ISSN:0012-2017    

DOI:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1994.tb00145.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1994

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

SummaryIn a theory of representational or intentional states content is generally supposed to play various roles. It has to be the bearer of a truth‐value, it has to determine the way a representation is about something (its mode of presentation), and finally it has to 6e used in order to give intra‐ and interpersonal psychological explanations. It has been argued that no unique kind of content can play all these roles. What criterion should one adopt in order to draw the dividing line? We suggest that the divide be based on ontological considerations related to the way content depends on external factors. There is a fundamental difference, we submit, between object‐dependent and property‐dependent contents. The requirements concerning modes of presentation as well as cognitive significance can be met by one kind of content. This content, it will appear, is property‐dependent, but never object

ISSN:0012-2017    

DOI:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1994.tb00146.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1994

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

SummaryIn this paper I discuss two influential views in the philosophy of mind: thetwo‐component picturedraws a distinction between ‘narrow content’ and ‘broad content’, whileradical externalismdenies that there is such a thing as narrow content. I argue that ‘narrow content’ is ambiguous, and that the two views can be reconciled. Instead of considering that there is only one question (‘Are mental contents internal to the individual?’) and three possible answers (‘Yes’,‘Yes and No’, and ‘No’) corresponding to Cartesian internalism, the two‐component picture, and radical externalism respectively, I show that there are two distinct questions: ‘Are mental contents internal to the individual?’ and, ‘Are mental contents analysable in two‐components?’ Both questions can be given a positive or a negative answer, in such a way that there are four, rather than three, possible views to be distinguished. The extra view whose possibility emerges in this framework is that which mixes radical externalism with the two‐component picture. It agrees with radical externalism that there cannot be ‘solipsistic’ contents: content is not an intrinsic property of the states of an individual organism, but a relational property. It also agrees with the two‐component picture, on a certain interpretation: the broad content of a psychological state depends upon what actually causes that state, but the narrow content depends only on what normally causes this type of state to occur. In the last section of the paper, I deal with internal representation which seem to be independent even of the normal environment. I show that such contents are themselves independent of the normal environment only in a relative sense: they are locally independent of the normal environment, yet still depend on it via the concepts

ISSN:0012-2017    

DOI:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1994.tb00147.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1994

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

RésuméDansA Theory of Content JerryFodor fait déboucher sa théorie représentationnelle de l'esprit sur une psychosémantique physicaliste et atomiste. Cette théorie externaliste de la signification –the Asymmetric Dependency Theory– fournit une solution entièrement naturalisée au second problème de Brentano, c'est‐à‐dire celui de l'objet référentiel. En m'appuyant sur le réalisme interne de Hilary Putnam, je critique deux éléments essentiels de la solution proposée par Fodor, à savoir la relation de dépendance asymétrique et l'individuation des objets de la référence. Cette critique vise à montrer que le problème de la naturalisation et celui de la détermination sémantique ne sauraient être résolus simultanément. En outre, la détermination ontologique des objets de la référence implique inévitablement le principe de relativité conceptuelle. L'impossibilité de la psychosémantique naturalisée de Fodor corrobore donc la thèse de Brentano selon laquelle les phénomènes de

ISSN:0012-2017    

DOI:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1994.tb00148.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1994

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

RésuméCet article s'attaque au problème de l'indétermination fonctionnelle dans l'un de ses aspects, dit «intensif», celui où un indicateur interne peut répondre soit au stimulus proximal occasioné sur les récepteurs sensoriels par une propriété extérieure, soit au stimulus correspondant – cette propriété elle‐même. A près avoir montré pourquoi la solution de Dretske ne permet pas de rendre compte principiellement de ce qui distingue les deux types de fonction représentationnelle d'un indicateur, cet article procède à une analyse de ce qui distingue un descripteur de stimulus proximal d'un descripteur de stimulus distal. Deux critères sont utilisés: 1) le graphe des fonctions de traitement de l'information d'entré (soit un vecteur d'action neuronale dans l'aire cérébrale correspondante) est différent s'il s'agit d'un stimulus proximal‐cova‐recalibration de l'information par le recours à une modalité sensorielle dominante sont mises en œuvre quand le système est capable de former des descripteurs distaux. La capacité de rectifier l'information proximale pour maintenir la covariation avec la source distale de l'information constitue ainsi une condition néessaire et suffisante de l'existence d'une représentation distale contrôlant le comportement. Plusieurs conséquences de cette définition de la distalité sont examinées du point de vue d

