Meaning and Object Wittgenstein writes: “It is important to note that the word ‘meaning’ is being used illicitly if it is used to signify the thing that ‘corresponds’ to the word. That is to confound the meaning of a name with the bearer of the name. When Mr. N. […]
Epistemology of the Mind-Body Problem One of the peculiarities of the mind-body problem is that any position is about as plausible as any other—or as implausible. That is, any position can be made to seem as plausible as any other—which is why every position has its adherents. Fashions may come and go, […]
Sketch for a General Theory of Human Psychology Is it possible to come up with high-level organizational principles of human psychology? The task has been attempted before–as in associationist psychology, classical conditioning theory, and computationalism. The hope is to discover general principles that cover a wide variety of psychological phenomena, thus unifying […]
What is Belief? Can belief be defined? A prima facie attractive idea is that belief is to be defined as assent: to believe that p is to assent to a sentence s that means that p. Thus I believe that sharks bite if and only if I assent […]
Intentionality and Time The way we talk about intentionality in relation to time has some puzzling features. On the one hand, we say that we can have intentional relations to entities that exist at other times than the act of intentionality: we can remember things and events […]
What is Physicalism? Suppose for the sake of argument that panpsychism is true. Suppose also that a physicist investigating panpsychism finds evidence of its truth in the form of anomalous motions of elementary particles—motions that cannot be explained by the usual forces. She formulates a “psychic-field theory” that postulates a […]
Posing the Mind-Body Problem Often the best (and only) way to make progress on a problem is to pose it in the right form. In that spirit I propose that we divide the classic mind-body problem into three interconnected but distinguishable problems: the problem of substance, the problem of structure, […]
It is often supposed that consciousness has something to do with self-reference. Thus it is held that to be conscious is to be conscious of oneself: consciousness is the same as self-consciousness. This view comes in several versions: referring to oneself with “I”, having higher-order thoughts, perceiving one’s own mental states, self-monitoring, introspective […]
Consciousness Science People often accuse me of being opposed to a science of consciousness. Nothing could be further from the truth. I see no reason of principle why there could not be a science of consciousness, though admittedly we do not yet have much in the way of such a […]
Biological Philosophy of Language Linguistics has grown accustomed to viewing human language as a biological phenomenon. This view stands opposed to two other views: supernaturalism and cultural determination. Ancient thought conceived of language as a gift from God, closely adjoined to the immaterial soul: this accounted for its origin, its seemingly […]