Mental Files in Flux

Mental Files in Flux PDF Author: François Recanati
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192507567
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
François Recanati has pioneered the 'mental file' framework for thinking about concepts and how we refer to the world in thought and language. Mental files are based on 'epistemically rewarding' relations to objects in the environment. Standing in such relations to objects puts the subject in a position to gain information regarding them. The information thus gained goes into the file based on the relevant relation. Files do not merely store information about objects, however, they refer to them and serve as singular terms in the language of thought, with a relational (nondescriptivist) semantics. In this framework, the reference of linguistic expressions is inherited from that of the files we associate with them. Crucially, files also play the role of 'modes of presentation'. They are used to account for cognitive significance phenomena illustrated by so-called 'Frege cases'. In this new volume, Recanati considers what happens to mental files in a dynamic setting. Mental files are construed as both continuants (dynamic files) and as time-slices thereof (static files). Dynamic files are needed to account for confusion, recognition and tracking. Mental Files in Flux considers what happens to the relation of coreference de jure, central to the functional characterization of files, when one adopts a dynamic perspective. Only a weak form of coreference de jure is said to hold between stages of the same dynamic file. The second part of the book argues that communication involves interpersonal dynamic files. Special attention is paid to the communication of indexical thoughts (de se contents) and communication using proper names.

Mental Files in Flux

Mental Files in Flux PDF Author: François Récanati
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019879035X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
François Recanati has pioneered the 'mental file' framework for thinking about concepts and how we refer to the world in thought and language. He now explores what happens to mental files in a dynamic setting: Recanati argues that communication involves interpersonal dynamic files.

Singular Thought and Mental Files

Singular Thought and Mental Files PDF Author: Rachel Goodman
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198746881
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
This volume brings together original works by leading scholars which aim to examine and evaluate the viability of the mental files framework for theorizing about singular thought.

Mental Files in Flux

Mental Files in Flux PDF Author: François Récanati
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191837029
Category : Language and languages
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Francois Recanati has pioneered the 'mental file' framework for thinking about concepts and how we refer to the world in thought and language. He now explores what happens to mental files in a dynamic setting: Recanati argues that communication involves interpersonal dynamic files.

Mental Files

Mental Files PDF Author: François Recanati
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199659982
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
François Recanati presents his theory of mental files, a new way of understanding reference in language and thought. Linguistic expressions inherit their reference from the files that we associate with them, which are classified according to their function, which is to store information derived through certain types of relation to objects.

Thought: Its Origin and Reach

Thought: Its Origin and Reach PDF Author: Alex Grzankowski
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003855121
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
The work of Mark Sainsbury has made a significant and challenging contribution to several central areas of philosophy, especially philosophy of language and logic. He has made significant contributions to puzzles concerning the nature of thought and language and pioneered research in the philosophical theory known as fictionalism. In this outstanding volume, 20 contributors engage with Sainsbury’s work but also go beyond it, exploring fundamental problems in the philosophy of language, mind, and logic. Topics covered include propositional thought, intentionality, the mind-body problem, singular thoughts, the individuation of concepts, nominalisation, logical form, non-existent objects, and vagueness. Thought: Its Origin and Reach will be of interest to professional philosophers and students working in philosophy of mind, language, epistemology, and metaphysics.

The Fragmented Mind

The Fragmented Mind PDF Author: Cristina Borgoni
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198850670
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The thesis of mental fragmentation has recently attracted increased attention as a way of explaining facts about mind and language. This volume provides an accessible introduction and essays on foundations and applications of fragmentation.

Understanding "I"

Understanding Author: José Luis Bermúdez
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192516019
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
No words in English are shorter than "I" and few, if any, play a more fundamental role in language and thought. In Understanding "I": Thought and Language José Luis Bermúdez continues his longstanding work on the self and self-consciousness. Bermúdez develops a model of how language-users understand sentences involving the first person pronoun "I". This model illuminates the unique psychological role that self-conscious thoughts (typically expressed using "I") play in action and thought - a unique role often summarized by describing "I" as an essential indexical. The book opens with an argument directly supporting the indispensability of "I"-thoughts in explaining action. After motivating a broadly Fregean approach linguistic understanding it critically examines Frege's own remarks on "I" as well as the Fregean account offered by Gareth Evans. The main part of the book develops an account of the sense of "I" that explains a cluster of related phenomena, including essential indexicality, immunity to error through misidentification, the shareability of "I"-thoughts, the relation between "I" and "you", and the role of autobiographical memory in self-consciousness.

Force, Content and the Unity of the Proposition

Force, Content and the Unity of the Proposition PDF Author: Gabriele M. Mras
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000517322
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
This volume advances discussion between critics and defenders of the force-content distinction and opens up new ways of thinking about force and speech acts in relation to the unity problem. The force-content dichotomy has shaped the philosophy of language and mind since the time of Frege and Russell. Isn’t it obvious that, for example, the clauses of a conditional are not asserted and must therefore be propositions and propositions the forceless contents of forceful acts? But, others have recently asked in response, how can a proposition be a truth value bearer if it is not unified through the forceful act of a subject that takes a position regarding how things are? Can we not instead think of propositions as being inherently forceful, but of force as being cancelled in certain contexts? And what do assertoric, but also directive and interrogative force indicators mean? Force, Content and the Unity of the Proposition will be of interest to researchers working in philosophy of language, philosophical logic, philosophy of mind and linguistics.

Talking About

Talking About PDF Author: Elmar Unnsteinsson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192865137
Category : Intentionality (Philosophy)
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Combining new insights from cognitive science and speech art theory, Unnsteinsson develops a compelling theory of singular reference which avoids well-known puzzles and objections. The theory, called Edenic intentionalism, is grounded in a mechanistic perspective on explanation in cognitive science and a new Gricean account of speaker meaning and speaker reference. Talking About: An Intentionalist Theory of Reference develops an account of the mental state of identity confusion and separates questions about the nature of representational acts and representational states. Unnsteinsson proposes a division of labour, but Edenic intentionalism is strictly a theory of intentional, mind-directed representational acts, taking speech acts as its paradigm case. Talking About: An Intentionalist Theory of Reference argues that mental mechanisms ought to be postulated to explain human cognitive capacities. Pragmatic competence is the capacity to successfully produce utterances with a communicative intention. By examining the characteristic function and malfunction of the mechanism for referential competence, the study shows that confused reference should be understood as a type of malfunction. This is the core thesis of Edenic intentionalism: that the identity confusion disrupts the normal function of the speech art of reference.

Modes of Representation

Modes of Representation PDF Author: Richard Kimberly Heck
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198861591
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Modes of Presentation analyses a collection of problems, known as 'Frege's puzzle', resulting from how thinkers and speakers have a limited perspective on reference in thought and language. Heck argues that these puzzles have much to teach us both about the foundations of cognition and the nature of linguistic communication.