Reasoning, Meaning, and MindGilbert Harman presents a selection of fifteen interconnected essays on fundamental issues at the centre of analytic philosophy. The book opens with a group of four essays discussing basic principles of reasoning and rationality. The next three essays argue against the idea that certain claims are true by virtue of meaning and knowable by virtue of meaning. In the third group of essays Harman sets out his own view of meaning, arguing that it depends upon the functioning of concepts in reasoning, perception, and action, by which these concepts are related to the world. He also examines the relation between language and thought. The final three essays investigate the nature of mind, developing further the themes already set out. Reasoning, Meaning, and Mind offers an integrated presentation of this rich and influential body of work. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 46
Page 1
... lead one to the intention to do some- thing only if one is justified in thinking that one's intention will lead to one's doing it . This is so for positive intentions , anyway , which are to be distinguished from negative and ...
... lead one to the intention to do some- thing only if one is justified in thinking that one's intention will lead to one's doing it . This is so for positive intentions , anyway , which are to be distinguished from negative and ...
Page 2
... leads to issues about pragmatism that are addressed at length in the following essay . ) I also discuss the use of calculators and tables in getting such answers and I compare ( bad ) para- sitical theories with ( good ) idealizations ...
... leads to issues about pragmatism that are addressed at length in the following essay . ) I also discuss the use of calculators and tables in getting such answers and I compare ( bad ) para- sitical theories with ( good ) idealizations ...
Page 14
... practical reasoning in a way that they are not rele- vant to theoretical reasoning . Wishful practical thinking Jane's desire to get a good grade on the final exam leads her to study for the exam in order to try to make it 14 Reasoning.
... practical reasoning in a way that they are not rele- vant to theoretical reasoning . Wishful practical thinking Jane's desire to get a good grade on the final exam leads her to study for the exam in order to try to make it 14 Reasoning.
Page 15
... leads her to con- clude that she did get a good grade . This sort of wishful thinking does not by itself give Jane a reason to believe that she got a good grade . To believe that something is so merely because she wants it to be so is ...
... leads her to con- clude that she did get a good grade . This sort of wishful thinking does not by itself give Jane a reason to believe that she got a good grade . To believe that something is so merely because she wants it to be so is ...
Page 20
... lead to paradox without being able to figure out which assumptions are most plausibly abandoned . In that situation , it may be rational to continue to accept the assumptions in ques- tion , trying to avoid the paradoxical patterns of ...
... lead to paradox without being able to figure out which assumptions are most plausibly abandoned . In that situation , it may be rational to continue to accept the assumptions in ques- tion , trying to avoid the paradoxical patterns of ...
Contents
1 | |
what Hypotheses to Take Seriously | 75 |
Pragmatism and Reasons for Belief | 93 |
The Death of Meaning | 119 |
Doubts about Conceptual Analysis | 138 |
Analyticity Regained? | 144 |
Three Levels of Meaning | 155 |
Language Thought and Communication | 166 |
Meaning and Semantics | 192 |
Nonsolipsistic Conceptual Role Semantics | 206 |
Wide Functionalism | 235 |
The Intrinsic Quality of Experience | 244 |
Immanent and Transcendent Approaches | 262 |
Bibliography | 277 |
Index of Names | 287 |
Language Learning | 183 |
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Common terms and phrases
accept analytic-synthetic distinction argues argument assumption attitudes cause cancer coherence colour communication concept conceptual role semantics conclusion consider deductive degree of belief derive distinguish epistemic reason Essay example experience explanation explanatory expression Fodor foundationalism functional given hypothesis idiolect indeterminacy inductive inductive reasoning inference intentional object intrinsic desires intrinsic features inverted spectrum involves Katz language linguistic logical form mental Mentalese modus ponens nonepistemic reasons normal notion one's perception person philosophers possible postulation practical reasoning pragmatic principles priori knowledge proposition psychological psychological hedonism question Quine Quine's radical translation rational reason to believe relation relevant scheme of translation sense sentences Similarly simplicity sniper someone sort speaker speech acts statement suppose synonymy system of representation Temporal Dutch Book theoretical reasoning theory of meaning theory of truth things thought tion true truth conditions Twin Earth understand virtue of meaning W. V. Quine words
Popular passages
Page 12 - Linda is more likely to be a feminist bank teller than a bank teller, they may be using 'more likely' to mean something like 'more representative'.
Page 194 - Semantic markers are symbols: items in the vocabulary of an artificial language we may call Semantic Markerese. Semantic interpretation by means of them amounts merely to a translation algorithm from the object language to the auxiliary language Markerese. But we can know the Markerese translation of an English sentence without knowing the first thing about the meaning of the English sentence: namely, the conditions under which it would be true. Semantics with no treatment of truth conditions is...
Page 194 - Semantic interpretation by means of them amounts merely to a translation algorithm from the object language to the auxiliary language Markerese. But we can know the Markerese translation of an English sentence without knowing the first thing about the meaning of the English sentence: namely, the conditions under which it would be true. Semantics with no treatment of truth conditions is not semantics. Translation into Markerese is at best a substitute for real semantics, relying either on our tacit...
Page 238 - This assumption is the assumption that no psychological state, properly so called, presupposes the existence of any individual other than the subject to whom that state is ascribed.
Page 97 - I am as impressed as anyone with the vastness of what language contributes to science and to one's whole view of the world; and in particular I grant that one's hypothesis as to what there is, eg, as to there being universals, is at bottom just as arbitrary or pragmatic a matter as one's adoption of a new brand of set theory or even a new system of bookkeeping. Carnap in turn recognizes that such decisions, however conventional, "will nevertheless usually be influenced by theoretical knowledge.
Page 180 - Moreover, it appears incorrect to regard many so-called "selectional violations" as not corresponding to possible messages, since many of them can turn up in reports of dreams: (2) I dreamed that my toothbrush was pregnant. (3) I dreamed that I poured my mother into an inkwell. (4) I dreamed that I was a proton and fell in love with a shapely greenand-orange-striped electron. or in reports of the beliefs of other persons: 4 (5) John thinks that electrons are green with orange stripes.
Page 164 - Many contemporary linguists, however, see iccommunication and other social uses of language" as of secondary importance, and an "adequate theory" as needing to show only "how the meaning of a sentence is determined by its grammatical structure and the meaning of its lexical items".
Page 222 - ... Perhaps misunderstanding on this matter is partly responsible for the fact that both sides of the inverted spectrum argument tend to see nothing at all in the other side. To quote Harman on the inverted spectrum from an earlier paper, "I speak of an 'argument