Singular Thought, Russellianism, and Mental Files

2020 ◽  
pp. 73-106
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. King
Keyword(s):  
Singular Thought ◽  
Singular Proposition ◽  
Mental File ◽  
Sort It ◽  
Mental Files ◽  
De Re ◽  
François Recanati

Many philosophers believe that there is a kind of thought about an object that is in some sense particularly directly about the object. The chapter will use the terms de re or singular thought for thoughts of this sort. It outlines a broadly Russellian approach to singular thought on which to have a singular thought about an object o is to have a thought whose content is a singular proposition having o as a constituent. It then explores some of the consequences of this view. It also critically discusses recent attempts by Francois Recanati and Robin Jeshion to explicate the notion of singular thought by means of the notion of a mental file.

Singular Thought and Mental Files

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Singular Thought ◽  
Mental File ◽  
Mental Files ◽  
De Re ◽  
The Relationship

Coinciding with recognition of the need for more clarity about the notion of singular (or de re) thought, there has been a surge of interest in the notion of a mental file as a way to understand what is distinctive about singular thought. But what isn’t always clear is what mental files are meant to be, and why we should believe that thoughts that employ them are singular (as opposed to descriptive). In order to make progress on these questions, this volume brings together original papers by leading scholars on singular thought, mental files, and the relationship between the two, as well as an introduction providing an overview of the central issues.

Singular Thought and Mental Files

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Rachel Goodman ◽  
James Genone
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Theoretic Approach ◽  
Singular Thought ◽  
Mental File ◽  
Mental Files ◽  
De Re ◽  
Descriptive Information ◽  
Singular Thoughts

This introduction outlines some central challenges to a clear understanding of singular (or de re) thought, and illustrates why the literature has recently turned to the notion of a mental file as a way to theorize it. It sketches three central motivations behind the claim that singular thought is file-based thought. First, file-theorists have stressed that the descriptive information contained in a file does not determine its identity conditions or semantic content. Second, it is sometimes assumed that singular thoughts are devices of de jure coreference in thought and claimed that mental files are the cognitive reality of de jure coreference in thought. Finally, the file-theoretic approach to singular thought may seem to lend empirical respectability to the notion of singular thought. The chapter ends by?introducing some basic questions proponents of this approach must address if it is to fulfill its explanatory aims.

Descriptive Names and Singular Thought

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-51
Author(s):  
Marga Reimer
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Singular Thought ◽  
Mental File ◽  
Gareth Evans ◽  
David Kaplan ◽  
Potential Sources ◽  
Descriptive Names ◽  
François Recanati ◽  
Apparent Disagreement ◽  
Singular Thoughts

This chapter is concerned with an apparent disagreement between Gareth Evans (1982) and David Kaplan (1989) with regard to the capacities of names introduced into the language by describing their referents. The question at issue is whether such expressions are potential sources of novel singular thought. While Evans’ response is an emphatic “no,” Kaplan’s response is an equally emphatic “yes.” The chapter attempts to resolve (or rather dissolve) this apparent dispute by suggesting that the two philosophers have importantly different phenomena in mind when they talk of “thoughts”—including (and in particular) singular thoughts. Whereas Evans construes thoughts as mental states, Kaplan construes them as semantic contents. Before concluding, it argues for the superiority of the proposed resolution of the Evans/Kaplan debate over that of Francois Recanati (2012), who invokes his Mental File Framework in an attempt to reconcile the seemingly contrary views of Evans and Kaplan.

Cognitive dynamics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Recanati
Keyword(s):  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Singular Thought ◽  
Cognitive Significance ◽  
Mental File ◽  
Mental Files ◽  
Cognitive Dynamics ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Dynamic Files

This chapter offers an elaboration and defense of the mental-file approach to singular thought. Mental files are supposed to account for both cognitive significance and coreference de jure. But these two roles generate conflicting constraints: files must be fine-grained to play the first role and coarse-grained to play the second role. To reconcile the constraints, we need to distinguish two sorts of file (static files and dynamic files), and two forms of coreference de jure (strong and weak). Dynamic files are sequences of file-stages united by the weak coreference de jure relation. It is at the synchronic level, that of file-stages, that the stronger coreference de jure is to be found. The resulting view is compared to that of Papineau, according to whom only dynamic files are needed, and to that of Ninan, according to whom there are proper dynamic files that exhibit strong coreference de jure.

