Mental Content: Externalism vs. Internalism

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brie Gertler
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Content Externalism

Dretske on Naturalizing Experience

Dialogue ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 561-566
Author(s):  
Irene Sonia Switankowsky
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
External World ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
Content Externalism ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Physical Conditions ◽  
The Subject

Many theorists in epistemology and mind accept externalism with respect to content–namely, the claim that the conditions that individuate mental content are external to the occurrence of that content as a mental fact. Whatever it is that distinguishes a pain in the knee from a pain in the toe—or, alternatively, whatever it is that makes it possible for the subject to discriminate this pain as a pain in the knee from that pain as a pain in the toe—are factors and conditions located in the physical and external world. This much externalism seems to be required even if one is a thoroughly entrenched mentalist. This “content externalism” is captured, fairly effectively, by the more traditional distinction between concepts and percepts. What is then asserted by the mentalist is that concepts have their source or origin in the external world, but the perceptual content does not. Perceptual content can be identified in different ways which are: (1) the view that identifies the distinguishing feature of the perceptual with qualia, a position not far removed from the Lockean distinction between Primary and Secondary qualities; or, (2) the perceptual might also be characterized in terms of representationalism, where qualia are an essential part of the representational medium, but where the representational medium contains conceptual content as well. In either case, the perceptual is Type and/or Token distinct from whatever is the external physical conditions or states of affairs causally responsible for the occurrence of either the conceptual content or the perceptual content. An argument for the claim that percepts (colours, sounds, smells, touches, and so on) are essential and necessary is that, without such percepts, there can be no experience.

A Criticism against the Semantic Argument for Mental Content Externalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 283-301
Author(s):  
Joo-Han Lee ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Content Externalism

Does Kantian mental content externalism help metaphysical realists?

Synthese ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 182 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Content Externalism

scholarly journals Scepticism & transcendental arguments: Some methodological reconsiderations

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-135
Author(s):  
Kenneth Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Content Externalism ◽  
Finite Form ◽  
The World ◽  
Spatio Temporal

Kant provided two parallel, sound proofs of mental content externalism; both prove this thesis: We human beings could not think of ourselves as persisting through apparent changes in what we (apparently) experience - nor could we think of the apparent spatio-temporal world of objects, events and people - unless in fact we are conscious of some aspects of the actual spatio-temporal world and have at least some rudimentary knowledge of it. Such proofs turn, not on general facts about (or features of) the world, but on appreciating various fundamental regards in which our finite human cognizance depends upon the world we inhabit. The ?transcendental? character of these analyses concerns identifying and appreciating various fundamental features of our finite form of human mindedness, and basic constraints upon, and prospects of, cognitive justification within the non-formal domain of human empirical knowledge. Such analyses and proofs have been developed in various ways, using distinctive strategies, not only by Kant, but also by Hegel, C.I. Lewis, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Frederick Will. Here I examine and defend the methodological reflections required to understand, assess and appreciate such transcendental proofs, and why so few analytic epistemologists have found them persuasive or illuminating.

scholarly journals Mental Content Externalism and Social Understanding

2012 ◽  
Vol 02 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Halvor Nordby
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Social Understanding ◽  
Content Externalism

Mind wandering as data augmentation: How mental travel supports abstraction

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myrthe Faber
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Data Augmentation ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Mind Wandering ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Important Addition

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.

THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION NON-CATEGORICAL STATEMENTS IN LINGUISTIC TEXTS

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 91-97
Author(s):  
Nigora Mukhamedova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Scientific Communication ◽  
Scientific Text ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Evaluative Attitude

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

Narrow Content

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juhani Yli-Vakkuri ◽  
John Hawthorne
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Hilary Putnam ◽  
Central Topic ◽  
Tyler Burge ◽  
Narrow Content

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.

scholarly journals Psychotic PTSD? Sudden traumatic loss precipitating very late onset schizophrenia

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. e235384
Author(s):  
Iris McIntosh ◽  
Giles W Story
Keyword(s):  
Late Onset ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Psychological Trauma ◽  
Severe Trauma ◽  
Cognitive Testing ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Traumatic Loss ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Mild Impairment

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.

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