Mental content Flashcards
What is mental content?
The meaning or contents of mental sentence
Sentences in English have meanings so our thoughts must have meanings
Thoughts involving them stem from the meanings or contents of smaller word-sized representations
If we are to understand how thoughts have meaning we need to understand how the mental representations that have thought are build out of have meaning
We need to understand why the mental rep DOG represents dogs
The puzzle of representation
Symbols tend to force their interpretation on us and make it easy to forget that their meanings are not self evident
Need for interpretation (weird symbols, don’t get the meaning for them for free but we do for an English sentence)
Our mental content isn’t as clear as we think it is, easy to take for granted
Not an argument for or against, it is just a way to understand why representations are puzzling
Naturalistic theories of content
Naturalistic theory of what makes mental representations represent what they do
Uses only natural ingredients
Is a non-circular account (want to be viewing something that doesn’t presuppose and make use of representational properties
Theory that doesn’t take rep as a primitive feature of the world but rather explains it more in fundamental terms
Resemblance theory
Mental images
The thing (X) that represents Y only represents it if it resembles
If a mental image resembles napoleon then napoleon resembles mental image
Problem
Napoleon resembles the mental image but he doesn’t
Mental images might be wrong (could be fuzzy i haven’t seen something so a while, look older)
Some challenges for the resemblance theory
1) Resemblance is symmetric but representation
2) An image might equally remember something other than what it is about
3) Images require interpretation
Causal theories of mental content
1) The crude causal theory
2) The causal-teleological theory
3) The asymmetric-dependence theory
Causal theory of meaning for language
The meaning of a name is given by descriptions that we associate with that name
Problem of error and ignorance :
- Ignorance = roman philosopher is not enough to uniquely pick out
- Error = not true Columbus first discovered America (but name clearly resembles Columbus)
- I and E don’t keep us from using these names
What could meaning be if not associated descriptions
Kripke
Name introduced by initial use of name where there’s a causal link between name bearer and initial use of name
Twin earth
Somewhere there is a planet exactly like Earth but there in H2O on earth but another chemical substance XYZ that looks just like H2)
When we say water we are thinking about H2O not XYZ even though they look the same/ same properties
We have had causal connection
Causal theories of mental content
Mental representation of the form WATER represent water because they are caused by water
The crude causal theory
Mental reps represent whatever causes them
Mental reps of the form X represent Ys if and only if Ys cause X
DOGs represent dogs because dogs cause DOGs but DOG will also represent large cats on dark nights because lcodn cause DOGs
Why it wont work
Doesn’t leave any room for possibility of misrepresentation (I am out at night and see something out at night and think that its a dog but it is actually a large cat)
According to this theory, if a cat caused my representation i didn’t have a false thought that it was a dog i had a thought that it was a cat
That means DOG means cat in this case
Disjunction problem
How can we get a theory that gets DOG to represent dogs as opposes to dogs or any other thing which causes us to think DOG
If mental representation is caused by both the things that it represents and by things it misrepresents, how can we distinguish the causes that determine the content of the rep form those that don’t
Asymmetric dependence theory
Why do large cats on dark nights cause DOGs because they look a bit like dogs
This connection is dependent on the fact that dogs cause DOGs (it only exists because dogs cause DOGs) (one connection)
The connection is independent of any connection between cats cause DOGs
One is dependent on the other but the other is not dependent on the first
Large-cats > DOG connection is dependent on dog > DOG connection but no the other way round
Mental rep of the form of X represents Ys because :
1) non-Ys causing Xs are dependent on Ys causing Xs
BUT
2) Ys causing Xs aren’t dependent on non-Ys causing Xs
Can answer disjunction problem
- Content determining causes : causes of MR are ones that don’t depend on other kinds of causes of rep
- Non-content determining causes : causes of MRs are ones that depend on there being other kinds of causes of the rep
Error of ADT
When is using a MR like DOG an error
Errors are using MRs for things they arent about
Theory doesn’t explain why we think that dogs are animals
There are lots of things i think about dogs that the theory doesn’t explain (i believe dogs are animals, sometimes have flees, etc)
Don’t want to reduce the content DOGs to the beliefs we have about them because everyone has different beliefs
The main reason would seem to be because we think that believing that dogs are animals is a necessary part of what it is to have a mental representation that is about dogs
Response : Deny that you have to believe that dogs are animals
Is it possible to have the concept of dog and not believe they are animals
Ancient Egyptian representations (human dog forms)
They come to conclusions that dogs are not really animals, they are supernatural beings who came to earth, used to take semi human form but stopped doing this
Crazy theory but not impossible to think that someone could think this
This means that it is not a necessary part of the mental representation of dogs
Explains how people with different perceptual systems can all think about dogs
Challenges for resemblance theory
1) Resemblance is symmetric
- Your MR of a DOG doesn’t cause a dog
- Relation isn’t symmetrical
2) An image might be equally resemble something other than what it is about
3) Images require interpretation
