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The author or concept searched is found in the following 34 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adequacy | Millikan | I 14 Adequacy/Millikan: by making our judgments interact with those of others in a community, we have additional evidence that they are appropriate. Thus new concepts are developed, which can be tested independently of theories, or not. >Community, >Judgment, >Truth, >Coherence, >Concept. I 299 Concepts/Adequacy/Millikan: when they are adequate, concepts exercise their eigenfunction in accordance with a normal explanation. Their eigenfunction is to correspond to a variant of the world. An adequate term produces correct acts of identification of the referents of its tokens. >Terminology/Millikan. |
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 |
| Articles | Millikan | I 176 Indefinite article/Millikan: an indefinite article causes a name plus modification (description) to function purely descriptive. E.g. Henry was bitten by a poisonous snake, not by toxicity or the property of being a snake. Truth value/Truth: to have a truth value, the sentence must map a situation that involves a particular individual, that is, it must have a real value. (> Terminology/Millikan). N.B.: but it is not important which snake it was exactly, so that the sentence works properly ((s) i.e., performs its >eigenfunction). I 189 Definite article/description/Millikan: if it is used with necessary identifying descriptions, it is actually superfluous. It only develops its power with other descriptions. Unambiguous/determinateness/MillikanVsRussell: the definite article does not have the function of establishing unambiguousness. Exception: necessarily identifying dsignations, which are purely descriptive. But even then a translation into an inner name is always possible. I 189 Randomly identifying/description/definite article/Millikan: randomly identifying descriptions with "the" are indexical. And relative to the identification function, these are also necessary identifying descriptions. >Identification, >Description. |
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 |
| Commands | Millikan | I 53 Imperative/Indicative/Millikan: imperatices are not names of reproductively determined families, but rather categories of eigenfunction. I 100 Command/Millikan: If it is not executed, it has no real value. Def real value/intentional icon/Millikan: the "of what" is an intentional icon; it is the real value. >Terminology/Millikan. |
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 |
| Correspondence | Millikan | I 107 Correspondence/correspondence relation/Millikan: here we are dealing with the relationship between an indicative intentional icon and its real value. 1. Definition: real value is the normal condition for the exertion of the direct eigenfunction of the icon. 2. There are correspondences between transformations on both sides! 3. Each transformation on the page of the icon has a normal condition for the eigenfunction (proper performance) of the corresponding transformation of the real value. N.B.: this is about a comparison of the transformations of icon and real value, not a correspondence of the elements of icon and real value. ((s)> covariance). Transformation/Millikan: this is not about "parts" but about invariant and variable aspects ((s) of a whole). E.g. bee dance: variable: direction - invariant: existence of nectar. I 108 Transformation/sentence/Millikan: for sentences, the most frequent transformation is substitution or negation. E.g. "Theaitetos swims" Every transformation corresponds to a possible world situation (fact, world affair). Articulation: a fact, is determined by a group of possible transformations. I 307 Consensus/Millikan: first you have to know something about the objective world, not the world, as we perceive it (sensory world). Consensus/judgment: consensus in judgment is not to respond to the same stimulus with the same reaction. Rarely two people react to the same stimulus with the same choice of words. There is also no agreement on how to divide the world into pieces. Instead, it is a sign that each speaker has contact with the world in its own way, and that it is the same, which is mapped in different ways. Cf. >Picture theory. I 329 Correspondence/Putnam: it is incoherent to assume that truth is a correspondence with the WORLD. Image/Representation/Putnam: mathematical images are omnipresent, representations are not omnipresent. Problem: a correspondence theory based on the fact that there is a mapping relation between a complete set of true representations and the world is empty. I 330 Solution: there must first be a distinction between images and representations. >Representation. Solution: there must be an additional condition for reference, namely, that an intended interpretation is marked. >Reference, >Interpretation. Causal theory/Putnam: a causal theory would not help here. For it is just as uncertain whether "cause" clearly refers, as if "cat" clearly refers. Concept/Sign/Ockham/Putnam: Problem: a concept must not simply be a "mental particular", otherwise every sign merely refers to another sign again. PutnamVsRealism/PutnamVsMetaphysical Realism: it is incomprehensible how a relation between a sign and its object could be picked out, either by holding up the sign itself, E.g. COW Or by holding up a different sign, e.g. REFERS Or maybe CAUSES. Meaning/Meaning rationalism/Putnam/Millikan: this is the meaning rationalism: in order to mean something, we must know what we mean and namely "know" with a very definite, meaning-rationalist shine on "know": The relation between the head and the world must be reflected wholly in the head, ((s)> See Leibniz, the "overarching general"). PutnamVs: that would only work if there was a mysterious "direct understanding of forms" ((s) platonistic). Then the relation would not have to be mirrored again. I 331 Correspondence/to mean/Meaning/References/MillikanVsPutnam/Millikan: Thesis: the relations between the head and the world are indeed between the head and the world. However, the understanding of these relations does not contribute to the justification of meaning and reference. They do not have to be intended so that one can refer. >Intentionality. |
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 |
| Correspondence Theory | Millikan | I 86 Intentionality/Correspondence/Millikan: Intentionality is not a sharply defined phenomenon. It is not one piece. It generally has to do with what is normal or what is an eigenfunction. It has not so much to do with what is actual. >Intentionality. Intentionality/Millikan: intentionality has generally to do with mapping rules between signs and things. >Picture theory. Correspondence/Millikan: therefore a pure correspondence theory is empty. Definition pure correspondence/correspondence theory/Millikan: a pure correspondence theory would be one that asserts that a correspondence would be true only because there is a mapping relation. This does not work, because there can be mathematically infinitely many different mapping relations. On the other hand: Representations: are not so ubiquitous and diverse. >Representation/Millikan. I 87 Correspondence theory/Millikan: in order for the correspondence theory to not be empty, it must explain what is so special about the mapping relations that map representations on the represented. Mapping relation/Millikan: must have to do with real causality in real situations, not with logical order. |
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 |
| Denotation | Millikan | I 71 Denotation/stabilization function/reference/Millikan: more interesting is the stabilization function in referring or denotating expressions. >Terminology/Millikan. Question: is the classification as "denotating" or "referring" equal to the categorization as a function? Millikan: Thesis: no, the characteristic for denotation is not a function, but intentionality. >Intentionality. Intentionality/Millikan: 1. Thesis: intentionality is not always intentional because of a particular function, but because of the way something normally performs its eigenfunction. The eigenfunction of intentional patterns themselves have practically nothing in common. 2. However, there is another commonality: intentional expressions lead to an identification of their speaker. Representation: because of the identification function, such intentional states are representations. >Representation. Representation/Millikan: essential: representations need something to identify their referents. Through this they are representations. No representation: e.g. bee dances do not identify a place ((s) they are not "about" something specific), but make other bees to behave appropriately. |
