Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-mggfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-14T12:02:46.487Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thought and Syntax

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

William Seager
William Seager*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Psychological Externalism (PE) is the view that the contents of intentional psychological states are determined by factors external to the subject of those states. For example, PE holds that the content of a belief will be established at least in part by features of the environment, broadly construed, around and more or less detached from the believer. The range of such external factors is quite large, and various forms of PE emerge depending on which sorts of factors are endorsed. Generally speaking, these factors are those that establish the reference of the terms used to specify the contents of psychological states. To convey the flavour of this doctrine, let me briefly review some of the candidate external factors.

Type
Part XII. Issues in the Philosophy of Psychology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1992 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1992 , 1992 , pp. 481 - 491
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank several people for their help with this paper: Deborah Brown, Tori McGeer, Bob Murray, Bill Munroe, Janice Porteous, Ted Snider and the philosophers of Dalhousie University.

References

Brumbaugh, R.S. (1978), The Most Mysterious Manuscript. Champaign: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Burge, T. (1979), “Individualism and the Mental”, in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 4: 73-121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. (1970), “Mental Events”, in Davidson“s Essays on Actions and Events, NY: Oxford University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1987), “Knowing One’s Own Mind”, in Proceedings and Addresses of the APA volume 60, 3: 441-58.Google Scholar
Donnellan, K. (1966), “Reference and Definite Descriptions”, in Philosophical Review: 75 281-304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, J. (1978), “Prepositional Attitudes”, in The Monisi, volume 61, no. 4. Reprinted in Fodor“s Representations, Cambridge: MTT Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. (1987), Psychosemantics. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, A.H. (1950), Egyptian Grammar, Second Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McGinn, C. (1989), Mental Content. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Newbold, W.R. (1928), The Cipher of Roger Bacon, Kent, R. (ed.). Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poundstone, W. (1988), Labyrinths of Reason: Paradox, Puzzles and the Frailty of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. (1975), “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”, in Putnam“s Mind, Language and Reality, Philosophical Papers volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar