Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Thinking About Mathematics', 'Mere Possibilities' and 'Disputationes metaphysicae'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


1 idea

18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
How can we know what we are thinking, if content depends on something we don't know? [Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: How can we know what we ourselves are thinking if the very existence of the content of our thought may depend on facts of which we are ignorant?
     From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 5)
     A reaction: This has always been my main doubt about externalism. I may defer to experts about what I intend by an 'elm' (Putnam's example), but what I mean by elm is thereby a fuzzy tall tree with indeterminate leaves. I don't know the meaning of 'elm'!