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 |
| Descriptions | Millikan | I 175 Description/Millikan: we are here to find out what the stabilization function of definite and indefinite descriptions is. >Terminology/Millikan. We have to go on our own. We cannot rely on the tradition of Russell-Trawson-Donnellan. Reference/MillikanVsStrawson: we must assume that it is not just speakers who are referring, but we must assume that the linguistic expressions themselves also refer. I 176 Indefinite description/real value/Millikan: The real value is determined by the rest of the sentence, not by the indefinite description itself. I 177 Reference: is something different than an image! Indefinite description: maps, but without referring! Inner name: it is not the task of an indefinite desription to be translated into an inner name. Their normal eigenfunction is to be translated into an inner description, which still contains a general expression. I 178 Indefinite description: an indefinite description as a whole, is not a referential term. Tradition: has assumed however e.g. "an Indian friend of mine gave me this". Here I think of Rakesh. MillikanVsTradition: this leads to confusion. I leave the referent open on purpose. Reference: it is certainly true that I intended Rakesh, so I will also refer to him. N.B.: if Rakesh asks me later: "Did you tell them about me?" The correct answer is "No!". Eigenfunction/Descripion/Millikan: the eigenunction is not here to be translated into an inner name for Rakesh. On the other hand: Natural sign: is causally dependent. And the identification was finally caused by Rakesh, who gave me the book. >Identification, >Reference. I 179 Causality/description/real value/Millikan: The causal connection of an intentional icon with its real value makes it possible for the listener to use it as a natural sign. >Causality, >Causal theory of knowledge. N.B.: thus a new inner name can be coined. ((s) Not an already existing inner name). Definition "natural referent"/indefinite description/Terminology/Millikan: any indefinite description has a real value in accordance with a normal explanation, the "natural referents". This also applies to stories (fiction). But this is not a public reference. Here, causality and mapping rules do not matter. >Fiction. Public referent/Millikan: a definite description or name can have (by chance) a public referent, without having a natural referent. Therefore an indefinite description can have a natural one without having a public one. I 181 Real value/definite descripion/Millikan: the real value of a definite description is determined by the rest of the sentence. E.g.: Which of my friends was it? The one who gave me the book. I 185 Description/Millikan. E.g. "my brother" is neither definite nor indefinite. I can use the description if I have one or more brothers. |
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 |
| Elm/Beech Example | Millikan | I 153 Elm/Beech/Expert/Layman/Understanding/to mean/Millikan: the layman can think something of gold, elm trees or monotremes, even if he has no knowledge of these. To mean: he can even mean the same as the expert! N.B.: there are therefore no full-bodied intensions, which are common to all idiolects of the speakers of a public language. Names/knowing/understanding/claiming/Millikan: Problem: is that not paradoxical? If I do not know anything about monotremes, except I've heard the name once, how can I mean the same with the word as the expert? E.g. Expert: I'm going to Brazil, to explore monotremes. I: What are monotremes? Expert: what do you mean with "monotreme"? Me: I mean what you mean, of course. Expert: do you know what monotremes are? Me: no idea, so I ask. Expert: then you cannot have meant the same as I have. Menon's paradox/Millikan: here we see a shadow of Menon's paradox. Solution/Carnap: instead of "What are monotremes" we actually ask "What does the term 'monotreme' mean?" ((s) > semantic ascent). Intuitive/Millikan: but this is the question about monotremes, not about words. Understanding/Millikan: even a parrot can ask something about monotremes without understanding anything of them. I 154 To mean/Parrot/Millikan: the parrot cannot mean the question of course. To mean/Millikan: I can mean something with "monotreme", because I intend that the word has its eigenfunction, even if I cannot specify it in detail. Expert/Layman/To mean/understanding/knowing/knowledge/Millikan: the paradox does not come from the fact that I cannot mean the same as the expert, but that there is a sense in which the expert knows what he means with "monotreme" and I do not know this in this sense ((s) not what I mean and not what the expert means). |
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 |
| Existence Statements | Millikan | I 203 Existence statement/existence sentence/non-existence/existence/representation/Millikan: neither e.g. "x exists" nor e.g. "x does not exist" is a representation. Solution: The attribute "to have a referent" is a protoreferent of "exists". >Nonexistence, >Existence, >Reference. I 204 Existence statement/Existence sentence/Non-Existence/Existence/Millikan: E.g.: "Tigers without stripes exist", e.g. "Girls who like math but do not like history exist" e.g. "Red cows do not exist". Real value: such phrases have a real value, or they have none. Real value: E.g.: "Albino snakes exist" the embedded sentence "snakes are albino" has as a real value all world conditions, which consist in that an individual snake is albino. "Albino snakes exist": is an intentional icon, which maps the fact that the term "albino snake", taken on its own, has a Real value: the expression type "albino snake" is a protoreferent of the token of "albino snakes" (plural) that exists in "albino snakes exist". But this protoreferent is not identified! It is not its stabilizing function to be translated into an inner term. Inner sentence: ultimately, there is a corresponding inner sentence, roughly like "Some snakes are albino". This sentence is then representative. Representation: if "albino snakes exist", understood representationally, "exists" is a dummy predicate. >Representation/Millikan. I 205 The present King of France is bald/Millikan: E.g. "The present King of France exists" is not only a false intentional icon and not a representation. It is wrong because, in order to exercise its eigenfunction, it would have to correspond to a state in which "The present King of France" would have to have a referent, and such a fact does not exist. N.B.: but it does not say "The present King" would have a referent. Like "The Nicholas exists", does not say it. Instead, it has a function. >Terminology/Millikan. |
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 |
| Facts | Millikan | I 104 Facts/Real value/Millikan: the real value of a sentence is the fact in the world. Wrong sentence/correspondence/Millikan: here the singular term has an indirect, "piggyback" - relation to its referent. N.B.: but this is not the relation of a "should-be-like-that". Correspondence: takes place only in true sentences. Normal relation/E.g. Unicorn/Millikan: (in the wrong sentence > non-existence) the "should-correspond" is not correspondence, but the possession of meaning! Its referring is its having a certain kind of meaning or sense. I 222 Negative fact/Millikan: we must be able to show that a negative act is still something else than the non-existence of a positive fact. And we cannot do that. We just moved around in circles. Non-existent fact/Millikan: a non-existent fact cannot be an object of an icon and not an object of a representation. Negative fact/Millikan: a negative would then have to be something other than a non-existent fact. N.B.: but if we can show that, we do not even have to accept that "non-p" says "that p does not exist". Negative sentence/image/fact/negation/Millikan: what I then have to assert is that negative sentences represent actual and/or existing world states (facts). It is well known how to do this: Negation/solution: one simply says that the negation is only applied to the logical predicate of the sentence ((s) internal negation). In doing so, the meaning of the predicate is changed, so that the predicate applies (maps) to the opposite as it usually does. I 223 This can then also be extended to more complex