ISSN:0012-2017    

DOI:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1994.tb00149.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1994

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

SummaryExternalism in philosophy of mind is usually taken to be faced with the following difficulty: from the fact that meanings are externally individuated, it follows that the subjective character of mental states and events (their accessibility for the person who “has” them) becomes problematic. On the basis of a well‐founded approach to similar problems in the philosophy of action, I propose a solution based on two connected issues: (a) we should think of mental states not as beliefs, but as (defeasible) states of knowledge, and (b) thought experiments, designed to strip off the contribution of the world from the subject's contribution to the contents of his mental states, are doomed to fail. The allegedly subjective character of propositional contentful states (beliefs, desires, meanings) is that they are agent‐specific states. Agent‐specificity is not in contradiction with mental states or intentional actions having a circumstanti

ISSN:0012-2017    

DOI:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1994.tb00150.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1994

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

SummaryVirtually all discussions of the propositional attitudes centre around belief. I suggest that, when one takes a broad look at the kinds of constraint which affect our attributions of attitude, this is a mistake. Not only is belief not properly representative of the propositional attitudes generally, but, more seriously, taking it to be representative can be positively distorting. In this paper I offer reasons why we should give knowledge a more central role in discussions of the propositional attitudes and suggest that its almost complete neglect in current philosophy of mind is unjustified. In essence, I argue that we should consider knowledge to be the central attitude and think of belief as a later and special development of the attitude scheme. In place of the usual explanation of knowledge as belief plus something, we should think of belief as knowledge minus something. The final sections choose Kripke's puzzle about belief as an example of where the conventional wisdom leads us astray.

ISSN:0012-2017    

DOI:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1994.tb00151.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1994

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

SummaryAgainst an externalist view popularized, among others, by Evans and McDowell I shall show fiat object‐dependent thoughts are psychologically spurious. This version of externalism is contrasted with the picture that thoughts are object‐independent. It is argued that object‐independent thoughts are perspectival and context‐sensitive and that these perspectival thoughts, unlike object‐dependent thoughts: (i) deal with delusion in an intuitive and elegant way; (ii) support psychological generalizations in a straightforward way; (iii) do not need to be fully articulated and, as such, fit with an economical rule governing our thinking activity. To state my point I shall mainly concentrate on perceptual thoughts and emphasize how they are contextually related to the exter

ISSN:0012-2017    

DOI:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1994.tb00152.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1994

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

SummaryI argue that (i) language is a social phenomenon and that (ii) thoughts take place in a linguistic medium of representation. Davidson's private language (“idiolectic”) approach to communication is reviewed and criticised in sections 2 and 3, respectively. It is shown that Dretske's recent definition of thought is not narrow enough to exclude algorithmic symbol manipulations done by computers from being thoughts. The difference between mere algorithmic symbol manipulation and thought is to be found in the human ability to infer the truth value of certain self‐referential representations such as Gödel sentences (sections 4 and 5). Section 4 also contains an argument to the effect that only universal linguistic systems allow for the construction of such decidable self‐referential representations and are, therefore, the only appropriate media of thought. Some speculations on the relation between thought and internal symbol manipulation follow. The whole issue discussed in this essay indicates that some form of externalism is required to account for

ISSN:0012-2017    

DOI:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1994.tb00153.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1994

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0012-2017    

DOI:10.1111/j.1746-8361.1994.tb00154.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1994

数据来源: WILEY