Causation and Mental Content: Against the Externalist Interpretation of Ockham
In Magali Elise Roques & Jenny Pelletier (eds.), The Language of Thought in Late Medieval Philosophy. Essays in Honour of Claude Panaccio (2017)
Abstract
On the dominant interpretation, Ockham is an externalist about mental content. This reading
is founded principally on his theory of intuitive cognition. Intuitive cognition plays a
foundational role in Ockham’s account of concept formation and judgment, and Ockham
insists that the content of intuitive states is determined by the causal relations such states bear
to their objects. The aim of this paper is to challenge the externalist interpretation by
situating Ockham’s account of intuitive cognition vis-à-vis his broader account of efficient
causation. While there can be no doubt that intuitive states are causally individuated, I argue
that, given Ockham’s broader theory of efficient causation (on which causation turns out to be an internal relation), this very fact entails that the content of such states is determined by factors internal (rather than external) to the states themselves.
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Archival date: 2018-11-09
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Medieval Approaches to Consciousness: Ockham and Chatton.Susan Brower-Toland - 2012 - Philosophers' Imprint 12:1-29.
Ockham’s Weak Externalism.Choi, Philip
William Ockham on the Scope and Limits of Consciousness.Brower-Toland, Susan
Intuition, Externalism, and Direct Reference in Ockham.Brower-Toland, Susan
Ockham on Concepts.Panaccio, Claude
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2018-11-09
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33 ( #21,633 of 44,259 )
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