sentences with >external negation: E.g. "No A is φ" becomes "Every A is non-φ". MilllikanVs: the difficulties with this approach are also well-known: 1. Problem: how to interpret the function of "not" in very simple sentences of the form "x is not" E.g. "Pegasus is not (pause)" Here "not" can be interpreted as operating over predicates! Sentences of the form "x is not" are, of course, equivalent to sentences of the form "x does not exist". Problem: we have said that "exists" is not a representation. Thus "not" cannot be interpreted as always operating on a predicate of a representative sentence. For example, "Cicero is not Brutus" cannot operate on a logical predicate of the sentence, since simple identity sentences have no logical predicate. So "not" has to have other functions. Problem: In which relations do these different functions stand together? For we should assume that "not" does not have different meanings in different contexts. I 226 Negative Facts/Imperative/Indicative/Not/Negation/Millikan: E.g. "do not do A" has the eigenfunction to produce the same state as the one which would make the indicative sentence "H did not do A" true. Making true: So, it is a question of creating a state that makes a sentence true. Millikan: It is not a question of producing non-existent things, but of creating existential things. E.g. "John did not go to the office". This is not a question of whether one has not an opinion in the end whether John is going to the office. Negative Belief/Millikan: if a negative belief exists in this context, it must have a positive function. Conversely, John has done something that was contrary to going to the office. Alternative/Negation/Millikan: there is a structured space of alternatives, in which John necessarily acts. Alternatives/complexity: the less complex they are described, the less their number. Negative fact/negation/not/Millikan: thesis: if something is not the case, that means something else is the case. E.g. to obey a negative command must be something that could have also caused a positive action. But positive facts cause positive states. So that something is not the case,... I 227 ...must always correspond to the fact that something else is the case. Otherwise we could not explain how negative intentions can be executed. Belief/conviction/real value: here it is parallel: intentions cause their real values. Conversely, real values of beliefs cause beliefs, e.g. because John's jacket is brown, I believed that John's jacket is brown. Negative belief: correspondingly: real value of belief that John's jacket is not red must be the belief that it is not red, or - more specifically - brown. But I do not assure myself of this by not seeing the jacket, but by seeing that the jacket has a different color. Opposite/Millikan: only properties and relations have opposites but these are not absolute. There must be a common foundation. We should assume that "not" has not different meanings in different contexts. I 257 Negative sentence/Millikan: a negative sentence forms a positive fact (world state), not the absence of a fact. |
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 |
| Grice | Millikan | I 52 Language/Millikan: in this chapter: what are the relations between 1. the stabilizing function of a speech pattern 2. their literal use 3. the speaker's intentions. Stabilization function/Millikan: next chapter thesis: one aspect of the word meaning, the syntactic form is the focused stabilization function. >Terminology/Millikan. Literary use/Millikan: the literary use does not correspond to any stabilizing function (see below). Gricean Intention/MillikanVsGrice/Millikan: Thesis: the Gricean intentions are not at all what drives language usage and understanding. >Grice. Stabilization function/language/Millikan: if speech patterns such as words or syntactic forms have a stabilizing function, then these direct eigenfunctions of reproductively determined families (rfF) are 1st level, of which these patterns are also elements. Functions: of words etc. are historically acquired by expressing both utterances and reactions of the listener. Intention/Speaker's intention/N.B.: these functions do not depend on the speaker's intentions! Direct eigenfunction: has a word token even when it is produced by a parrot. The token is an element of a reproductively determined family in that it has a direct eigenfunction. >Speaker intention. Intention/purpose: the intention or purpose provides a derived eigenfunction. Derived eigenfunction: however, lies above and beyond the direct or stabilizing function. It can be the same as the direct function, but it does not have to be. In any case, it is not its own function of the speech pattern, it is not its eigenfunction. Stabilization Function/Language/Millikan: although the stabilization function is independent of purpose and speaker's intention, it is not independent of purposes that speakers can have in general. I 53 Here again there will be a "critical mass" of cases of use. I 63 Imperative/Millikan: now it is certainly the case that a listener, if asked if the speaker intended to obey the command, will surely immediately answer "yes". I 64 But that does not mean that he used this belief in obedience. Gricean intentions/MillikanVsGrice/Millikan: Gricean intentions are thus superfluous. And they also do not help to distinguish unnatural meaning from less interesting things. In any case, we need not pay attention to Gricean intentions, which are subject only to potential and not actual modifications of the nervous system. >Intention/Grice, >Intentionality/Grice. I 65 VsMillikan: one could object that you could have reasons for an action without these reasons being activated in the anatomy. Millikan: if I stop believing something, I will refrain from certain actions. Gricean Intentions/Millikan: the only interesting question is whether they are realised actually inside while one is speaking. E.g. Millikan: the Sergeant says: "When I say 'stop' the next time, do not stop!" A similar example is given by Bennett. Problem: the training was so effective that the soldier did not manage to stop. |
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 |
| Icons | Millikan | I 95 Def intentional icon/intentional icons/Millikan: intentional icons are patterns that are "good for something", that are "supposed to". They are there to be interpreted by a co-operation partner. For example, bee dance. >Intentionality, >Intention. I 96 Aboutness/Millikan: thus they show a kind of "aboutness" about "about" being something. For example, everything we call signs are intentional icons. >Aboutness/Millikan. Theorem: but not all the features of sentences are shown by intentional icons. Some are only held by sentences. E.g. Subject-predicate structure. Def Representation/Millikan: representations are intentional icons whose mapping rules are identified by the interpretation partners. >Representation. E.g. bee dance: it is hardly imaginable that bees really identify this. Sentence/intentional icons/Millikan: there are 4 characteristics according to which indicative and imperative sentences are intentional icons: 1. A sentence is an element of a family (reproductively determined family, rfF). For example, a sentence is an element of a family of sentences with the same surface structure. 2. A sentence usually stands between... I 97 ...two cooperating devices: producer and interpreter. 3. The sentence serves that the interpreter can adapt to normal conditions and eigenfunctions that can be exercised under these conditions. 4.a. Imperative: here it is an eigenfunction of the interpreter to produce the conditions himself to which the sentence is mapped. 4.b. Indicative: here the normal conditions refer to which the interpreter adapts in such a way that he can exert his eigenfunction on the fact that the sentence maps the conditions to the world. I 100 Definition intentional icon/Millikan: we do not know yet "of what" it is! We determine: (1) P is an imperative intentional icon of the last element of a series of things on which it has to map itself and which it is to produce. (2) P is an indicative intentional icon of all that it must map and which must be stated in the specification of the closest normal explanation explaining the appropriate adapted interpretation. 1. E.g. P is an imperative intentional icon of either the output pattern or (more likely) something behind it, for example, an aspect of the visual perception that P produces at the end and on which P is to be mapped. 2. E.g. P is an indicative intentional icon not of a retinal stimulus pattern but of an aspect of the world to which it adapts the interpreter to. For the next explanation of how the interpreter fullfills his eigenfunction, it is only necessary to mention that some variables have been mapped in the environment. For example, the explanation of why the heart is pumping blood does not need to mention how oxygen supplied to the muscle. I 101 E.g. It does not have to be explained how historically the mapping relation came about. Cf. >Picture theory. |
