Mental Files

Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-0-19-965999-9
Verlag: OUP UK

Buch, Englisch, 296 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 376 g

François Recanati presents his theory of mental files, a new way of understanding reference in language and thought. He aims to recast the 'nondescriptivist' approach to reference that has dominated the philosophy of language and mind in the late twentieth century. According to Recanati, we refer through mental files, which play the role of so-called 'modes of presentation'. The reference of linguistic expressions is inherited from that of the files we associate with them. The reference of a file is determined relationally, not satisfactionally: so a file is not to be equated to the body of (mis)information it contains. Files are like singular terms in the language of thought, with a nondescriptivist semantics.
In contrast to other philosophers, Recanati offers an indexical model according to which files are typed by their function, which is to store information derived through certain types of relation to objects in the environment. The type of the file corresponds to the type of contextual relation it exploits. Even detached files or 'encyclopedia entries' are based on epistemically rewarding relations to their referent, on Recanati's account.
Among the topics discussed in this wide-ranging book are: acquaintance relations and singular thought; cognitive significance; the vehicle/content distinction; the nature of indexical concepts; co-reference de jure and judgments of identity; cognitive dynamics; recognitional and perceptual concepts; confused thought and the transparency requirement on modes of presentation; descriptive names and 'acquaintanceless' singular thought; the communication of indexical thoughts; two-dimensional defences of Descriptivism; the Generality Constraint; attitude ascriptions and the 'vicarious' use of mental files; first-person thinking; token-reflexivity in language and thought.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Recanati, Francois

Recanati, François

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sprachphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Sprachphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophie des Geistes, Neurophilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Preface

- Part I. Singular Thought and Acquaintance: Rejecting Descriptivism

- 1: Singularism vs Descriptivism

- 2: Can Descriptivism Account for Singularity?

- Part II. Introducing Files

- 3: Non-Descriptive Modes of Presentation as Mental Files

- 4: Mental Files and Identity

- Part III. The Indexical Model

- 5: Mental Indexicals

- 6: Stable Files

- 7: The Dynamics of Files

- Part IV. Mental Files and Coreference

- 8: The Circularity Objection [followed by Appendix]

- 9: Coreference De Jure: The Transitivity Objection

- Part V. Epistemic Transparency

- 10: Slow Switching

- 11: Transparency and its Limits

- Part VI. Beyond Acquaintance

- 12: Descriptive Names

- 13: Singular Thought without Acquaintance

- Part VII: Vicarious Files

- 14: Mental Files in Attitude Ascription

- 15: Indexed Files at Work

- Part VIII. The Communication of Singular Thoughts

- 16: Frege and the Sense of 'I'

- 17: Reference Through Mental Files: Indexicals and Definite Descriptions

- Part IX. Conclusion

- 18: The Mental File Framework and Its Competitors

- References

- Index

Über Autor(innen)

François Recanati is the Director of Institut Jean-Nicod in Paris. He is the author of Perspectival Thought (OUP, 2007), Truth-Conditional Pragmatics (OUP, 2010), and many other publications in the philosophy of language and mind.