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Single Idea 16362

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

Full Idea

The purpose of an identity statement is to get the hearer to merge these files or bodies of information into one.

Gist of Idea

An identity statement aims at getting the hearer to merge two mental files

Source

Michael Lockwood (Identity and Reference [1971], p.209), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 4.1

Book Ref

Recanati,François: 'Mental Files' [OUP 2012], p.44

A Reaction

Lockwood is a pioneer, in seeing 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' and 'Scott is the author of 'Waverley'' in terms of how the mind works. Mental files seem to me to explain a huge amount. Recanati proposes 'linking' rather than 'merging'.

Related Idea

Idea 16360 Identity statements are informative if they link separate mental files [Recanati]

The 24 ideas from Michael Lockwood

16362 An identity statement aims at getting the hearer to merge two mental files [Lockwood]
2949 We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood]
2958 No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood]
2959 If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood]
2960 Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood]
2961 Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood]
2962 Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood]
2963 There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood]
2964 How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood]
2966 Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood]
2967 We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood]
2950 Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood]
2969 How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood]
2970 Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood]
2971 Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood]
2951 Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood]
2952 A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood]
2953 Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood]
2954 Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood]
2955 If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood]
2956 There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood]
4054 I may exist before I become a person, just as I exist before I become an adult [Lockwood]
4055 It isn't obviously wicked to destroy a potential human being (e.g. an ununited egg and sperm) [Lockwood]
4056 If the soul is held to leave the body at brain-death, it should arrive at the time of brain-creation [Lockwood]