Singular Thoughts

2020 ◽  
pp. 143-158
Author(s):  
John Perry
Keyword(s):  
Singular Thought ◽  
Singular Proposition ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Singular Propositions ◽  
Singular Thoughts

There seem to be good reasons for recognizing singular thought: thoughts that are about particular objects. It seems that singular propositions capture the truth-conditions of such thoughts; that is, propositions individuated by objects and not senses, intensions, descriptions, or even names. But then how do we handle cases where a person regards “Cicero was an orator” as true but regards “Tully was an orator” as false? She seems to believe and disbelieve the same singular proposition. The chapter argues that we need to “unburden” propositions. Beliefs are episodes that have truth-conditions that can be captured by a variety of propositions, and the propositions that “that” clauses refer to don’t capture everything relevant to understanding the belief. I provide some concepts and terminology for implementing these lower expectations for propositions.

scholarly journals Application: Names and the Mental Files Framework

2021 ◽  
pp. 103-116
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen ◽  
Josh Dever
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Alternative Theory ◽  
Mental File ◽  
Mental Files ◽  
The Individual

This chapter continues the process of anthropocentric abstraction, here concentrating on proper names. Do AI systems use proper names? Using our example of ‘SmartCredit’, it highlights problems concerning how to treat the output of an AI system when some, but not all or most, of the information in its neural network fails to apply to the individual we interpret the output to be about. After giving reasons to think the standard Kripkean theory might not work well here, it suggests an alternative theory of communication about particular entities, the mental file framework, which is more apt for theorizing about AI systems. It then abstracts from the human-centric features of extant theories of mental files to consider how AI might use something like them to refer to particulars.

scholarly journals Cognitive Focus

2020 ◽  
pp. 223-250
Author(s):  
Imogen Dickie
Keyword(s):  
Singular Thought ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Mental Files ◽  
Causal Theories ◽  
Descriptive Names

The first part of the chapter motivates a unifying alternative to causal theories and description theories of reference and aboutness. The alternative account is built around a claim which the chapter argues brings out the significance for theories of reference and aboutness of the fact that justification is truth conducive: the claim that an aboutness-fixing relation is one which secures what the chapter calls “cognitive focus” on an object of thought. The second part of the chapter argues that a “singular thought” just is a thought made available by a cognitive focus relation, and uses the cognitive focus framework to advance the discussion of descriptive names. An Appendix explains why, though the proposal is a “mental files” proposal, it is better stated without use of this term.

scholarly journals The Situational Mental File Account of the False Belief Tasks: A New Solution of the Paradox of False Belief Understanding

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-744 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Newen ◽  
Julia Wolf
Keyword(s):  
False Belief ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
False Belief Task ◽  
Mental File ◽  
Mental Files ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Helping Behaviour ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
The Common

AbstractHow can we solve the paradox of false-belief understanding: if infants pass the implicit false belief task (FBT) by nonverbal behavioural responses why do they nonetheless typically fail the explicit FBT till they are 4 years old? Starting with the divide between situational and cognitive accounts of the development of false-belief understanding, we argue that we need to consider both situational and internal cognitive factors together and describe their interaction to adequately explain the development of children’s Theory of Mind (ToM) ability. We then argue that a further challenge is raised for existing accounts by helping behaviour versions of the FBT. We argue that the common two-stage accounts are inadequate: we need to allow for three central stages in a continuous development. Furthermore, drawing on Perner et al.’s (Cognition 145: 77–88, 2015) and Perner and Leahy’s (Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7 (2): 491–508, 2016) recent mental files account, we provide a new account of the development of these three stages of ToM ability by describing the changes of the structure and organisation of mental files including the systematic triggering role of types of situations. Thereby we aim to establish a situational mental file (SMF) account as a new and adequate solution to the paradox of false-belief understanding.

Varieties of Singularity

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Mark Sainsbury
Keyword(s):  
Main Task ◽  
Singular Thought ◽  
Mental File

What is it for a thought to be singular? The chapter argues that there is no single answer. Singularity in thought is associated with a variety of non-equivalent features. For example, some argue that the object of a singular thought should be something with which we are acquainted, or should involve the exercise of a mental file; or the thought should essentially “involve” its object, or refer to it rigidly. The chapter claims that the main task should be to examine the relations between these various features; there is little interest in trying to determine what a “real” singular thought is.

Belief De Re, Knowing Who, and Singular Thought

2010 ◽  
Vol 107 (6) ◽  
pp. 293-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaelis Michael ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Singular Thought ◽  
De Re
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