PHIL 100W Lecture Notes - Semantic Externalism, Aboutness, Externalism
28 Nov 2012
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They refer/state": sensations (feelings aren"t about anything in the same way. An answer that relies on how mental states refer or mean things. A view about how thoughts and words get their meanings. We intend terms to refer to certain things and sentences to mean certain things. What is it for our thoughts to refer to things and to be meaningful? is incomplete. Words and sentences have intentionality", and so do concepts and thoughts. In descartes" terms, they have presentational reality. Semantic externalism offers a picture of how our thoughts represent, and some take this picture ( ) It is common to divide mental states into two broad categories: intentional states (beliefs and desires; have propositional content) yet caused by something. Intentional states are sometimes referred to as propositional attitudes". Semantic externalism: is the view roughly, that what determines reference and meaning for language and for propositional thought is external to the utterance or inscription or thought.