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 |
| Imperatives | Millikan | I 53 Imperative/Indicative/Millikan: imperative and indicative are not names of reproductively determined families, but rather categories of eigenfunctions. >Grammar/Millikan, >Terminology/Millikan. |
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 |
| Index Words | Millikan | I 161 Index/Index word/Adaptor/Millikan: unlike other words, the adaptor for an index word is not simply another part of the sentence. It can lie outside the sentence. ((s) pointing, anaphora, etc.). >Ostension, >Pointing, >Anaphora. Adaptive Eigenfunction/Millikan: E.g. Chameleon: the color-producing units are adapted eigenfunctions. >Terminology/Millikan. I 162 Index/Index word/Millikan: E.g. Suppose a chameleon is suspended in the air and has no background on which to align its color pattern. Then there is no adapted eigenfunction. Sentence: every element of a sentence has a relational eigenfunction. Only with it, it is completely described as a sentence part. Individual words do not have an adapted eigenfunction. Index word: has two relations: a) to something within the sentence - b) in addition to something outside. "I"/Millikan: is translated by me into an "inner name". "He"/Millikan: if "he" has no antecedent ((s) no anaphora), then it has no adapted eigenfunction. But it has a relational eigenfunction: Relational Eigenfunction/Index word/Millikan: is the function to be translated into an inner name that has the same referent as the antecedent. E.g. chameleon: here the normal condition for the image must have two components: 1. There must be a background (existence, existence condition). 2. The color pattern must be more or less the same. (Mapping condition). >Predication, >He/He himself, >Identification, >Reference. I 164 Adaptor/index/index word/Millikan: if an index does not have an adaptor, it lacks the full meaning, not truth. I 165 There/Index word/Millikan: presupposes "this": "in this place". This/index words/Millikan: "this" is usually conventional, passed on from speaker to speaker. There may also be "improvised" methods of application. These are not conventional. Improvised techniques can be repeated without leading to reproductively determined families. I 166 Of course: there can be "natural" methods, these are also not conventional: e.g. gestures. >Gesture. "This": (other than "I" and "You") must be added, by specifying the nature of the object. "This" seems to be a special kind of a free variable. Referent/this/Millikan: the referent is largely determined by the rest of the sentence in which "this" occurs. Cf. >Demonstratives. |
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 |
| Intentions | Millikan | I 61 Intention/Grice/Millikan: there is an argument that even infinite intricate intentions are subject to the normal language usage. E.g. Imperative. "Do A!": E.g. listener: if the listener thought the speaker did not intend it, he would not do A. Therefore, if the listener H agrees with speaker S, he must believe that S intends that H should do A. Speaker: If S expected that H believes that S did not intend that he was supposed to do A, then he could not rationally intend that H should do A. MillikanVs: the argument is wrong. It does not follow from the fact that a belief P would be incompatible with an action, so that if one were to perform the action, then one would have to believe that non-P. For example, if I thought that Jack the Ripper would be under my bed, I would not fall into my bed and immediately fall asleep. But from the fact that I fall in and fall asleep immediately does not follow that I believe Jack is not under my bed. Solution: it may be that I have never heard of Jack The Ripper. Normality/Millikan: I cannot conclude that agreement is intended from the fact that there is agreement in normal cases. >Speaker intention, >Speaker meaning, >Agreement. I 62 But that an argument is wrong does not show that its conclusion is wrong! Belief/Millikan: we have to distinguish here between having and using. There is also a distinction between the A) Having beliefs and B) The mere having of eigenfunctions or normal conditions for an action. I 148 Intension/Millikan: A) Definition explicit Intension/Millikan: an expression has an explicit intension when it is repeated, according to a rule derived from earlier sentences in which the expression itself did not occur. This often takes the form of certain descriptions. E.g. "the current President of the USA". B) Definition implicit Intension/Millikan: corresponds to methods in which the application of a term depends directly on perceptual data. But they are no stimulus meanings! 1. Perception/Millikan: perception is not passive, but an active activity. 2. Implicit intensions: unlike stimulus meanings, implicit intensions are not sets of stimulus patterns that elicit an utterance, but implicit intensions are certain abilities. For example, the ability to identify an object by one sense alone, e.g. by smell or touch. ( > Observation/Millikan). Intension/Sense/Millikan: if so, there is no reason to assume that intensions (implicitly or explicitly) determine the meaning. Meaning: is a question of the mapping rules, Intension: is a normal method of repetition of expressions... I 149 ...if the repeat programs may be different in different people as well. Intension/Millikan: it is unlikely that there is always only one intension (a repetition method) for a unique term. Nevertheless, the term would have a clear Fregean sense. For example, a chemist may have different methods of determining a substance. Meaning: to make it unambigous, it is not necessary that the intension (method of repetition) is infallible. "Bill's oldest brother" has an unambigous meaning for me, although I do not know that Bill still has an older brother than the one I think of. The intension does not help me. |
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 |
| Introduction | Millikan | I 82 New words/novelty/introduction/Millikan: the newly introduced word has an eigenfunction which is derived not only from the speaker's intentions, but also from the public stabilization function of the introduction. As such, it has a public significance. I 144 Introduction/Conviction/Belief/Intentional Icon/Millikan: 1. People have mechanisms - "consistency testers" - who test the consistency of their sentences. 2. Syntactic forms are produced by programs that are tested themselves. Problem: we must show why a sentence should be an intentional icon. The key will be to find an eigenfunction... I 145 ...for each sentence used by the consistency testers as a standard. >Terminology/Millikan. Ad 1. Assume that a token is repeated and has survived, is recognized, and acquires an eigenfunction. The fact that it passes the text, helps to stabilize itself. If all aspects of a sentence are elements of families, the sentence as a whole must meet condition 1. Ad 2. the consistency-tester distinguishes between pairs of sentences that are a) contradictions, b) say the same, c) are neither contradictions, nor say the same. For this, the author has to recognize the sentences that say the same, and recognize negation as a negation. New words: must be new due to the phonetic structure. Tester: must be genetically programmed to invent new words. I 146 New words and testers are designed to fit together. New programs: are only good when they help to produce sentences according to rules that have reasons. The reasons must mention the conditions under which they often work, and they must also mention laws of nature that connect sentences with what is mapped. Information: in this way sentences must transport information. (> F. Dretske: Knowledge and the Flow of Information, 1981). Solution: the consistency tester does this by comparing sentences produced by other programs with a sentence S. If S performs an eigenfunction according to the same mapping function, the consistency tester adapts to the conditions in the world so that it can now test