual behaviour. – Mark Wilson. Philosophical Quarterly 57 (228):498–501.   (Google | More links)
Damasio, Antonio R. (1989). Concepts in the brain. Mind and Language 4:24-28.   (Cited by 13 | Google)
Davis, Wayne A. (2005). Concepts and epistemic individuation (christopher peacocke). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2):290-325.   (Google)
Davis, Wayne A. (2005). Concepts and epistemic individuation. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2):290-325.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)
Davis, Wayne A. (2005). Concept individuation, possession conditions, and propositional attitudes. Noûs 39 (1):140-66.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
DeMoss, David (2004). Hunting fat gnu: How to identify a proxytype. Essays in Philosophy 5 (1):1-10.   (Google)
de Rosa, Raffaella (2005). Prinz's problematic proxytypes. Philosophical Quarterly 55 (221):594-606.   (Google | More links)
Earl, Dennis (2006). Concepts and properties. Metaphysica 7 (1):67-85.   (Google)
Evans, Jonathan S. B. T. (1989). Concepts and inference. Mind and Language 4:29-34.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Fauconnier, Gilles (2002). The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities. Basic Books.   (Google)
Abstract: Until recently, cognitive science focused on such mental functions as problem solving, grammar, and pattern-the functions in which the human mind most closely resembles a computer. But humans are more than computers: we invent new meanings, imagine wildly, and even have ideas that have never existed before. Today the cutting edge of cognitive science addresses precisely these mysterious, creative aspects of the mind.The Way We Think is a landmark analysis of the imaginative nature of the mind. Conceptual blending is already widely known in research laboratories throughout the world; this book, written to be accessible to both lay readers and interested scientists, is its definitive statement. Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner show that conceptual blending is the root of the cognitively modern human mind, and that conceptual blends themselves are continually combined and reblended to create the rich mental fabric in which we live.The Way We Think shows how this blending operates; how it is affected by (and gives rise to) language, identity, culture, and invention; and how we imagine what could be and what might have been. The result is a bold and exciting new view of how the mind works
Fodor, Jerry A. (1995). Concepts: A potboiler. Cognition 50:133-51.   (Cited by 188 | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1998). Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 573 | Google | More links)
Abstract: The renowned philosopher Jerry Fodor, a leading figure in the study of the mind for more than twenty years, presents a strikingly original theory on the basic constituents of thought. He suggests that the heart of cognitive science is its theory of concepts, and that cognitive scientists have gone badly wrong in many areas because their assumptions about concepts have been mistaken. Fodor argues compellingly for an atomistic theory of concepts, deals out witty and pugnacious demolitions of rival theories, and suggests that future work on human cognition should build upon new foundations. This lively, conversational, and superbly accessible book is the first volume in the Oxford Cognitive Science Series, where the best original work in this field will be presented to a broad readership. Concepts will fascinate anyone interested in contemporary work on mind and language. Cognitive science will never be the same again
Fodor, Jerry A. (2004). Having concepts: A brief refutation of the twentieth century. Mind and Language 19 (1):29-47.   (Cited by 25 | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. (2003). Hume Variations. Oxford University Press.   (Cited by 24 | Google)
Abstract: Hume? Yes, David Hume, that's who Jerry Fodor looks to for help in advancing our understanding of the mind. Fodor claims his Treatise of Human Nature as the foundational document of cognitive science: it launched the project of constructing an empirical psychology on the basis of a representational theory of mind. Going back to this work after more than 250 years we find that Hume is remarkably perceptive about the components and structure that a theory of mind requires. Careful study of the Treatise helps us to see what is amiss with much twentieth-century philosophy of mind, and to get on the right track
Fodor, Jerry A. (2000). Replies to critics. Mind and Language 15 (2-3):350-374.   (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. (1998). There are no recognitional concepts, not even RED. Philosophical Issues 9:1-14.   (Cited by 20 | Google | More links)
Fodor, Jerry A. & LePore, Ernest (1996). The red Herring and the pet fish: Why concepts still can't be prototypes. Cognition 58:253-70.   (Cited by 34 | Google | More links)
Abstract: 1 There is a Standard Objection to the idea that concepts might be prototypes (or exemplars, or stereotypes): Because they are productive, concepts must be compositional. Prototypes aren't compositional, so concepts can't be prototypes (see, e.g., Margolis, 1994).2 However, two recent papers (Osherson and Smith, 1988; Kamp and Partee, 1995) reconsider this consensus. They suggest that, although the Standard Objection is probably right in the long run, the cases where prototypes fail to exhibit compositionality are relatively exotic and involve phenomena which any account of compositionality is likely to find hard to deal with; for example, the effects of quantifiers, indexicals, contextual constraints, etc. KP are even prepared to indulge a guarded optimism: "... when a suitably rich compositional theory... is developed, prototypes will be seen ... as one property among many which only when taken altogether can support a compositional theory of combination" (p.56). In this paper, we argue that the Standard Objection to prototype theory was right after all: The problems about compositionality are insuperable in even the most trivial sorts of examples; it is therefore as near to certain as anything in cognitive science ever gets that the structure of concepts is not statistical. Theories of categorization, concept acquisition, lexical meaning and the like, which assume the contrary simply don't work. We commence with a general discussion of the constraints that an account of concepts must meet if their compositionality is to explain their productivity. We'll then turn to a criticism of proposals that OS2 and KP make for coping with some specific cases
