display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 2074 | Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The desire that grips Fodor, as it once gripped me, is the desire to make belief-desire psychology "scientific" by simply identifying it outright with computational psychology. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], p.7) | |
| A reaction: An "outright" identification looks very implausible. It seems that we should accept that belief-desire psychology is a very good guide to normal brain events, but a bad guide to unusual brain events. See Ideas 2987 and 7519. |
| 2343 | Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The 'mental representations' of Earth speakers and Twin Earth speakers were not in any way different; the reference was different because the substances were different. Reference is fixed by the environment itself. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §2 p.32) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be an elementary distinction here between what you think you are referring to, and what you are in fact referring to. "That man is the Prince of Wales" (pointing at the butler). |
| 4100 | The Twin Earth argument depends on reference being determined by content, which may be false. [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The Twin Earth argument does not refute internalism, since it depends on the 'Content-Determines-Reference' principle, which internalists can reject. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.37) | |
| A reaction: The idea is that content should be understood in a context (e.g. on a particular planet). Indexicals count against a totally narrow view of content (Twins thinking 'I am here'). |
| 4067 | Broad content entails the existence of the object of the thought [Crane] |
| Full Idea: If a mental state is broad, then the existence of the mental state entails the existence of its object. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: Hence thinking of non-existent things like unicorns is problematic for externalists. However, externalists can think about numbers or Platonic ideals. |
| 4063 | In intensional contexts, truth depends on how extensions are conceived. [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Intensional contexts are those where truth or falsehood depends on the way the extensions are conceived. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: An important distinction for anyone defending an internalist view of concepts or of knowledge |