these other programs! N.B.: hence S is an intentional icon. I 183 Introduction/reference/definite description/inner name/Millikan: If you translate a description into an inner name, must it be one that already exists, or can it be coined newly? For the moment, it is enough to distinguish these two possibilities. Terminology/Millikan: we then speak of "old" and "new" referents. Inner name/definite description/Millikan: The inner name used by the listener for the definite description must be governed by a concept. >Description. I 184 E.g. I have a concept of the members of my family. ((s) "concept" instead of "idea"). I 186 Introduction/identifying/identification/description/Millikan: a description that (by chance) introduces a referent does not express this by itself. >Identification. Necessarily identifying: a necessarily identifying description, however, expresses that it is identifying. ((s) self-reference: is something else than expressing its own function in the execution). I 211 Introduction/novelty/new/Millikan: When we introduce a whole new expression with referencing quotes, we refer to a reproductively determined family. In addition, the new symbol should at least in part consist of already known elements or aspects. Otherwise, the token does not fall within any schema equal/different, which is necessary to recognize the progeny of this expression (tokens of the same type). |
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 |
| Language Acquisition | Millikan | I 151 Language Learning/language acquisition/learning/Millikan: language acquisition requires an understanding of specific vocabulary, but also a general understanding of the phonetic and syntactic structures. >Syntax, >Phonetics, >Understanding, >Communication. Understanding/Syntax/Millikan: even if I do not understand a word, I have, so to say, substitute sentences in my inner, with which I maintain the general relation of negation. That is, I know what the negation of a sentence with an unknown word is to me. E.g. I do not understand the word "monotreme". That is, my inner token is not an intentional icon, because it does not belong to any family and has no direct eigenfunction. But N.B.: if it has a derived eigenfunction, there is something on which it should map. >Terminology/Millikan. I 152 Meaning: if there is something on which a word should normally map, it has some kind of meaning. >Meaning. I 311 Language acquisition/language learning/concept/language/learning/Millikan: every term a child learns with the help of language has previously learned a person without linguistic means ((s) by direct observation, > naturalism/Millikan). Property/Concept/Learning/Millikan: the concept of a property cannot be learned without having an idea of something contrary as the contrary, even if it does not have to be given as an autonomous, definable property. ((s) Otherwise circle). In addition, a concept of a substance must be developed that has this property. Category: In addition, a general method must be developed to identify categories to which these substances belong. We need categories from the beginning. |
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 |
| Language Rules | Millikan | I 3 Speech patterns/language device/terminology/Millikan: I mean words with these, syntactic forms, stress, accents, punctuation, etc. Thesis: such patterns are handed-down only because stable open and covert reactions of a cooperation partner are just as much handed down (they have asserted themselves). Standardization/Millikan: the (speech-) pattern only performs its eigenfunction with a cooperation partner, but with an arbitrary one. Therefore, it must be standardized. Stabilization/Millikan/(s): (temporary) for recurring tokens there must be a similarity to previous ones. Stabilization/standardization/Millikan: stabilization and standardization are two sides of a medal. >Terminology/Millikan. |
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 |
| Meaning (Intending) | Millikan | I 154 To mean/parrot/Millikan: the parrot cannot mean the question of course. To mean/Millikan: I can mean something with "monotreme", because I intend that the word has an eigenfunction, even if I cannot specify it in detail. >Terminology/Millikan. Expert/Layman/to mean/understanding/knowing/knowledge/Millikan: the paradox does not come from the fact that I cannot mean the same as the expert, but that there is a sense in which the expert knows what he means with "monotreme". And in this sense I do not know it ((s) not what I mean and not what the expert means). >Elm/beech example, >Idiolect, >Speaker meaning, >Speaker intention. |
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 |
| Negation | Millikan | I 221 Not/"not"/Tractatus/Wittgenstein/Millikan: Thesis: "not" is an operator who operates on the rest of the sentence by changing the sense of the entire sentence. >Operator. Negative sentence/negation/existence/Millikan: negative sentences cannot have non-existent facts as the real value. Reason: Negative facts do not have causal forces that could play a role in a normal explanation. Negative sentence/Millikan: we could assume that negative sentences are not representations. E.g. "not-p" is called "the fact that -p does not exist" In a similar way, Wittgenstein has understood it as well. >Fact. N.B.: we had said above, that existence sentences are not representations. Image theory/picture theory/Tractatus/Wittgenstein/Millikan: but understood sentences of the form "x does not exist" are understood in this way as to map a non-existent fact. Then the variable "x" in "x does not exist" does not go via names of single objects (objects, elementary objects) but via representations of possible states (possible facts). >Picture theory. Meaning/Non-existence/Negation/Wittgenstein/Millikan: so it was possible for him to maintain that sentences of the form "x does not exist" have a meaning ((s)> Non-Existence/Meinong). Millikan: in our terminology it means that they are representations (MillikanVs). I 222 And at the same time, he could claim that the most basic elements of all propositions correspond to real objects. N.B.: that made it possible that he could say "x does not exist" is always equivalent to a sentence of the form "not-p". Millikan: could we not maintain at least half of this equivalence? The from "not-p" to "that -p does not exist"? >Equivalence. MillikanVsWittgenstein: No, not even this we can do. If Wittgenstein was right and "not-p" says "that -p does not exist," then that would mean for my position that negative sentences do not map world states and are not representations. Millikan: instead, they would represent linguistic facts, "not-p" would then be an icon, but it does not represent, whereby a world state would have the sentence type "p" as a variant. Protoreferent/Millikan. "p" would not be a representative of "not-p" but a protoreferent. Question: would "not-p" be an icon of which the "p is false" ((s) linguistically) explicitly represented? Vs: then "not" would be no operator anymore! Not/Negation/Operator/Wittgenstein/Millikan: i.e. The mapping rule for "not-p" is a function of the mapping rule for "p". 1. If "not" is not an operator, it might happen that someone does not understand the meaning of "p," but still the sense of "not-p" absurd. 2. If "not-p" says "that -p does not exist", "not-p" must also be true if some variant in "p" is not fully determined, i.e. has no adapted meaning. E.g. "Pegasus was not a winged horse" e.g. "The present king of France is not bald" would be true sentences! 3. Certainly, it is the case that "'p' is false" at least maps (icons) that "p" has no real value. Correspondingly, "x does not exist" maps then the fact that "x" does not have referents. N.B.: if "not-p" says "that -p does not exist" it still maps a negative fact. > Facts/Millikan. I 224 Opposite/negative sentence/representation/Millikan: Thesis: negative sentences, whose opposites are normal representative sentences, must themselves represent positive facts. >Prepresentation, >Sentence. I 224 Negation/stabilization function/not/representation/Millikan: what is the stabilization function of "not" in normal representing sentences? It is not needed to "erase" the rest of the sentence. "Erase": sometimes occurs, but then it is called "Sorry" or "I did not mean that". Negation/"not": its function is not to produce no believe. That would not be a function. Eigenfunction: of "not" is relational. That is, it is a (mathematical) function of the eigenfunction of the sentence without "not". Sentence: has the function of producing a belief. Likewise, a sentence with "not" has to produce something that has a potential benefit. Negative sentence: perhaps it should eliminate a false belief? But that would be similar to "does not exist" works. >Existence, >Nonexistence. I 224 Negative sentence/"not"/imperative/Millikan: an imperative like "bring no dirt into the house" has very well a positive function. E.g. if you do it anyway, it is not done with an excuse "I did not want it". For the command was not, to do it without purpose. Not sufficient: "I did not intend it". Correct: I intended not to do it. Not sufficient: "I did not know I did it" Correct: you have to know that you do not do it. Not/imperative: here the usage is not parallel to the function of "does not exist". I 257 Negative sentence/Millikan: a negative sentence maps a positive fact (world state), not the absence of a fact. |
