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Single Idea 15602

[filed under theme 18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 5. Mental Files ]

Full Idea

Mental files should be seen as a device for keeping track of when objects are coordinated (represented as-the-same) and, rather than understand coordination in terms of mental files, we should understand mental files in terms of coordination.

Gist of Idea

Mental files are devices for keeping track of basic coordination of objects

Source

Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 3.A)

Book Ref

Fine,Kit: 'Semantic Relationism' [OUP 2007], p.68

A Reaction

Personally I think that the metaphor of a 'label' is much closer to the situation than that of a 'file'. Thus my concept of Cicero is labelled 'Tully', 'Roman', 'orator', 'philosophical example'... My problem is to distinguish the concept from its labels.

The 24 ideas with the same theme [mind is like a filing system, with labelled folders]:

11245 Many memories make up a single experience [Aristotle]
22976 Memories are preserved separately, according to category [Augustine]
17236 Words are not for communication, but as marks for remembering what we have learned [Hobbes]
16876 We need definitions to cram retrievable sense into a signed receptacle [Frege]
16875 We use signs to mark receptacles for complex senses [Frege]
16383 Puzzled Pierre has two mental files about the same object [Recanati on Kripke]
12647 Mental representations name things in the world, but also files in our memory [Fodor]
12649 We think in file names [Fodor]
16369 There is a single file per object, memorised, reactivated, consolidated and expanded [Papineau, by Recanati]
16362 An identity statement aims at getting the hearer to merge two mental files [Lockwood]
15602 Mental files are devices for keeping track of basic coordination of objects [Fine,K]
16371 Files can be confused, if two files correctly have a single name, or one file has two names [Recanati]
16373 Encylopedic files have further epistemic links, beyond the basic one [Recanati]
16375 Singular thoughts need a mental file, and an acquaintance relation from file to object [Recanati]
16377 Expected acquaintance can create a thought-vehicle file, but without singular content [Recanati]
16378 An 'indexed' file marks a file which simulates the mental file of some other person [Recanati]
16387 Reference by mental files is Millian, in emphasising acquaintance, rather than satisfaction [Recanati]
16358 The reference of a file is fixed by what it relates to, not the information it contains [Recanati]
16361 A mental file treats all of its contents as concerning one object [Recanati]
16367 There are transient 'demonstrative' files, habitual 'recognitional' files, cumulative 'encyclopedic' files [Recanati]
16368 Files are hierarchical: proto-files, then first-order, then higher-order encyclopedic [Recanati]
16370 A file has a 'nucleus' through its relation to the object, and a 'periphery' of links to other files [Recanati]
22242 Mental files are concepts, which are either collections or (better) containers [Recanati]
22243 The Frege case of believing a thing is both F and not-F is explained by separate mental files [Recanati]