Mental Content, Causal Theories of

Author(s):  
Charles Wallis
2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Rupert

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myrthe Faber

Abstract Gilead et al. state that abstraction supports mental travel, and that mental travel critically relies on abstraction. I propose an important addition to this theoretical framework, namely that mental travel might also support abstraction. Specifically, I argue that spontaneous mental travel (mind wandering), much like data augmentation in machine learning, provides variability in mental content and context necessary for abstraction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 91-97
Author(s):  
Nigora Mukhamedova ◽  

The article deals with the issues based on the study of non-categorical statements in a linguistic text in modern English. The essence of scientific communication is a message, or the transmission by means of language of some mental content, including the expression of an intellectual-evaluative attitude to the subject of speech. The content of intellectual assessments is conditioned by knowledge and experience of intellectual and material activities of people.In a scientific text, this attitude can be the result of verifying the truth of what is expressed by the author himself or by another scientist or a team of researchers, as well as confirmation or refutation of apreviously formed assessment that served as the basis for further discussion


Author(s):  
Juhani Yli-Vakkuri ◽  
John Hawthorne

Narrow mental content, if there is such a thing, is content that is entirely determined by the goings-on inside the head of the thinker. A central topic in the philosophy of mind since the mid-1970s has been whether there is a kind of mental content that is narrow in this sense. It is widely conceded, thanks to famous thought experiments by Hilary Putnam and Tyler Burge, that there is a kind of mental content that is not narrow. But it is often maintained that there is also a kind of mental content that is narrow, and that such content can play various key explanatory roles relating, inter alia, to epistemology and the explanation of action. This book argues that this is a forlorn hope. It carefully distinguishes a variety of conceptions of narrow content and a variety of explanatory roles that might be assigned to narrow content. It then argues that, once we pay sufficient attention to the details, there is no promising theory of narrow content in the offing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. e235384
Author(s):  
Iris McIntosh ◽  
Giles W Story

Early theories of schizophrenia considered the illness as a fragmentation of mental content in response to psychological trauma. Here we present a case of very late onset schizophrenia in a previously high-functioning man in his mid-60s, precipitated by having lost his family in a terrorist attack, while he was living in Africa. He presented with symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder, however also exhibited visual and auditory hallucinations and marked deterioration in daily functioning. He showed mild impairment on cognitive testing, however brain imaging and screening for reversible causes of cognitive impairment were normal. The case highlights the need for a formulation-based approach to understanding and managing responses to severe trauma, from resolution through to psychotic disintegration.


Author(s):  
I. A. Shapoval ◽  

The paper presents the interdisciplinary analysis of the determinants of the system of self-communication discourse and internal dialogue as the forms of objectivation of human mental content focused on some actions for meeting some objectives. The author describes discourse as integration of communication and language processes in self-understanding and personal identity. Contextually determined and dynamic self-communication discourse, as a way of acquirement of new senses and confirmation of old ones, verbalizes current personal values. The study results reveal the characteristics and relations of the internal dialogue discourse determinants within the human objectivity–subjectivity continuum. Discourse determinants prescribe its context and rules and include the prototype place and agents with their motives and objectives. Self-positions manifested in Self and Non-Self (Other Self) binary self-predications form the core pair of agents. The modality of a person’s attitude to own Self-positions makes their communications a dialogue or a monologue on the boundary of their sub-territories as a discourse prototype place. The degree of discourse agency, its closeness within the prototype place, or transgression openness depends on the complexity and differentiation of Self-concept and ego boundaries functionality. The frustration of meta-necessity to keep self-confidence and self-acceptance by reassessment and reformation of interrelations of Self-positions determines the motives and objectives of self-communication. The common goal of self-organization is implemented through the internal dialogue in the form of institutionalization, verification, and integration of their Self-predications. Status-role characteristics of agents and functionality of discourse prototype place determine the specificity of its motives and objectives according to the systemic effects of Self-organization.


Dialogue ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Ali Hossein Khani

Abstract I will argue that Davidson's account of pure intending can be construed as a first-person-based judgement-dependent account of intention. For Davidson, pure intending to do φ is to make an all-out judgement that φing is desirable. On this anti-reductionist account, intention is treated as an irreducible state of the subject. I will draw a comparison between this account and Wright's and I will show that Davidson's account can be viewed as a non-reductionist judgement-dependent account along the lines suggested by Wright. I then explain how this account can help deal with various perplexities in Davidson's later view of meaning and mental content.


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