Millikan, Ruth Garrett. On Knowing the Meaning; With a Coda on Swampman
2010, Mind 119 (473):43-81.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Juan R. Loaiza
Abstract: I give an analysis of how empirical terms do their work in communication and the gathering of knowledge that is fully externalist and that covers the full range of empirical terms. It rests on claims about ontology. A result is that armchair analysis fails as a tool for examining meanings of 'basic' empirical terms because their meanings are not determined by common methods or criteria of application passed from old to new users, by conventionally determined 'intensions'. Nor do methods of application used by individual speakers constitute definitive reference-determining intensions for their idiolect terms or associated concepts. Conventional intensions of non-basic empirical terms ultimately rest on basic empirical concepts, so no empirical meaning is found merely 'in the head'. I discuss the nature of lexical definition, why empirical meanings cannot ultimately be modelled as functions from possible worlds to extensions, and traps into which armchair analysis of meaning can lead us. A coda explains how 'Swampman' examples, as used against teleosemantic theories of content, illustrate such trapsMillikan, Ruth Garrett. Naturalizing intentionality2000, In Bernard Elevitch (ed.), The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy. Philosopy Documentation Center. pp. 83-90.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
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 notComment:
Millikan, Ruth Garrett. A common structure for concepts of individuals, stuffs, and real kinds: More Mama, more milk, and more mouse1997, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (1):55-65.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Juan R. Loaiza
Abstract: Concepts are highly theoretical entities. One cannot study them empirically without committing oneself to substantial preliminary assumptions. Among the competing theories of concepts and categorization developed by psychologists in the last thirty years, the implicit theoretical assumption that what falls under a concept is determined by description () has never been seriously challenged. I present a nondescriptionist theory of our most basic concepts, which include (1) stuffs (gold, milk), (2) real kinds (cat, chair), and (3) individuals (Mama, Bill Clinton, the Empire State Building). On the basis of something important that all three have in common, our earliest and most basic concepts of substances are identical in structure. The membership of the category like that of is a natural unit in nature, to which the concept does something like pointing, and continues to point despite large changes in the properties the thinker represents the unit as having. For example, large changes can occur in the way a child identifies cats and the things it is willing to call without affecting the extension of its word The difficulty is to cash in the metaphor of in this context. Having substance concepts need not depend on knowing words, but language interacts with substance concepts, completely transforming the conceptual repertoire. I will discuss how public language plays a crucial role in both the acquisition of substance concepts and their completed structureComment:
Millikan, Ruth Garrett. Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories1984, MIT Press.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Juan R. Loaiza
Publisher's Note: Beginning with a general theory of function applied to body organs, behaviors, customs, and both inner and outer representations, Ruth Millikan argues that the intentionality of language can be described without reference to speaker intentions and that an understanding of the intentionality of thought can and should be divorced from the problem of understanding consciousness. The results support a realist theory of truth and of universals, and open the way for a nonfoundationalist and nonholistic approach to epistemology.Comment: It is one of the classic in philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and even philosophy of science.