Franks, Bradley (1992). Realism and folk psychology in the ascription of concepts. Philosophical Psychology 5 (4):369-390.   (Cited by 1 | Google)
Abstract: This paper discusses some requirements on a folk-psychological, computational account of concepts. Although most psychological views take the folk-psychological stance that concept-possession requires capacities of both representation and classification, such views lack a philosophical context. In contrast, philosophically motivated views stress one of these capacities at the expense of the other. This paper seeks to provide some philosophical motivation for the (folk-) psychological stance. Philosophical and psychological constraints on a computational level account provide the context for evaluating two theses. The first, the Classificatory View, is that concept-possession is constituted by the ability to classify states of the world. I argue, against this view, that to be able to classify, a thinker must also be able to represent the world. The second thesis, the Representational View, is that to possess a concept is constituted by the ability to represent the world. I argue that ascribing this ability is incoherent without ascribing an ability to classify. Hence, a detailed computational specification of concept-possession suggests that the folk-psychological stance is accurate. Philosophical views of concepts, (e.g. Fodor, 1987), adhering to one of the strong theses, whilst adverting to folk-psychological motivations, are thus both insufficiently complex and incoherent
Millikan, Ruth G. (1998). A more plausible kind of "recognitional concept". Philosophical Issues 9:35-41.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)
Abstract: It's a sort of moebus strip argument. Rather than circularly assuming what it should prove, it assumes one of the things Fodor says he has disproved. It assumes that the extensions of those concepts thought by some to be recognitional are in fact controlled by stereotypes. Why do I say that? Because Fodor assumes that what makes an instance of a concept a "good instance" is that it is an average instance, that it sports the properties statistically most commonly found among instances of that concept. But that the "good instances" are always the common instances is remotely plausible only if we take concepts to be organized by stereotypes. True, a goldfish is not an average or stereotypical fish (SSis that true?) and the nursing profession is not average for a male and maleness is not average for a nurse. But there is surely is nothing borderline about the fishiness of a goldfish nor, typically, about the maleness of a male nurse or the petness of a pet fish. Notice also that good examples of some kinds of things are very hard to find, for example, good examples of the fallacy of accent, and good examples of wild children, and (nowadays) good examples of scurvy are hard to find. If good instances had to be instances that were average, including in respects having nothing to do with the point of the category being defined, and if recognitional concepts had to recognize by attending to average properties, then I suppose the recognitional ability defining the concept "sphere" would have to include the ability to tell whether a thing bounces!
Gardenfors, Peter (1997). Meanings as conceptual structures. In Martin Carrier & Peter K. Machamer (eds.), Mindscapes: Philosophy, Science, and the Mind. Pittsburgh University Press.   (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)
Gillett, Grant R. (1987). Concepts, structures, and meanings. Inquiry 30 (March):101-112.   (Cited by 3 | Google)
Gopnik, Alison & Schwitzgebel, Eric (1998). Whose concepts are they, anyway? The role of philosophical intuition in empirical psychology. In M. R. DePaul & William Ramsey (eds.), Rethinking Intuition. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)
Abstract: This chapter examines several ways in which philosophical attention to intuition can contribute to empirical scientific psychology. The authors then discuss one prevalent misuse of intuition. An unspoken assumption of much argumentation in the philosophy of mind has been that to articulate our folk psychological intuitions, our ordinary concepts of belief, truth, meaning, and so forth, is itself sufficient to give a theoretical account of what belief, truth, meaning, and so forth, actually are. It is believed that this assumption rests on an inadequate understanding of the nature of intuition and its appropriate applications, and that it results in errors. Three notable examples of this sort of misuse of intuition in philosophy are briefly discussed. Finally, the authors provide developmental evidence for the mutability and fallibility of everyday intuitions about the mind, evidence that undermines arguments, that depend on taking such intuitions as a final authority for substantive claims about what the mind is like.
Grandy, Richard E. (1990). Concepts, prototypes, and information. In Enrique Villanueva (ed.), Information, Semantics, and Epistemology. Blackwell.   (Google)
Grandy, Richard E. (1998). Recognitional concepts and compositionality. Philosophical Issues 9:21-25.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)
Haas-Spohn, Ulrike & Spohn, Wolfgang (2001). Concepts are beliefs about essences. In R. Stuhlmann-Laeisz, Albert Newen & Ulrich Nortmann (eds.), Proceedings of an International Symposium. Stanford, CSLI Publications.   (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)
Abstract: Putnam (1975) and Burge (1979) have made a convincing case that neither mea- nings nor beliefs are in the head. Most philosophers, it seems, have accepted their argument. Putnam explained that a subject
Hampton, James A. (2000). Concepts and prototypes. Mind and Language 15 (2-3):299-307.   (