Thought without Representation

Perry, J.; Blackburn, Simon

doi:10.1093/aristoteliansupp/60.1.137

Cited by 231 publications

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“…I will use a case drawn from the literature on unarticulated constituents inspired by Perry (1986); the case itself is adapted from Recanati (2002). There is a large literature on the theoretical implications of this sort of example which I will not try to summarise (Bach 1994;Taylor 2001;Martí 2006Martí , 2015Borg 2005;Cappelen and Lepore 2007;Sennet 2008;Recanati 2007;Sennet 2011).…”

Section: Transparency Of Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

The Structure of Content is Not Transparent

Hodgson

2017

Topoi

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Section: Transparency Of Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

The Structure of Content is Not Transparent

Hodgson

2017

Topoi

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“…9 Following forerunners such as Loar (1976), Lewis (1979), Chisholm (1981, Sosa (1983) and Perry (1986), a number of contemporary philosophers of language and mind -among whom Egan (2006aEgan ( , 2006b); Recanati (2007aRecanati ( , 2007bRecanati ( , 2010Recanati ( , 2012; Stephenson (2007aStephenson ( , 2007bStephenson ( , 2010; Ninan (2008Ninan ( , 2010 10 -use a relativist semantics to redescribe de se thoughts as 'selfless' thoughts, i.e. thoughts that are not really about the subject who entertains them, but that are egocentric in a more essential way.…”

Section: /26mentioning

confidence: 99%

The limits of selflessness: semantic relativism and the epistemology of de se thoughts

Guillot

2013

Synthese

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It has recently been proposed that the framework of semantic relativism be put to use to describe mental content, as deployed in some of the fundamental operations of the mind. This programme has inspired in particular a novel strategy of accounting for the essential egocentricity of first-personal or de se thoughts in relativist terms, with the advantage of dispensing with a notion of self-representation. This paper is a critical discussion of this strategy. While it is based on a plausible appeal to cognitive economy, the relativist theory does not fully account for the epistemic profile that distinguishes de se thinking, as some of its proponents hope to do. A deeper worry concerns the reliance of the theory on a primitive notion of "centre" that hasn't yet received enough critical attention, and is ambiguous between a thin and a rich reading. I argue that while the rich reading is required if the relativist analysis of the de se is to achieve its most ambitious aims, it also deprives the theory of much of its explanatory power.

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“…(See Bach 1994a,b;Carston 1988Carston , 2002Perry 1986;Récanati 2001Récanati , 2002Searle 1978Searle , 1980Sperber and Wilson 1986;Stainton 2006; and Travis 1985, 1991 Having drawn this contrast between two contextualist tactics (one pressing a claim about the semantics of types containing 'know', the other merely making a claim about variability in speech acts made using 'know'), and having provided a general motivation for believing in pragmatic determinants of what is asserted, let's consider a bit more at length how one tactic might be retained and deployed to good effect, even while the other is given up. The general point is clear enough: the truth-value of the sentence 'Keith knows that the bank is open', assuming its saturated expression meaning in a context has a truth value, does not vary according to context of use; but, given how ubiquitous pragmatic determinants are, what is stated/asserted/claimed using (19) can be expected to have different truth conditions, on different occasions, even though 'know' is no more a context-sensitive word than 'dog' is:…”

Section: Contextualism In Epistemology 125mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus there are (and here is the final bit of terminology we'll need) pragmatic determinants of what is asserted/stated/claimed. (See, e.g., Carston 1988Carston , 2002Perry 1986;Récanati 2001Récanati , 2002Searle 1978Searle , 1980Sperber and Wilson 1986. I return to this issue at length below.)…”

Section: Saving the Spirit Of Contextualismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextualism in Epistemology and the Context-Sensitivity of ‘Knows’

Stainton¹

2010

Knowledge and Skepticism

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The central issue of this essay is whether contextualism in epistemology is genuinely in conflict with recent claims that 'know' is not in fact a contextsensitive word. To address this question, I will first rehearse three key aims of contextualists and the broad strategy they adopt for achieving them. I then introduce two linguistic arguments to the effect that the lexical item 'know' is not context sensitive, one from Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore, one from Jason Stanley. I find these and related arguments quite compelling. In particular, I think Cappelen and Lepore (2003Lepore ( , 2005a show pretty definitively that 'know' is not like 'I'/'here'/'now ', and Stanley (2004) shows that 'know' is not like 'tall'/'rich'. 1 One could try to find another model for 'know'. Instead, I consider whether one can rescue ''the spirit of contextualism in epistemology''-that is, achieve its aims by deploying a strategy of appealing to speaker context-even while granting that 'know' isn't a context-sensitive word at all. My conclusion, in a nutshell, is this: If there are pragmatic determinants of what is asserted/stated, and contextualism can overcome independent problems not having to do specifically with the context-sensitivity of the word 'know', then the spirit of contextualism can be salvaged. Even though, for reasons sketched by the aforementioned authors, 'know' doesn't actually belong in the class of context-sensitive words. The Spirit of ContextualismAt a minimum, contextualists have three multifaceted aims. First, they wish to respond to skepticism by ''splitting the difference'' between (apparently true) knowledge claims made in ordinary contexts, and (apparently false) knowledge claims, about the same topic, made in the face of skeptical arguments. The idea is that two such claims aren't actually in conflict, despite the same words being used about the same knower, because the speakings implicitly state different things-and this because the shift in context has changed the standards for knowledge, and standards are implicitly part of any claim to know. This allows ordinary speakers to make true knowledge attributions, while also explaining the genuine pull of skepticism. (And let me stress: The aim is to secure true assertions of knowledge, not just ones which, though strictly speaking false, are reasonable or practical, or which merely convey something true, etc. See DeRose 1999, 187-188.) Gail Stine (1976, 254) puts the general desideratum nicely:It is an essential characteristic of our concept of knowledge that tighter criteria are appropriate in different contexts. It is one thing in a street encounter, another in a classroom, another in a law court-and who is to say it cannot be another in a philosophical discussion? . . . We can point out that some philosophers are very perverse in their standards (by some extreme standard, there is some reason to think there is an evil genius, after all)-but we cannot legitimately go so far as to say that their perversity has stretched the concept of knowledge out of...

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Thought without Representation

Cited by 231 publications

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The Structure of Content is Not Transparent

The Structure of Content is Not Transparent

The limits of selflessness: semantic relativism and the epistemology of de se thoughts

Contextualism in Epistemology and the Context-Sensitivity of ‘Knows’

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