NYU Mind & Language, 2021: Theories of
Intentionality
Some of the readings
below are passworded. The login and
password will be given in class. Links
to slides will not work until the day after the class
Schedule
2/2: General Introduction
Robert Stalnaker, Inquiry,
MIT Press, 1984, Chapter
1
Slides
for this class
2/9: Introduction to
Causal/Teleological Approaches
Jerry Fodor, Psychosemantics:
The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind (1987) pp. 97-111
Karen Neander
Chapters 6
and 7 and notes,
from A Mark of the
Mental, MIT Press, 2017
2/16: Introduction to Interpretivism
Frank Ramsey, "Truth
and Probability", Section 3
Robbie Williams, The
Metaphysics of Representation, Chapter
1
Extra Reading:
David Lewis,
"Radical
Interpretation", Synthese, 1974
Edward Elliott,
"Ramsey without Ethical
Neutrality",
2/23: Nick
Shea
Representation in Cognitive Science, Oxford University Press, 2018
Core reading:
Chapter 5
Supplementary
reading: Chapter 3, Summary at end
3/2: Robbie
Williams
"Affect,
Desire and Interpretation".
3/9: Frances Egan
Primary
reading: A
Deflationary Account of Mental Representation, To appear in What are Mental
Representations? Joulia Smortchkova,
Krzysztof Dolega, Tobias Schlicht
(eds.), New York: Oxford University Press.
"Mathematical
Contents" section of this paper: The
Nature and Function of Content in Computational Models, in The
Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind, M. Sprevak
and M. Colombo (eds.), Routledge (2018), 247-258.
3/16: Adam Pautz
Consciousness
Meets Lewisian Interpretation Theory: A Multistage Account of
Intentionality. In Uriah Kriegel (ed.), Oxford Studies
in Philosophy of Mind (forthcoming)
Some
Notes on “Conscious Meets Lewisian Interpretation Theory” for M&L
seminar students
Focus on Section 3
Slides
for this class
3/23: Verónica Gómez Sánchez
Nomic
Locking:
A New Informational Theory of Content
3/30: Introduction to Phenomenal Intentionality
Imogen Dickie, "The
Essential Connection between Epistemology and the Theory of Reference"
Terence
Horgan and John Tienson, The
Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality
4/6: Imogen
Dickie
Chapter 8 of Fixing Reference, OUP 2015: "Thought
and Consciousness"
4/13: Angela
Mendelovici
Selections
from The Phenomenal
Basis of Intentionality
· Chapter
1 up to and including 1.2
· Chapter
5 up to and including 5.2
Propositional Attitudes as
Self-Ascriptions
4/20 Introduction
to Conceptual-role Semantics
Ned Block, "Semantics, Conceptual Role", Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
Ned Block, "Holism, Mental and Semantic" , Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
These
encyclopedia entries are very short
Ned
Block, "Functional
Role and Truth Conditions," Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society 61: 157-181, 1987
Jerry Fodor, "Having Concepts; A Brief Refutation Of The 20th Century", Mind & Language 19, 1,
2004, p 29-47.
Background:
Gilbert Harman, (Non-solipsistic)
Conceptual Role Semantics, In
LePore, E., ed., New Directions in Semantics, pp.
55–81. Academic Press, London, 1987.
Julien Murzi, and Florian Steinberger. “Inferentialism.”
In A Companion to the Philosophy of
Language. 2d ed. Vol. 1.
Edited by Bob Hale, Crispin Wright, and Alexander Miller, 197–224. Chichester,
UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
4/27: Christopher
Peacocke
"What
is involved in the primacy of metaphysics", Philosophical Studies,
2020. In this article, only the reply to
Horwich will be discussed.
Chapter 2 of Truly
Understood, OUP 2008
Background:
Chapter
1 of A Study of Concepts, MIT Press, 1992
Chapter 1 of Truly
Understood, OUP 2008
Possession
Conditions: A Focal Point for Theories of Concepts, Mind & Language,
1989
5/4: David
Chalmers
Inferentialism, Australian Style
Disability
Disclosure Statement:
Academic accommodations are available for students with disabilities. The Moses
Center website is www.nyu.edu/csd. Please contact the
Moses Center for Student Accessibility (212-998-4980 or mosescsd@nyu.edu) for further information.
Students who are requesting academic accommodations are advised to reach out to
the Moses Center as early as possible in the semester for assistance.
Academic
Integrity, Plagiarism, and Cheating (adapted from the website of the College
of Arts & Science, https://cas.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/cas/academic-integrity.html):
Academic integrity means that the work
you submit is original. Obviously, bringing answers into an examination or
copying all or part of a paper straight from a book, the Internet, or a fellow
student is a violation of this principle. But there are other forms of cheating
or plagiarizing which are just as serious — for example, presenting an oral
report drawn without attribution from other sources (oral or written); writing
a sentence or paragraph which, despite being in different words, expresses
someone else’s idea(s) without a reference to the source of the idea(s); or
submitting essentially the same paper in two different courses (unless both
instructors have given their permission in advance). Receiving or giving help
on a take-home paper, examination, or quiz is also cheating, unless expressly
permitted by the instructor (as in collaborative projects).