Seven puzzles of thought and how to solve them : an originalist theory of concepts / R.M. Sainsbury and Michael Tye.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sainsbury, R. M. (Richard Mark), author.

Tye, Michael, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Thought and thinking.

Concepts.

Psychology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 194 pages) : illustrations

Other Title:

7 puzzles of thought and how to solve them

Originalist theory of concepts

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"How can one think about the same thing twice without knowing that it's the same thing? How can one think about nothing at all (for example Pegasus, the mythical flying horse)? Is thinking about oneself special? One could mistake one's car for someone else's, but it seems one could not mistake one's own headache for someone else's. Why not? R.M. Sainsbury and Michael Tye provide an entirely new theory--called "originalism"--Which provides simple and natural solutions to these puzzles and more. Originalism's central thesis is that concepts, the constituents of thoughts, are to be individuated by their origin, rather than epistemically or semantically. The doctrine has further valuable consequences for the nature of thought, our knowledge of our own thoughts, the nature of experience, the epistemology of perception-based beliefs, and for arguments based on conceivability. Sainsbury and Tye argue that although thought is special, there is no special mystery attaching to the nature of thought. Their account of the mind considers it as part of nature, as opposed to something with supernatural powers--which means that human beings have more opportunities to make mistakes than many have liked to think."-- Jacket.

Contents:

1. The Puzzles; 1.1 The Puzzle of Hesperus and Phosphorus; 1.2 The Puzzle of Twins; 1.3 The Puzzle of the Cat and le Chat; 1.4 The Puzzle of Paderewski; 1.5 The Puzzle of Pure Demonstratives; 1.6 The Puzzle of Empty Thoughts; 1.7 The Puzzle of Thinking About Oneself; 2. Roads Not Taken; 2.1 Naïve Millian Views; 2.2 Fregean or Descriptivist Views; 2.3 Sophisticated Millianism: The Hidden Indexical Theory; 2.4 Sophisticated Fregeanism: Two-dimensional Semantics; 3. Overview of an Originalist Theory of Concepts; 3.1 Origins; 3.2 Individuation by Origin; 3.3 Contents

3.4 Thoughts; 3.5 Isomorphism; 3.6 Indexicality; 3.7 Cognition; 3.8 "Mastering" or "Grasping" Concepts; 3.9 Conclusion; 4. The Originalist Theory Defended and Elaborated; 4.1 Words; 4.2 Concepts are Non-eternal Abstract Continuants; 4.3 Fission and Fusion; 4.4 Reference: Fixing and Preserving; 4.5 Information, Composition; 4.6 Mates Cases and the Demise of Two-level Fregean Semantics; 4.7 Multi-level Fregeanism; 4.8 Knowledge and Conceptual Mastery; 4.9 Comparison with Fodor; 4.10 Comparison with Millikan; 5. Concept Externalism, Originalism and Privileged Access; 5.1 Formulating IKCC

5.2 IKCC and Switching; 5.3 The Empirical Implausibility of IKCC; 5.4 IKCC and Rationality; 5.5 The Privileged Access Thesis; 5.6 Privileged Access and Switching Cases; 5.7 Introspective Evidence; 5.8 Privileged Access and McKinsey's Recipe; 5.9 McGinn's Externalism; 5.10 Burge's Externalism; 5.11 Originalist Concept Externalism; 6. The Metaphysics of Thought; 6.1 The Metaphysics of Belief and Thought: The Positive Account; 6.2 Arguments for the Orthodox View; 6.3 Evaluating the Orthodox Arguments; 6.4 Attitude Ascriptions; 6.5 De Re, De Se, De Dicto; 7. The Puzzles Solved

7.1 The Puzzle of Hesperus and Phosphorus; 7.2 The Puzzle of the Twins; 7.3 The Puzzle of the Cat and le Chat; 7.4 The Puzzle of Paderewski; 7.5 The Puzzle of the Two Tubes; 7.6 The Puzzle of Empty Thoughts; 7.7 The Puzzle of Thinking About Oneself; 8. Further Applications: Originalism and Experience; 8.1 The Content of Hallucinatory Experience; 8.2 The Trouble with Gappy Content; 8.3 An Alternative View of the Content of Visual Experience; 8.4 The Epistemic Role of Experiences; 8.5 The Knowledge Argument; 8.6 Knowing What lt Is Like; 8.7 Mary's Discovery

8.8 Conceivability: Preliminary Remarks; 8.9 The Zombie Argument; 9. Objections and Replies.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (viewed on Mar. 5, 2012).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-280-59368-7

9786613623515

0-19-162924-3

OCLC:

865332040