Greg Detre
9/10/01
lizzie.fricker@magdalen
how does an armchair philosopher�s subject justify itself
Evans: one question in PoM: what is a mind?
what sort of states are mental states of persons?
how do a person�s mental states relate to their intentional action + other behaviour?
how do a person�s mental states relate to states of the brain?
how do mental states have reference/content, be about something? (only some do, those with propositional attitudes)
what is it for a state to be a conscious state, and can consciousness be explained? (what is consciousness?)
start by giving an anlytic account of mental states
sense vs reference
the tallest man in this room is >6ft tall � referring to a particular individual, but don't know anything else about them (only that they�re male)
sense of a concept (expression) vs the other truths that come up
the concept of pain has nothing to do with the brain
the neural activity is the referent
sense/reference distinction: pain can then be a brain state
true of the state itself vs included in our concept of it
epistemological questions
how can I tell about another person�s mental states?
how do I know what my own mental states are?
(just as problematic)
very difficult to give an account of mental states and how we could know our own, as well as knowing of someone else�s
Descartes � perfect transparency of mind � nothing easier to know than my own mind
mental states are entirely 1st-personal, and they are fixed by my feeling of pain etc.
�/span> problem of other minds � connections between these 1st-person states and behaviour seems contingent
(concept Cartesianism)
most theories are better either for explaining either other minds vs self-knowledge
scepticism � eliminative materialists
our ordinary common concepts of ourselves as having mental states is a folk theory, and so not very scientific or true
neuroscience will show that people probably don't have beliefs + desires by opening up the details of the workings of the brain
Fricker: wrong for metaphilosophical reasons, misunderstand what sort of explanation is needed
everyday ontology of the mental
common sense theory of the mental � make sense of ourselves, explain, interact + predict other people on the basis of thinking of other people as persons and having mental states � agents vs complex objects
e.g. Strawson, F+R
Hume + empiricists didn't distinguish thoughts/concepts vs sensations
my visual sensations (content of my visual experience) have objective content � experience is intrinsically contentful
but what about Dennett�s quining of qualia???
occurrent vs dispositional/abiding mental states
current visual experience vs the belief that I live in Oxford (true of me all of the time, though it�s mostly not in my consciousness)
emotions � part-way between propositional attitudes + affect/sensation
occurrent vs dispositional?
is there an essence of the mental � something they all have in common? no
is PoM legitimate, or is it really just about neuroscience?
needs to be collaborative
need for armchair philosophy: mental states are not natural kinds concepts, and so less examinable to natural science � unless you can see them as being natural kinds on a connectionist substrate
understanding what depression is is not discoverable through its neural basis
sense/reference vs intension/extension???
what does it take to become an agent, have theory of mind???
do I think you can do PoM without huge scientific knowledge???
�understanding what depression is is not discoverable through its neural basis� � do I still believe this??? I�ve got a lot more optimistic about this, haven't I???