Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T21:32:23.924Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 14 - How Extensions of New Substance Concepts are Fixed: How Substance Concepts Acquire Intentionality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2009

Ruth Garrett Millikan
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Get access

Summary

WHAT DETERMINES THE EXTENSIONS OF NEW SUBSTANCE CONCEPTS?

In the first section of this chapter, I will use the results of the last chapter to explain more exactly how the extension of a substance concept is fixed. I will be concerned, especially, with how the extensions of new substance concepts, acquired directly on first meeting with their referents, are fixed. The rest of the chapter will be devoted to fitting the theory of substance concepts defended here into the more general theory of intentional representation developed in Millikan (1984, 1993a).

Evans concluded, about the man with the memory of the ball he was unable to identify, that the man did not have the capacity to think of that ball at all, but only to think of a ball (Section 13.4). But, I have argued, the question whether he could think of that individual ball doesn't turn on whether he was actually able to reidentify it. It doesn't turn on whether his situation was right for reidentifying it. It depends, rather, on whether his thought was produced by his cognitive systems in such a way as to have, as its first assigned function, that it be coidentified, specifically, with thoughts of that particular ball. And to that question the answer would seem to be yes.

As Evans describes the case, when the man was looking at the ball he understood it to be an individual ball, indeed, one that happened to be steel and shiny.

Type
Chapter
Information
On Clear and Confused Ideas
An Essay about Substance Concepts
, pp. 193 - 202
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×