Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Knowledge: Knowledge is the awareness or understanding of something. It can be acquired through experience, or education. Knowledge can be factual, procedural, or conceptual. See also Propositional knowledge, Knowledge how._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Ruth Millikan on Knowledge - Dictionary of Arguments
I 154 Knowledge/Meaning/Knowing/to mean/understanding/tradition/Millikan: Traditionally, knowledge of meaning has been equated with that of public intension. And of course, when I ask about the meaning of "monotreme", I ask for a public standard. Fully-developed Intension/Millikan: but we have seen above that there are no such public standard intensions available to everyone. >Meaning(Intending), >Understanding, >Communication. I 155 Names/Understanding/Millikan: it may be that the use of names does not even overlap. Natural species/Millikan: that is the other extreme: concepts for natural species are names for things that experts talk about. >Names. Third extreme: things that are present to us. For example "square". Use/Word use/Knowledge/Understanding/Word/Name/Millikan: being able to use a word is not sufficient to know its meaning. For example, if we only know that a word has a standard meaning, and intend that meaning. I 156 On the other hand, it is too much to ask that you have infallible means to identify the referent to know the meaning of the corresponding word. Intension/Millikan: one can never know whether an intension is infallible. Definition understanding/meaning/knowing/knowledge/Millikan: to know the fully developed intension. This does not mean that you have to know what the experts know. Knowledge of meaning/Millikan: the knowledge of meaning has not always something to do with intensions. E.g. Hubots and Rumans (> Terminology/Millikan) have no sensorium in common. Nevertheless, one can say that the one knows the term of the other when he is able to translate it into his own language. I 157 Knowledge/Knowledge of meaning/Meaning of the word/Millikan: is a vague matter. Minimum: one must be able to specify whether a large number of sentences is meaningful or not. Intension/Tradition/Millikan: Thesis: Intensions are the basic material of meaning. Millikan: a deeper reason for this attitude is a rationalism with regard to intentionality. Tradition: Thesis: Knowledge of an expression in an idiolect must be a priori knowledge. This leads to the fact that meanings must be intensions or are determined by intensions. Reason/tradition: one does not know a priori that a term is empty. Therefore it cannot be meaning what this expression is missing. But the only kind of meaning that has an empty expression is intension. Therefore, meaning must be intension. >Intension, >Meaning. I 240 Knowledge/Thinking/Millikan: knowing what you think yourself is a posteriori knowledge, not a priori. Problem: precisely then we need a criterion for thinking of something and a criterion of whether one can identify the real value of his thoughts. >Thought._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Millikan I R. G. Millikan Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism Cambridge 1987 Millikan II Ruth Millikan "Varieties of Purposive Behavior", in: Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, R. W. Mitchell, N. S. Thomspon and H. L. Miles (Eds.) Albany 1997, pp. 189-1967 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild, Frankfurt/M. 2005 |