In the course of his discussion of perception, Searle criticizes representative theories in general. In this paper I will argue that, even though his criticisms may be adequate regarding a certain form of these theories, perhaps the most frequently defended by philosophers of perception, a version I will outline here scapes to them. A second issue I raise concerns Searle’s claim that his theory of perception is a form of direct realism. I will raise difficulties for Searle’s attempt to maintain (...) at the same time a “token-reflexive” theory of perception and the thesis of direct realism. (shrink)

Quine has called the question, ‘What is there?’ the “ontological question.” But if we call this question by that name, what name shall we use for the question, ‘What are we asking when we ask “What is there?”’? I shall call it ‘the meta-ontological question’. I shall call the attempt to answer the meta-ontological question ‘meta-ontology’ and any proposed answer to it ‘a meta-ontology’. In this essay, I shall briefly sketch a meta-ontology. The meta-ontology I shall present is broadly Quinean. (...) I am, in fact, willing to call it an exposition of Quine’s meta-ontology. (shrink)

Speech acts are a staple of everyday communicative life, but only became a topic of sustained investigation, at least in the English-speaking world, in the middle of the Twentieth Century.[1] Since that time “speech act theory” has been influential not only within philosophy, but also in linguistics, psychology, legal theory, artificial intelligence, literary theory and many other scholarly disciplines.[2] Recognition of the importance of speech acts has illuminated the ability of language to do other things than describe reality. In the (...) process the boundaries among the philosophy of language, the philosophy of action, the philosophy of mind and even ethics have become less sharp. In addition, an appreciation of speech acts has helped lay bare an implicit normative structure within linguistic practice, including even that part of this practice concerned with describing reality. Much recent research aims at an accurate characterization of this normative structure underlying linguistic practice. (shrink)

These lines — also attributed to H. L. Mencken and Carl Jung — although perhaps politically incorrect, are surely correct in reminding us that more is involved in what one communicates than what one literally says; more is involved in what one means than the standard, conventional meaning of the words one uses. The words ‘yes,’ ‘perhaps,’ and ‘no’ each has a perfectly identifiable meaning, known by every speaker of English (including not very competent ones). However, as those lines illustrate, (...) it is possible for different speakers in different circumstances to mean different things using those words. How is this possible? What's the relationship among the meaning of words, what speakers mean when uttering those words, the particular circumstances of their utterance, their intentions, their actions, and what they manage to communicate? These are some of the questions that pragmatics tries to answer; the sort of questions that, roughly speaking, serve.. (shrink)

Existential phenomenologists hold that the two most basic forms of intelligent behavior, learning, and skillful action, can be described and explained without recourse to mind or brain representations. This claim is expressed in two central notions in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception: the intentional arc and the tendency to achieve a maximal grip. The intentional arc names the tight connection between body and world, such that, as the active body acquires skills, those skills are stored, not as representations in the mind, (...) but as dispositions to respond to the solicitations of situations in the world. A phenomenology of skill acquisition confirms that, as one acquires expertise, the acquired know-how is experienced as finer and finer discriminations of situations paired with the appropriate response to each. Maximal grip names the body's tendency to refine its responses so as to bring the current situation closer to an optimal gestalt. Thus, successful learning and action do not require propositional mental representations. They do not require semantically interpretable brain representations either.Simulated neural networks exhibit crucial structural features of the intentional arc, and Walter Freeman's account of the brain dynamics underlying perception and action is structurally isomorphic with Merleau-Ponty's account of the way a skilled agent is led by the situation to move towards obtaining a maximal grip. (shrink)

According to many philosophers and scientists, human sociality is explained by our unique capacity to “share” attitudes with others. The conditions under which mental states are shared have been widely debated in the past two decades, focusing especially on the issue of their reducibility to individual intentionality and the place of collective intentions in the natural realm. It is not clear, however, to what extent these two issues are related and what methodologies of investigation are appropriate in each case. In (...) this article, I propose a solution that distinguishes between epistemic and ontological interpretations of the demand for the conditions of reduction of collective intentionality. While the philosophical debate has contributed important insights into the former, recent advances in the cognitive sciences offer novel resources to tackle the latter. Drawing on Michael Tomasello’s research in the ontogeny of shared intentionality in early instances of interaction based on joint attention, I propose an empirically informed argument of what it would take to address the ontological question of irreducibility, thus making a step forward in the naturalization of collective intentionality. (shrink)