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 |
| Non-Existence | Millikan | I 193 Non-existence/Empty Names/Unicorn/Solution/Moore/Millikan: Moore introduced "concepts" so that names such as "Pegasus" have something they can correspond to. Solution/Frege: "meaning" to which referentially equivalent terms with different meaning can correspond to. >Unicorn-example, >Pegasus-example, >Fiction. Solution/Carnap/Millikan: E.g. "Pegasus": here we are talking about our linguistic usage or of the words, not the object. ((s) semantic rise). Identity/Existence/Sentence/Representation/Millikan: Thesis: neither sentences that contain the "is" of existence, nor the "is" of identity are representations! >Sentence/Millikan, >Representation/Millikan, >Identity/Millikan. Identity statement/Millikan: no representation. Existence assertion/existence statement/Existence/Millikan: are no representation. Intentional icon: however, identity statements and existence statements are intentional icons. However, they are more primitive icons than representations. Identity Theorem/Existence/Millikan: although they must map in accordance with mapping rules to perform their eigenfunction,... I 194 ...the variants of the facts in the world which they map do not have to be identified. >Terminology/Millikan. These sentences are icons of the relations of words to the world. That is, we do not translate them into inner icons of facts. I 203 Moved use/changed use/move/disengaged/non-existence/Millikan: E.g: "x does not exist": 1. This is not a representation. (Also not e.g. "x exists"). 2. It is not a referential use. >referential/attributive. |
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 |
| Representation | Millikan | Ruth G. Millikan Verschiedene Arten von zweckgerichtetem Verhalten in Dominik Perler, Markus Wild (Hg) Der Geist der Tiere Frankfurt 2005 II 208 Representation/Millikan: representations are very abstract models: e.g. English sentences as representations: significant changes (by substitution) in the sentences usually correspond to changes of the things of which the sentences are about. >Compositionality. Neural networks: probably abstract models represent "maps" or designs for the environment. >Picture theory. --- I 12 Representation/Millikan: sentences, thoughts, belief, convictions are representations. They are different from general intentionality. For example, bee dance: no representation. I 13 Representation: exercises its eigenfunction only if the referent is identified. I 140 Representation/Intentionality/Rationality/Millikan: Representation presupposes intentionality and does not explain it. Involvement in inferences is indeed part of what makes a desire to a representation, but is not part of what makes it intentional, intentionality and rationality are not two sides of a medal. I 199 No representation: e.g. "Cicero is Tullius" (identity): here, the word types "Cicero" and "Tullius" are not representative referents of tokens "Cicero" and "Tullius", but only protoreferents ((s) lowest types). Protoreferent/Millikan: Example 1. The word type "Cicero" is the protoreferent of "Cicero". 2. Cicero himself (the person) is also protoreferent of "Cicero", for "Cicero is Tullius" maps that "Tullius" names Cicero. I 200 Representation: but "Cicero" is not a representation (in an identity statement). The use of "A" in "A is B" is a parasitic use. Solution: the function of "A" is here not to be translated into an inner term, but to create a change in the concept which governs the use of the inner term into which "A" is usually translated. E.g. "The Lady is a vixen": Here "vixen" is not translated as "female fox". Shifted function: The representative referential function is shifted. I 224 Representation/Negation/Millikan: Thesis: negative representations have indeterminate meaning. ((s) But Millikan admits that negations are representations, unlike identity sentences and existence sentences). >Negation/Millikan. Millikan: as with indefinite descriptions, the real values are determined when they occur in true sentences, but they do not have to be identifiable for the listener to fulfill their eigenfunction. >Terminology/Millikan, >Description. I 331 Representation/Millikan: representation differs from image in that it should map according to certain rules. These rules are defined by the same history that turns the representations into representations. ((s) > naturalism/Millikan). |
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 |
| Sense | Millikan | I 6 Sense/Millikan: sense is the basic intentional or semantic feature, but it is not a reference and also not an intension. It is not even determined by intension! Therefore, there is an epistemological problem of intentionality: Intentionality/Millikan: Thesis: we cannot a priori know what we think! Because the meaning is not defined by reference! This provides support for realism. Given/Millikan: MillikanVsMyth of the given. Leads to a false "foundationalism" of epistemology. VsCorrespondence theory: this also rejects the correspondence theory... I 7 ...not only as a "test for truth" but also as a "nature of truth". In any case, according to a popular point of view. But this is not without paradoxes. Knowledge/Naturalism/Millikan: the abilities of a knowing person are a product of nature, as the knowing person itself. Knowledge must be something that one does in the world. It is a natural relation to the world. >Correspondence theory, >Correspondence/Millikan. I 11 Sense/Meaning/Millikan: sense is not "intension": and also not Quinean "meaning". Also not Fregean sense. >Meaning/Millkan. Intension/Millikan: intension has to do with a network of concluding rules. Sense: has taken over the task of "intension", but sense is not completely in contrast with "reference". >Intension/Millikan. Reference: having a referent will be the same as having "sense". Referents: are another thing. >Reference/Millikan. I 111 Def sense/sense/intentional icons/Fregean sense/Millikan: an intentional icon has sense and each of the variable and invariant mapping elements or aspects also have sense. Also every element of a family of such an element has sense. Having sense: corresponds to having normal conditions for the exercise of the direct eigenfunction. Definition sense/sense/Fregean sense/short/Millikan: is the normal mapping rule. The sense of an icon are the rules according to which the icon maps something. --- I 141 Sense/Intension/Summary/Millikan: 1. Neither stimulus meaning nor explicit intension (if any is present) determine the sense. 2. The sense determines neither the stimulus meaning nor the explicit intension (if there is one). 3. Expressions in the idiolect can therefore have different stimulus meanings and/or intensions, and still have the same meaning. Even the same stimulus meaning and/or intension and different senses. 4. Neither stimulus meaning nor intension are infallible. They do not need that because they are not "criteria". For the referent nothing depends on them. 5. Senses - also of thoughts - can be ambiguous and also empty. 6. A term in the idiolect can have multiple intensions and yet have a clear meaning. 7. Sense: an expression is not the same as the sense of one of the explicit intensions. 8. The sense of an expression can be ambiguous or empty, and yet its explicit intension can have a clear meaning. 9. If one can say that an empty term has a meaning (somehow related to intentionality), then only because it has an intension that makes sense on its part. Sense, not intension is the root of all intentionality, intension is only secondary "meaning". 10. It may be that one has two expressions in the idiolect but does not know that they have the same meaning, for example, Hesperus/Phosphorus. That is, knowledge of the synonymy in an idiolect is not knowledge a priori. Knowledge of the ambiguity of the Fregean sense is also no knowledge a priori. I 235 Sense/Complex/Complexity/composed/Expression/Millikan/(s): to have sense, an expression must be composed ((s) in a predication). |
