PHIL 415 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Jesse Prinz, Mind, Modal Logic
12 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Putnam
If meaning must determine reference, then it must expand beyond individual and mental
content
You want one concept to do all the work – but this is too much work
We need to subdivide
Meaning is not just sense and reference
We start from an ordered pair: intension/extension
You can think of set as a collection of stuff – it doesn’t matter what order its in
Its identity is determined completely by its membership
It doesn’t matter if two sets have the same content but different order
Sets are not intentional (they don’t care about meaning)– they are purely extensional
(they only care about what’s inside)
A function is a set of ordered pairs
X, L, Y and Y, L, X are not the same thing in an n-tuple
EX: a/b versus b/a is not the same thing in division – we are already familiar with n-
tuples s
The order matters
Vector: “magnitude + direction” (cf: Scalar)
You can represent a vector as an arrow that has a starting point and an ending point in a
graph
We had two questions:
1. How is extension determined?
Putnam endorses: things are what they are. We don’t know what they are, but we name
them but that’s what the name metaphysically sticks to
This is how reference is actually determined
-There’s still a role for definite descriptions
How do we point to something in our environment? We point to it by description
Let’s talk about individual competence
Competence is a matter of degrees
You might know some things about the concept, another person might know more
Even if you mistake part of the definition of a term, it doesn’t mean you’re not competent
with the term
EX: If you think mammals don’t lay eggs, you might still be competent with the word
mammals even though you didn’t know this
Philosophers can clarify what kinds of thing competence is
Stereotypes (or paradigm) are not definitions, they’re not sets of necessary conditions
(Professor Magal doesn’t like the word “stereotype” because it has a negative connotation
Jesse Prinz – uses the word prototype)
How competent do you need to be to be competent?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
If meaning must determine reference, then it must expand beyond individual and mental content. You want one concept to do all the work but this is too much work. You can think of set as a collection of stuff it doesn"t matter what order its in. Its identity is determined completely by its membership. It doesn"t matter if two sets have the same content but different order. Sets are not intentional (they don"t care about meaning) they are purely extensional (they only care about what"s inside) A function is a set of ordered pairs. X, l, y and y, l, x are not the same thing in an n-tuple. Ex: a/b versus b/a is not the same thing in division we are already familiar with n- tuples s. You can represent a vector as an arrow that has a starting point and an ending point in a graph.