The central problem of the dissertation concerns the possibility of a distinction between truth-evaluable and non-truth-evaluable utterances of a natural language. The class of truth-evaluable utterances includes assertions, con. ectures and other kinds of speech act susceptible of truth evaluation. The class of non-truth-evaluable utterances includes commands, exhortations, wishes i.e. utterances not evaluated as being true or false. The problem is placed in the context of radical interpretation theory and it shown that it is a substantial problem of Davidson‘s early (...) theory of radical interpret at ion. I consider the possibility of distinguishing between locutionary and illocutionary act in uttering a sentence and its significance in the present project. I discuss the suggestion that the mood of the verb of the sentence signifies the required distinction between truth-evaluable utterances and non-truth-evaluable ones. I argue that no criterion for the distinction based on the mood of the verb is adequate. The solution that I propose to the problem of classifylng truth-evaluable utterances appeals to mental states. The view that grounds this line of inquiry is that the truth-evaluability of an utterance is a characteristic of it exclusively relevant to the doxastic dimension of the speaker’s mind. I discuss the constraints that the nature of radical interpretation puts upon the way we construe the notion of belief. I propose that a possible classification of mental states into doxastic and non-doxastic that would result in a classification of utterances into truth-evaluable and non-truthevaluable ones can be given by an elaborated version of a decision theoretic scheme. I suggest that a decision theoretic scheme based on a decision theory that, like Savage’s theory, grants independence axioms is a better candidate to offer a solution to the central problem of the dissertation than a scheme based on a non- standard decision theory such as Richard Jeffrey’s. I conclude by showing that the proposal I make satisfies the constraints I have considered and that it can be accommodated by a radical interpretation theory. (shrink)

A significant part of perception, especially in visual perception, is characterized by particularity (roughly, the view that in such cases the perceiver is aware of particular objects in the environment). The intuition of particularity, however, can be made precise in at least two ways. One way (proposed by Searle) is consistent with the view that the content of perception is to be thought of as existentially quantified. Another way (the “demonstrative element” view championed by Evans, Campbell and others in diverse (...) ways) is not. This paper reconstructs the argumentative context in which these views are put forward, and, after mentioning some drawbacks of both views, as these have been advanced to date, suggests a new view that may be regarded as a compromise between the contenders. (shrink)

A significant part of perception is characterized by awareness of particular objects. Two ways of making precise this intuition have been proposed. The dispute’s argumentative context is reconstructed and a proposal is advanced that may be regarded as a compromise between the contenders.

In this paper, I argue that certain perceptual relations are represented in visual experience.

The notion of perceptual content is commonly introduced in the analysis of perception. It stems from an analogy between perception and propositional attitudes. Both kinds of mental states, it is thought, have conditions of satisfaction. I try to show that on the most plausible account of perceptual content, it does not determine the conditions under which perceptual experience is veridical. Moreover, perceptual content must be bipolar (capable of being correct and capable of being incorrect), whereas perception as a mental state (...) is not (if it is veridical, it is essentially so). This has profound consequences for the epistemological view that perception is a source of knowledge. I sktech a two-level epistemology which is consistent with this view. I conclude that the analogy between perception and propositional attitudes, from which the notion of perceptual content is born, may be more misleading than it is usually thought. (shrink)

Wer der Frage nachgeht, was jemand tut, der geht – wenigstens implizit – auch der Frage nach, wer da etwas tut. Handlungen schreiben wir normalerweise Personen zu. Handeln zu können ist eine derjenigen Eigenschaften, die Personen auszeichnet. Die Analyse menschlichen Handelns geht mit der Frage einher, was menschliche Personen sind. Folgender Beitrag befasst sich mit dem Verhältnis von Handlung und Person innerhalb der kausalen Theorie des Handelns. Durch eine eingehende Analyse dieses weitverbreiteten Ansatzes zur Erklärung und Deutung menschlichen Handelns sollen (...) Implikationen für den Begriff des Handelnden herausgearbeitet werden. (shrink)