more on this theme     |     more from this thinker

Single Idea 12603

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 6. Anti-Individualism ]

Full Idea

No one has ever described a way of explaining what beliefs, desires, and other mental states are except in terms of actual or possible relations to things in the external world.

Gist of Idea

We can only describe mental attitudes in relation to the external world

Source

Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.3.4)

Book Ref

Harman,Gilbert: 'Reasoning Meaning and Mind' [OUP 1999], p.226

A Reaction

If I pursue my current favourite idea, that how we explain things is the driving force in what ontology we adopt, then this way of seeing the mind, and taking an externalist anti-individualist view of it seems quite attractive.

The 16 ideas from '(Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics'

12588 Meaning from use of thoughts, constructed from concepts, which have a role relating to reality [Harman]
12589 Some regard conceptual role semantics as an entirely internal matter [Harman]
12590 Take meaning to be use in calculation with concepts, rather than in communication [Harman]
12591 Mastery of a language requires thinking, and not just communication [Harman]
12592 Concepts in thought have content, but not meaning, which requires communication [Harman]
12593 The use theory attaches meanings to words, not to sentences [Harman]
12594 If one proposition negates the other, which is the negative one? [Harman]
12596 Reasoning aims at increasing explanatory coherence [Harman]
12595 We have a theory of logic (implication and inconsistency), but not of inference or reasoning [Harman]
12597 I might accept P and Q as likely, but reject P-and-Q as unlikely [Harman]
12598 Reality is the overlap of true complete theories [Harman]
12599 Reason conservatively: stick to your beliefs, and prefer reasoning that preserves most of them [Harman]
12601 The way things look is a relational matter, not an intrinsic matter [Harman]
12600 The content of thought is relations, between mental states, things in the world, and contexts [Harman]
12602 There is no natural border between inner and outer [Harman]
12603 We can only describe mental attitudes in relation to the external world [Harman]