Mendelovici, Angela. Reliable misrepresentation and tracking theories of mental representation2013, Philosophical Studies 165 (2):421-443.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: It is a live possibility that certain of our experiences reliably misrepresent the world around us. I argue that tracking theories of mental representation have difficulty allowing for this possibility, and that this is a major consideration against themComment:
Mendus, Susan. Politics and Morality2009, Polity.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Publisher's Note: Public disenchantment with politics has become a key feature of the world in which we live. Politicians are increasingly viewed with suspicion and distrust, and electoral turnout in many modern democracies continues to fall. But are we right to display such contempt towards our elected representatives? Can politicians be morally good or is politics destined to involve dirty hands or the loss of integrity, as many modern philosophers claim? In this book, Susan Mendus seeks to address these important questions to assess whether this apparent tension between morality and politics is real and, if so, why. Beginning with an account of integrity as involving a willingness to stand by ones most fundamental moral commitments, the author discusses three reasons for thinking that politics undermines integrity and is incompatible with morality. These are: the relationship between politics and utilitarian calculation; the possibility that the realm of politics is a separate realm of value; and the difficulty of reconciling the demands of different social roles. She concludes that, in the modern world, we all risk losing our integrity. To that extent, we are all politicians. Moreover, we have reason to be glad that politicians are not always morally good. Written with verve and clarity, this book provides students and general readers an accessible guide to the philosophical debates about the complex relationship between politics and morality in the contemporary world.Comment:
Meager, Ruby. The Uniqueness of a Work of Art1958, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 59:49 - 70.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: In this paper I have come a very long and pedantic way round to the venerable old conclusion that the uniqueness demanded of a work of art is that consequent on its essentially being evaluated for itself and not for its instrumental potentialities; and have given an old problem of the possibility of rational aesthetic evaluation an answer at least as old as Kant's. But I hope that by taking the long way round I have raised a few of the complexities buried in our familiar talk of works of art and have thereby succeeded in laying a promising metaphysical ghost.Comment:
Meager, Ruby. Art and beauty1974, British Journal of Aesthetics 14 (2):99-105.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: The concept of beauty is itself still obscure to us; the power and the modus operandi of the beautiful is as mysterious, if not as terrible, to us as to Plato (unless indeed one allows Kant some credit here). But does it not have more to do with what we have chosen and valued as art through the ages of human production than individual sophistication, autonomy, originality, spontaneity, etc., in the artist? It.is not, after all, R. because Shakespeare is superior in these, or in political or practical wisdom, or in self-awareness, or in many-layered ambiguity, to, say, Dr. Johnson, that Shakespeare's poetry is memorable and the articulate and learned Doctor's is forgettable.Comment:
Marti, Luisa. Unarticulated constituents revisited2006, Linguistics and Philosophy 29 (2):135 - 166.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Thomas Hodgson
Abstract: An important debate in the current literature is whether 'all truth-conditional effects of extra-linguistic context can be traced to [a variable at; LM] logical form' (Stanley, 'Context and Logical Form', Linguistics and Philosophy, 23 (2000) 391). That is, according to Stanley, the only truth-conditional effects that extra-linguistic context has are localizable in (potentially silent) variable-denoting pronouns or pronoun-like items, which are represented in the syntax/at logical form (pure indexicals like I or today are put aside in this discussion). According to Recanati ('Unarticulated Constituents', Linguistics and Philosophy, 25 (2002) 299), extra-linguistic context can have additional truth-conditional effects, in the form of optional pragmatic processes like 'free enrichment'. This paper shows that Recanati's position is not warranted, since there is an alternative line of analysis that obviates the need to assume free enrichment. In the alternative analysis, we need Stanley's variables, but we need to give them the freedom to be or not to be generated in the syntax/present at logical form, a kind of optionality that has nothing to do with the pragmatics-related optionality of free enrichment.Comment: Probably won't make sense without looking at Recanati and Perry's work
Macpherson, Fiona. Ambiguous Figures and the Content of Experience2006, Noûs 40 (1):82-117-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: Representationalism is the position that the phenomenal character of an experience is either identical with, or supervenes on, the content of that experience. Many representationalists hold that the relevant content of experience is nonconceptual. I propose a counterexample to this form of representationalism that arises from the phenomenon of Gestalt switching, which occurs when viewing ambiguous figures. First, I argue that one does not need to appeal to the conceptual content of experience or to judgements to account for Gestalt switching. I then argue that experiences of certain ambiguous figures are problematic because they have different phenomenal characters but that no difference in the nonconceptual content of these experiences can be identified. I consider three solutions to this problem that have been proposed by both philosophers and psychologists and conclude that none can account for all the ambiguous figures that pose the problem. I conclude that the onus is on representationalists to specify the relevant difference in content or to abandon their position.Comment:
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