Human Thought

Conscious experience and thought content are customarily treated as distinct problems. This book argues that they are not. Part One develops a chastened empiricist theory of content, which cedes to experience a crucial role in rooting the contents of thou

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PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES VOLUME 70 Founded by Wilfrid S. Sellars and Keith Lehrer

Editor Keith Lehrer, University ofArizona, Tucson

Associate Editor Stewart Cohen, Arizona State University, Tempe

Board of Consulting Editors Lynne Rudder Baker, University of Massachusetts at Amherst Allan Gibbard, University of Michigan Denise Meyerson, University of Cape Town Ronald D. Milo, University ofArizona, Tucson Fran~ois Recanati, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris

Stuart Silvers, Clemson University Nicholas D. Smith, Michigan State University

The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.

HUMAN THOUGHT JOSEPH MENDOLA University ofNebraska-Lincoln, U.SA.

SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is avai1ab1e from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-0-7923-4402-5 ISBN 978-94-011-5660-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-5660-8

Printed on acid-free paper

AIl Rights Reserved © 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1997 Softcover reprint of the hardcover lst edition 1997 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or uti1ized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanica1, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.

For Mom, Dad, Gary, and Pam

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful for help from Jean Griffin, Robert Audi, David Austin, Bob Batterman, Ed Becker, Bryan Belknap, Hugh Benson, Mike Bishop, Tim Black, Nancy Brahm, A B Carter, Al Casullo, Mark Cullison, Maja de Keijzer, Jonathan Evans, Kit Fine, Pat Francken, Allan Gibbard, Ann Hickman, Phil Hugly, Harry Ide, Eileen John, Jim Joyce, Jaegwon Kim, Keith Lehrer, Mary Klucas, Heidi MaIm, Ross Mandel, Sally Markowitz, Thad Metz, Alex Miller, Peter Murphy, Lex Newman, Donette Petersen, Jeff Poland, Nelson Potter, Ann Rives, Richard Rodgers, Charlie Sayward, Bill Schmitz, Dion Scott-Kakures, Larry Sklar, Mike Tonderum, Candace Upton, Sheldon Wein, Nick White, Stephen White, Jack Wilson, Cathy Wolfe, Mark van Roojen, Barbara Von Eckardt, Steve Yablo, Xiaomei Yang, and the students of Philosophy 914 in Spring 1992.

CONTENTS

1

Chapter One:

Introduction

Part One:

Content

23

Chapter Two: Chapter Three: Chapter Four: Chapter Five: Chapter Six: Chapter Seven:

From Content to Representational Content From Representational Content to Basic Content Basic Content and Experience Microevents Phenomenal Elements Causal Elements

25 51 97 125 143

Part Two:

Conceiving Agents

167

Chapter Eight: Chapter Nine: Chapter Ten: Chapter Eleven: Chapter Twelve: Chapter Thirteen:

Thoughts Thought Skepticism Words and Meaning Resources Experience and Quasi-Experience Thought Beyond Experience

169 201 229 257 279 303

Part Three:

Experience and Plausibility

327

Chapter Fourteen: Chapter Fifteen: Chapter Sixteen: Chapter Seventeen: Chapter Eighteen: Chapter Nineteen:

Phenomenal Objects Mere Phenomenal Experience Causal Experience