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Showing papers in "Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement in 1997"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that language is a translucent material, so that the world bears the tint and focus of the particular language we speak, and that language can be seen as a metaphor for the world.
Abstract: We see the world through language; but how should we understand this metaphor? Is language a medium that simply reproduces for the mind, or accurately records, what is out there? Or is it so dense there is no telling what the world is really like? Perhaps language is somewhere in between, a translucent material, so that the world bears the tint and focus of the particular language we speak.

68 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a non-intentionalist model of description computation is proposed, which is based on the model of D. Marr, and it can be seen as a guide-par-la-regle model.
Abstract: Dans le cadre de la conference sur le theme de la pensee et du langage qui s'est tenue a l'Universite de Reading en septembre 1996, sous l'egide de l'Institut royal de philosophie, l'A. defend la these selon laquelle les modeles explicatifs de la science cognitive ne peuvent relever la contrainte de la realite causale, des lors qu'il s'agit de fournir une explication causale du cerveau fonctionnant pour les differents niveaux de description. Examinant le modele du processus d'information de D. Marr, d'une part, et distinguant le comportement guide-par-la-regle du comportement decrit-par-la-regle, d'autre part, l'A. propose un modele non-intentionnaliste de description computationnelle qui s'applique aux processus d'information

29 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, this paper pointed out that not much attention has been paid by philosophers or by psychologists and linguists to how we use words in private, i.e., to think.
Abstract: John Austin's masterpiece, How to Do Things with Words, was not just a contribution to philosophy; it has proven to be a major contribution to linguistics, one of the founding documents o pragmatics, the investigation of how we use words to accomplish various ends in the social world. Strangely, not much attention has been paid by philosophers — or by psychologists and linguists — to how we use words in private, you might say, to think. As Wittgenstein (1967, p. 17e) once noted, ‘It is very noteworthy that what goes on in thinking practically never interests us.’

21 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors defend the externalisme social, which poses the conditions d'individuation des pensees en fonctions des normes semantiques du langage public.
Abstract: Dans le cadre de la conference sur le theme de la pensee et du langage qui s'est tenue a l'Universite de Reading en septembre 1996, sous l'egide de l'Institut royal de philosophie, l'A. defend la these de l'externalisme social qui pose les conditions d'individuation des pensees en fonctions des normes semantiques du langage public. Examinant les experiences de pensee developpees par T. Burge a partir des concepts generaux du vocabulaire commun, l'A. mesure la pertinence de la psychologie contemporaine au regard des pensees individuees de facon socio-lingusitique, d'une part, et soumet la these de l'externalisme social a l'hypothese de la relativite linguistique proposee pr E. Sapir et B. L. Whorf, d'autre part

17 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on what it would mean to consider thinking in the absence of its own intrinsic language, a language of thought, if the two always co-exist.
Abstract: Some philosophers have laid down rather severe strictures on whether there can be thought without language. Wittgenstein asserted that ‘the limits of language…mean the limits of my world’ (1922, §5.62). Davidson (1984, p. 157) has argued that ‘a creature cannot have thoughts unless it is an interpreter of the speech of another’. Dummett (1978, p. 458) has interpreted some pronouncements as meaning that ‘the study of thought is to be sharply distinguished from the study of the psychological processes of thinking and…the only proper method of analysing thought consists in the analysis of language’. And there is also the position that thought has its own language that might exist even prior to or in the absence of natural language. But here I am going to concentrate on what might be possible in the absence of natural language. I do not know what it would mean to consider thinking in the absence of its own intrinsic language, a language of thought, if the two always co-exist.

15 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The distinction entre philosophie du langage and the philosophy de la pensee is investigated in this paper, where a double mouvement historique is presented, i.e., the debat on the nature of la logique and des lois de la Pensee, and the conception kantienne de la philosophie comme reflexion sur les moyens de penser la realite.
Abstract: Dans le cadre de la conference sur le theme de la pensee et du langage qui s'est tenue a l'Universite de Reading en septembre 1996, sous l'egide de l'Institut royal de philosophie, l'A etudie la question de la distinction entre philosophie du langage et la philosophie de la pensee, qui resulte d'un double mouvement historique: 1) celui du debat sur la nature de la logique et des lois de la pensee au XIX e me siecle, 2) celui de la conception kantienne de la philosophie comme reflexion sur les moyens de penser la realite Reconciliant ces deux aspects de la philosophie moderne au sein du «Tractacus logico-philosophicus» de Wittgenstein, l'A critique l'idee d'un medium de la pensee en se referant a GRyle et au second Wittgenstein

