more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
Linguistics rejects (on theoretical grounds) the intuition that the sentence "the boy the girl the cat bit scratched died" is ungrammatical.
Clarification
Cat bit girl; girl scratched boy; boy died
Gist of Idea
Intuition may say that a complex sentence is ungrammatical, but linguistics can show that it is not
Source
Ned Block (Troubles with Functionalism [1978], p. 78)
Book Ref
'The Philosophy of Mind', ed/tr. Beakley,B /Ludlow P [MIT 1992], p.78
A Reaction
Once we have disentangled it, we practical speakers have no right to say it is ungrammatical. It isn't only theory. The sentence is just stylistically infelicitous.
| 2574 | Behaviour requires knowledge as well as dispositions [Block] |
| 2575 | Functionalism is behaviourism, but with mental states as intermediaries [Block] |
| 2576 | In functionalism, desires are internal states with causal relations [Block] |
| 2578 | Could a creature without a brain be in the right functional state for pain? [Block] |
| 2577 | Simple machine-functionalism says mind just is a Turing machine [Block] |
| 2580 | A Turing machine, given a state and input, specifies an output and the next state [Block] |
| 2579 | Physicalism is prejudiced in favour of our neurology, when other systems might have minds [Block] |
| 2582 | A brain looks no more likely than anything else to cause qualia [Block] |
| 2581 | Intuition may say that a complex sentence is ungrammatical, but linguistics can show that it is not [Block] |
| 2583 | You might invert colours, but you can't invert beliefs [Block] |
| 2584 | Lobotomised patients can cease to care about a pain [Block] |
| 2585 | Not just any old functional network will have mental states [Block] |
| 2586 | In functionalism, what are the special inputs and outputs of conscious creatures? [Block] |