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Naming and Necessity
01 Jan 1980-
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors make a connection between the mind-body problem and the so-called "identity thesis" in analytic philosophy, which has wide-ranging implications for other problems in philosophy that traditionally might be thought far-removed.
Abstract: I hope that some people see some connection between the two topics in the title. If not, anyway, such connections will be developed in the course of these talks. Furthermore, because of the use of tools involving reference and necessity in analytic philosophy today, our views on these topics really have wide-ranging implications for other problems in philosophy that traditionally might be thought far-removed, like arguments over the mind-body problem or the so-called ‘identity thesis’. Materialism, in this form, often now gets involved in very intricate ways in questions about what is necessary or contingent in identity of properties — questions like that. So, it is really very important to philosophers who may want to work in many domains to get clear about these concepts. Maybe I will say something about the mind-body problem in the course of these talks. I want to talk also at some point (I don’t know if I can get it in) about substances and natural kinds.
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01 Jan 1987TL;DR: The Intentional Stance as discussed by the authors is the first full-scale presentation of a theory of intentionality that has been developed for almost twenty years, and it can be seen as a pre-emptive strategy of interpretation that presupposes the rationality of the people or other entities we are hoping to understand and predict.
Abstract: How are we able to understand and anticipate each other in everyday life, in our daily interactions? Through the use of such "folk" concepts as belief, desire, intention, and expectation, asserts Daniel Dennett in this first full-scale presentation of a theory of intentionality that he has been developing for almost twenty years. We adopt a stance, he argues, a predictive strategy of interpretation that presupposes the rationality of the people - or other entities - we are hoping to understand and predict.These principles of radical interpretation have far-reaching implications for the metaphysical and scientific status of the processes referred to by the everday terms of folk psychology and their corresponding terms in cognitive science.While Dennett's philosophical stance has been steadfast over the years, his views have undergone successive enrichments, refinements, and extensions. "The Intentional Stance" brings together both previously published and original material: four of the book's ten chapters - its first and the final three - appear here for the first time and push the theory into surprising new territory. The remaining six were published earlier in the 1980s but were not easily accessible; each is followed by a reflection - an essay reconsidering and extending the claims of the earlier work. These reflections and the new chapters represent the vanguard of Dennett's thought. They reveal fresh lines of inquiry into fundamental issues in psychology, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary theory as well as traditional issues in the philosophy of mind.Daniel C. Dennett is Distinguished Arts and Sciences Professor at Tufts University and the author of "Brainstorms" and "Elbow Room." "The Intentional Stance," along with these works, is a Bradford Book.
4,288 citations
Cites background from "Naming and Necessity"
...That is the essence of the causal theory of reference (see, e.g., Kripke 1972; Evans 1973; Donnellan 1966,1970,1974) and the thought experiment nicely isolates it....
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...In Kripke's (1982) resurrection of Wittgenstein's puzzle about rule following, we find all our themes returning once more: a resistance to the machine analogy on grounds that meaning in machines is relative to "the intentions of the designer" (p....
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...See the Addendum to Kripke 1972, pp. 763-69....
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TL;DR: The authors advocate an externalism about mind, but one that is in no way grounded in the debatable role of external reference in fixing the contents of our mental states, rather, they advocate an *active externalism*, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes.
Abstract: Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? The question invites two standard replies. Some accept the intuitive demarcations of skin and skull, and say that what is outside the body is outside the mind. Others are impressed by arguments suggesting that the meaning of our words "just ain't in the head", and hold that this externalism about meaning carries over into an externalism about mind. We propose to pursue a third position. We will advocate an externalism about mind, but one that is in no way grounded in the debatable role of external reference in fixing the contents of our mental states. Rather, we advocate an *active externalism*, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes.
4,172 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the problem of grounding symbolic representations in nonsymbolic representations of two kinds, i.e., "iconic representations" and "categorical representations" is addressed.
3,330 citations
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TL;DR: On the Plurality of Worlds as discussed by the authors is one of the most influential philosophers of our age, and it is the magnum opus of On the Plurality of Worlds.
Abstract: David Lewis is one of the most influential philosophers of our age, and On the Plurality of Worlds is his magnum opus. OPW offers an extended development and defense of the hypothesis that there are many universes, things of the same kind as the universe in which we all live, move, and have our being. Lewis calls these universes ―worlds‖, deliberately recalling the notion of a ―possible world‖ familiar from modal logic and the metaphysics of modality. The title invokes the thesis of the book: there are pluralities of worlds, things of the same kind as the world we inhabit, differing only with respect to what goes on in them. Lewis sought in earlier work (Lewis, 1973, pp. 84–86) to offer a direct argument from common sense modal commitments to the existence of a plurality of worlds. OPW offers a less direct argument. Here, Lewis supports the hypothesis by arguing that, if we accept it, we have the material to offer a wide range of analyses of hitherto puzzling and problematic notions. We thereby effect a theoretical unification and simplification: with a small stock of primitives, we can analyze a number of important philosophical notions with a broad range of applications. But the analyses Lewis proposes are adequate only if we accept the thesis that there are a plurality of worlds. Lewis claims that this is a reason to accept the thesis. In his words, «the hypothesis is serviceable, and that is a reason to think that it is true» (p. 3).
2,583 citations
Cites background from "Naming and Necessity"
...It might be what Kripke had in mind by the so-called ―Humphrey objection‖ (Kripke, 1980, p. 45n)....
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TL;DR: Observations about languages, named entity types, domains and textual genres studied in the literature, along with other critical aspects of NERC such as features and evaluation methods, are reported.
Abstract: This survey covers fifteen years of research in the Named Entity Recognition and Classification (NERC) field, from 1991 to 2006. We report observations about languages, named entity types, domains and textual genres studied in the literature. From the start, NERC systems have been developed using hand-made rules, but now machine learning techniques are widely used. These techniques are surveyed along with other critical aspects of NERC such as features and evaluation methods. Features are word-level, dictionary-level and corpus-level representations of words in a document. Evaluation techniques, ranging from intuitive exact match to very complex matching techniques with adjustable cost of errors, are an indisputable key to progress.
2,537 citations
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Abstract: you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
700 citations