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that at least some alluring, trendy or fashionable problems to do with thought and language are in fact alluring or fashionable red herrings or cul-de-sacs.
Abstract: This paper tries to argue that at least some alluring, trendy or fashionable problems to do with thought and language — several of which are discussed in this volume — are in fact alluring, trendy or fashionable red herrings or cul-de-sacs. I shall primarily be concerned with the ascription of thought and intelligence to non-language-users; but, en route to that, will need to brood over our ascriptions of such terms quite generally.

5 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine les travaux scientifiques de Descartes on les etats and les processus imputables aux animaux, d'une part, and conclut a la suffisance du langage comme critere, c'est-a-dire comme signe certain de la pensee.
Abstract: Dans le cadre de la conference sur le theme de la pensee et du langage qui s'est tenue a l'Universite de Reading en septembre 1996, sous l'egide de l'Institut royal de philosophie, l'A. etudie les deux theses - l'une ordinaire, l'autre proprement philosophique - que l'on trouve chez Descartes concernant le rapport entre la pensee et le langage: 1) celle du caractere prive de la pensee, 2) celle du caractere linguistique de la pensee. Denoncant le mythe de l'intimite cartesienne, l'A. examine les travaux scientifiques de Descartes sur les etats et les processus imputables aux animaux, d'une part, et conclut a la suffisance du langage comme critere, c'est-a-dire comme signe certain de la pensee

4 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors identify broad traditions in the philosophical study of thought and language, traditions which also have their representatives in psychology and linguistics, and focus on one such tradition, the one sometimes known as "lingualism", in so far as it bears on the papers brought together in this volume.
Abstract: Western philosophy has a long-standing interest in the relationship between thought and language. This is not least because language use and our mental capacities are so central to our human self-conception, as well as to the ways in which we have tried to think about other beings. Retrospectively, it is possible to identify certain broad traditions in the philosophical study of thought and language, traditions which also have their representatives in psychology and linguistics. In this introduction I shall focus on one such tradition, the one sometimes known as ‘lingualism ’, in so far as it bears on the papers brought together in this volume.

3 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that a precise understanding of depiction is both a necessary prolegomenon to a significant part of aesthetics, and a useful prophylactic against confusion in the theory of the imagination.
Abstract: Pictures have always played a prominent role in philosophical speculation about the mind, but the concept of a picture has itself been the object of philosophical scrutiny only intermittently. As a matter of fact, it was studied most intensively in the course of a theological controversy in the Eastern Roman Empire, during the eighth century - which is a sufficient indication of its marginal place in the history of philosophy. Perhaps this is because pictures have never produced in us the theoretical paralysis which Augustine famously associated with time, but have on the contrary generally seemed too unproblematic to deserve much time from philosophers. Even today, after several decades of accumulating theory, philosophers with no stake in the matter are often impervious to its charm. I feel some sympathy for this attitude, because the task of explaining the nature of depiction is, I believe, one which calls for the refinement rather than refutation of our first thoughts about it. But a precise understanding of depiction is both a necessary prolegomenon to a significant part of aesthetics, and a useful prophylactic against confusion in the theory of the imagination. Besides, there is also the pleasure of the chase, which J. L. Austin nonchalantly appealed to many years before the Research Assessment Exercise was inaugurated.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the A.A. distingue deux conceptions differentes de la pensee: l'une, cartesienne, concerne the relation de la Pensee and du langage; the seconde, inspirede de Dewey, considere la PENSEe comme l'activite de resoudre les problemes.
Abstract: Dans le cadre de la conference sur le theme de la pensee et du langage qui s'est tenue a l'Universite de Reading en septembre 1996, sous l'egide de l'Institut royal de philosophie, l'A. distingue deux conceptions differentes de la pensee: l'une, cartesienne, concerne la relation de la pensee et du langage; la seconde, inspiree de Dewey, considere la pensee comme l'activite de resoudre les problemes. Mesurant le role de la semantique dans l'evaluation epistemique, ainsi que le cas des questions introduites par pourquoi, l'A. montre que la seconde perspective, representee par Carnap et Quine, offre une approche plus interessante des debats sur la distinction analytique/synthetique et sur la question de la realtion entre la question et la reponse