Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Freedom and Reason', 'Psychosemantics' and 'Philosophy and the Nature of Language'

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43 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from 'Oedipus's mother' because they are connected by different properties [Fodor]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / c. Theory of definite descriptions
If 'Queen of England' does not refer if there is no queen, its meaning can't refer if there is one [Cooper,DE]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
If some peoples do not have categories like time or cause, they can't be essential features of rationality [Cooper,DE]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
A particle and a coin heads-or-tails pick out to perfectly well-defined predicates and properties [Fodor]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 3. Innate Knowledge / a. Innate knowledge
Evolution suggests that innate knowledge of human psychology would be beneficial [Fodor]
Contrary to commonsense, most of what is in the mind seems to be unlearned [Fodor]
Sticklebacks have an innate idea that red things are rivals [Fodor]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 5. Language Relativism
If it is claimed that language correlates with culture, we must be able to identify the two independently [Cooper,DE]
A person's language doesn't prove their concepts, but how are concepts deduced apart from language? [Cooper,DE]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / e. Questions about mind
In CRTT thought may be represented, content must be [Fodor]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
We can't use propositions to explain intentional attitudes, because they would need explaining [Fodor]
Intentionality doesn't go deep enough to appear on the physicists' ultimate list of things [Fodor]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 2. Potential Behaviour
Many sentences set up dispositions which are irrelevant to the meanings of the sentences [Cooper,DE]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
Behaviourism has no theory of mental causation [Fodor]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 2. Machine Functionalism
Any piece of software can always be hard-wired [Fodor]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 4. Causal Functionalism
Causal powers must be a crucial feature of mental states [Fodor]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 6. Homuncular Functionalism
Mind is a set of hierarchical 'homunculi', which are made up in turn from subcomponents [Fodor, by Lycan]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 5. Supervenience of mind
Supervenience gives good support for mental causation [Fodor]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism
Hume's associationism offers no explanation at all of rational thought [Fodor]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / a. Physicalism critique
If mind is just physical, how can it follow the rules required for intelligent thought? [Fodor]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
We may be able to explain rationality mechanically [Fodor]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Folk psychology is the only explanation of behaviour we have [Fodor]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
Belief and desire are structured states, which need mentalese [Fodor]
18. Thought / C. Content / 7. Narrow Content
Obsession with narrow content leads to various sorts of hopeless anti-realism [Fodor]
18. Thought / C. Content / 10. Causal Semantics
Do identical thoughts have identical causal roles? [Fodor]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 3. Meaning as Speaker's Intention
Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 4. Meaning as Truth-Conditions
Whatever in the mind delivers falsehood is parasitic on what delivers truth [Fodor]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification
I can meaningfully speculate that humans may have experiences currently impossible for us [Cooper,DE]
The verification principle itself seems neither analytic nor verifiable [Cooper,DE]
Many different verification procedures can reach 'star', but it only has one semantic value [Fodor]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude [Fodor]
'How now brown cow?' is used for elocution, but this says nothing about its meaning [Cooper,DE]
Most people know how to use the word "Amen", but they do not know what it means [Cooper,DE]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
Meaning holism is a crazy doctrine [Fodor]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / c. Meaning by Role
Very different mental states can share their contents, so content doesn't seem to be constructed from functional role [Fodor]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 8. Synonymy
Mental states may have the same content but different extensions [Fodor]
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
Reference need not be a hit-or-miss affair [Cooper,DE]
Any thesis about reference is also a thesis about what exists to be referred to [Cooper,DE]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates
If predicates name things, that reduces every sentence to a mere list of names [Cooper,DE]
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 2. Analytic Truths
An analytic truth is one which becomes a logical truth when some synonyms have been replaced [Cooper,DE]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / i. Prescriptivism
Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock]
Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 4. Categorical Imperative
The categorical imperative leads to utilitarianism [Hare, by Nagel]