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 |
| Sentence Meaning | Millikan | I 11 Definition sentence meaning/sense/Millikan: are the mapping functions (informally "rules") in accordance with which one would have to map it to the world if one wanted to perform its eigenfunction in accordance with a normal ((s) biological) explanation. >Terminology/Millikan. I 104 Sentence meaning/sense/sentence/Millikan: the meaning of a sentence is that it should correspond to something, not the one to which it corresponds to. >Meaning/Millikan, >Correspondence/Millikan. Sentence/word/meaning/Millikan: what is the difference between the way the combined elements of a sentence have sense and the way how "Theaitetos" has meaning? Sentence: from the fact that it is intended to correspond to something, it does not follow that there is something to which it corresponds. S: be a sentence, R: Correspondence relation. If the sentence is true, it is only that what is true of the sentence: Usually, (Ex)sRx. ((s) Normally there is a referent) On the other hand: Singular term/word/name/Millikan: from the fact that a name should normally correspond, follows however, that there is something to which it is to correspond! Should be: depends on the fact that the family of the term has a history that includes the actual correspondence with the referent. w: simple referring term r: referent. Then the following is true of w: (Ex) (Normally wRx). ((s) There is an object that normally corresponds.) R: is the correspondence relation, not the reference relation! It is the relation between w and r that is fulfilled by the fact that normally wRr - this is something quite different! >Singular term/Millikan. I 106 Reference/Millikan: the sentence meaning depends on much more fundamental types of relations than the correspondence or reference. For example, the relation of a true sentence to what it maps in the world cannot be analyzed as a reference, just as e.g. "blood pumping" cannot be analyzed as "blood pumping". ((s) > Naturalistic fallacy). |
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 |
| Sentences | Millikan | I 22 Sentence/Millikan: Sentences are reproduced units. A sentence usually has several role models. Syntactic rules: are the reproductively determined character of the sentence. They copy the grammar. >Syntax, >Proposition, >Meaning, >Picture theory. I 53 Sentence/Millikan: a sentence is never a simple element of a reproductively determined family, at least the syntactic form of words belongs to different families. Syntax: can be assumed as a large superordinate family, the individual forms belong to different families. Direct eigenfunction/sentence/Millikan: the direct eigenfunction of a sentence is derived from the stabilization functions of the elements. >Terminology/Millikan. I 90 Sentence/belief/language/thinking/Millikan: it seems clear that if we had no beliefs, we would stop talking or expressing sentences with meaning. But why is it clear? We need a different explanation. Sentence/Intentionality/Millikan: Thesis: a sentence (and any other typically intentional pattern) is intentional because of the eigenfunctions and normal relations that this pattern has for a producer and an interpreter. These two are cooperating units in this process. N.B.: then sentences are fundamentally intentional and have no derived intentionality. (MillikanVsTradition, MillikanVsSearle). |
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 |
| Signs | Millikan | I 6 Signs/Millikan: I will set up a general drawing theory based on the Fregean sense but in the sense of Peirce, so that conventional signs, but also thoughts are covered. >Fregean sense, >Sign/Peirce. This has an important consequence: Meaning/Sense/Millikan: sense is the basic intentional or semantic characteristic, but it is not reference and also not an intension. It is not even determined by intension! Therefore, there is an epistemological problem of intentionality: Intentionality/Millikan: Thesis: we cannot a priori know what we think! Because the meaning is not defined by reference! This provides support for realism. Given/Millikan: MillikanVsMyth of the given. Leads to a false "foundationalism" of knowledge theory. VsCorrespondence theory: this also rejects the correspondence theory... I 7 ...not only as a "test for truth" but also as a "nature of truth". >Correspondence theory/Millikan, >Intentionality. In any case, according to a popular point of view. But this is not without paradoxes. Knowledge/Naturalism/Millikan: the abilities of a knowing person are a product nature, as the knowing person itself. Knowledge must be something that one does in the world. It is a natural relation to the world. I 70 Signs/Conventional/Millikan: conventional signs are normally used without consideration. Convention: what makes conventional signs conventional is that they have an eigenfunction, which is independent of the particular use. >Convention. I 126 Sign/Millikan: each sign is either intentional or not intentional. Only if it is intentional, it is true/false. Intentionality/Millikan: intentionality allows gradations. |
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 |
| Singular Terms | Millikan | I 104 Singular Terms/intentionality/referencing expressions/Millikan: Singular terms may even have an even more complicated intentionality than whole sentences! >Intentionality. 1. Appears a singular term within a sentence. That is, this is the normal condition for its eigenfunction. 2. Within the context of the sentence, it is to correspond to an object (map an object). >Sentence/Millikan, >Predication. |
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 |
| Speaker Meaning | Millikan | I 5 Eigenfunction/Language/Meaning/MillikanVsGrice: we do not take the speaker meaning as the basic concept. I 77 Speaker meaning/truth/intention/truth/Millikan: that someone rather says the truth as something wrong does not depend on his intentions, but on the stabilization functions of the words he uses. >Terminology/Millikan. |
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 |
| Terminology | Millikan | I 2 Def Eigenfunction/Millikan: in contrast to 1. the current function 2. a "type of purpose", applicable on different occasions. (Generalization, "average" (see below.) E.g. An organ has a certain function = eigenfunction. Natural language/Millikan: natural language is not invented by someone for a purpose. Eigenfunction/Millikan: analogy: e.g. to organs of the body: we can use our organs for purposes other than their own function, e.g. to row with one's arms. I 3 Speech patterns/language device/terminology/Millikan: I mean words with this as well as, syntactic forms, stress, accents, punctuation, etc. Thesis: such patterns were only handed down because stable open and covert reactions of a cooperation partner are just as much handed down (have asserted themselves). Standardization/Millikan: the (speech-) pattern only performs its eigenfunction with a co-operation partner, but with an arbitrary one. Therefore, it must be standardized. Stabilization/Millikan/(s): (temporal) for recurring tokens a similarity must be given to previous tokens. Stabilization/standardization/Millikan: stabilization and standardization are two sides of a medal. I 5 Eigenfunction/Language/Meaning/MillikanVsGrice: we do not take the speaker meaning as the basic concept. Meaningfulness/Millikan: We do not explain meaningfulness with typical use. Belief/wishes/Intention/Millikan: belief, wishes and attention can be explained without reference to language. I 5 NORMAL/Terminology/Millikan: (spelling: capitalized): is understood here as a biological term, which is biologically normal. Not what average behavior is. I 12 "Real value"/real value/terminology/Millikan: I call the basic partner of sense real value. The difference between real value and a speaker is at least as great as between sense and intension. Terminology/Millikan/(s): "sense" is to be reproduced from now on with "meaning", which is not Fregean sense. Real value/Millikan: the real value is practically the truthmaker of sentences. Part II: this is about Fregean sense. Sense: is quasi intentionality. Thought/sentence/Millikan: are patterns that show intentionality, perhaps they have the form of inner sentences ((s) > Mentalese). Inner Sentences/Mentalese/Millikan: inner sentences and Mentalese are not determined by final rules. Therefore, intentionality is not equal to rationality. Intentionality/Millikan: I describe naturalist, but not reductionist. (MillikanVsReductionism). Intentionality/Millikan: their understanding is something quite different from the understanding of consciousness. I 17f Def direct eigenfunction/Millikan: a thing (device, pattern, instrument) has a direct eigenfunction, if it has it as an element of a particular family of things that I call Definition reproductively established family/reF/Terminology/Millikan: things that are similar are similar here because there was a kind of copying process (> reproduction). I 19 Reproductively established family/reF/Millikan: here there are two different ones: Reproductively established family 1st level: only elements of reproductively established families of 1st level are copies of each other. Reproductively established family of higher level: their elements can only be defined by the concept of the eigenfunction of lower-level families and the concept of "normal explanation" (according to biological normality). I 23 Def reproductively established family 1st stage/reF/Millikan: Any set of entities having the same or reproductively established characters derived from repetitive reproductions of the same character of the same model form a reproductively established family of 1st level. N.B.: i.e. that the elements can be reproduced in the same way, but they do not have to! e.g. Tokens of the written word "dog" can be copied in writing, photocopied, printed, etc. For example, the repetition of a word by a parrot. Reproductively established family of higher level: I 24 (1) Any set of similar units produced by elements of the same reproductively established families if it is a direct eigenfunction of this family to produce these units and if all are produced in accordance with normal explanations, form a higher level reproductively established family. (2) Any set of similar units produced by elements of the same pattern, if one of the eigenfunctions of this pattern is to make later units coincide with earlier ones, and this similarity is in accordance with a normal explanation of this function, form a reproductively established family of higher level. I 27 Def method of difference/Mill/Millikan: trial and error, but with only one trial and one observation. I 109 Substance/Properties/Millikan: Thesis: "Substance" and "properties" are categories that are cut off relative to each other and relative to the operation of the negation. They do not mutually exclude one another. Properties/Millikan: properties are varied elements of facts, receptive to negation. Substances/Millikan: substances are also variable, but relative to other transformations. I 127 Def Hubot/Terminology/Millikan: Hubots are beings that are like us, except that they all think in the same inner language. (This is unlikely for humans). (Other classification, other opposites, other concept pairs > order). In addition, Hubots never develop new concepts. N.B.: the example is to show that Fregean senses and intensions are not the same. I 130 Def Rubots/Rubot/Terminology/Millikan: Rubots are like Hubots, (sensitive to light, odors, temperature, touch) but in a different frequency spectrum than Hubots. Vocabulary: may still be perfectly coordinated with the environment with regard to the meaning (as with the Hubots). I 130 Def Rumans/Ruman/Terminology/Millikan: Rumans apply color concepts like Hubots. And they also live in a similar environment (but initially somewhere else). Color/Color concepts/Perception/Spectrum: unlike the Hubots, the Rumans live under a sun that emits much redder light. Language/Stimulus Meaning/Hubots/Rumans/Millikan: Suppose the mechanisms that produce their sentences are identical. That is, the stimulus meanings of their expressions correspond perfectly! I 151 Def "fully-developed" Intension/Terminology/Millikan: the fully-developed intension is the intensions, which an inner term can have beyond the language-bound intentions. I 277 Complete concept/Millikan: to have a complete concept, one needs time concepts. Accessibility: complete concepts for durable objects are not as accessible as concepts for substances such as e.g. domestic cat or e.g. gold. I 281 Summary/substance/property/identity/self-identity/Millikan: Perfect Secondary Substance: e.g. gold: has an identity that is formally the same as that of an individual in relation to its properties. Imperfect secondary substance: e.g. 69s Plymouth (contradiction to above) e.g. domestic cat: have a kind of identity that is formally analogous to the identity of perfect substances. For example, in accordance with laws in situ, instead of under all natural conditions. I 289 Def Subessence/Terminology/Millikan: e.g. Gold exists over space and time, without being instantiated in the same objects. It is an identity that the material has relative to its own properties. I 332 Veil/Millikan: authors such as Wittgenstein and Quine have once again introduced a veil, like Descartes and Hume earlier. I 325 Def "Meaning-rationalism"/Millikan: Thesis: the knowledge that a proposition has meaning is not empirical, but a priori. Unlike knowledge about judgments, this is empirical. |
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 |
| Type/Token | Millikan | I 74 Names/Type/Word type/Millikan: with this I mean from now on always "lowest type" (words with the "same meaning"(s)) Thus Millikan avoids the affected concept of the synonymy. Type: Elements of independent branches of the same family are not tokens of the same type! E.g. There are 17 people at the school called John. I 75 Solution: Then there are 17 different name types, in daily use at school, they are different lowest types because individual tokens are not reproductions according to the model of other tokens. The individual tokens (assigned to the individual humans) deliver independently. I 75 Meaning/Millikan: in the sense of stabilization functions that are historically close, meaning belongs to: 1. the lowest type. 2. At second thought, the meaning belongs to all tokens of the same type. >Terminology/Millikan. Name/Millikan: (see below) because reference and denotation depend on the stabilization function, it can be that someone uses a name without being able to identify the referent ((s) > attributive). Millikan: as well as e.g. Elm/Beech trees. Identification/Millikan: here something is identified as the element of the lowest type. So I need only to know the branch of the family, as the one the stabilizing function stabilizes. Word Equality/Millikan: what makes two tokens tokens into the same word. That is, the same genetic type or lowest type - is the history of use. I 208 Mentioning/quotation marks/Millikan: the stabilization function of the quotation marks is adapted to the "filling". Type: Tokens are of the same type when they are tokens of the same lowest type. Expressions and sentences are of the same type when each of their aspects coincides in the lowest type. Alternatively, expressions are grouped into types,... I 209 ...by reference to genetic families. Or if they are composed of the same signs and spaces, or of phonemes of the same families, in the same order. This can happen in different ways: e.g. the German word "red" or the (English) syllable "red". Therefore, it is possible that mentioning quotes themselves belong to different lowest types. Mentioning quotation marks: have then the relational eigenfunction to produce an act of identification of the type from which its filling is a token. Adapter: Quotation marks must be supplied with an adapter that appears as their filling so that they have an adapted function. But this fact does not make them into indexical propositional sentence elements. Indexical: is the expression between the quotation marks because it a has a shifting function which is relational. It is to be mapped to something that is to be identified by the listener. This something is the reproductively determined family or type of token. For example, the shifting referent of "Abe Lincoln" in the context of ""Abe Lincoln" is a name" is an indexed referent of the type "Abe Lincoln". >Indexicality. Relation: this must be a relation rather than a mere neighborhood. For this, the token-to-type relation is perfect. >Relation/Millikan. |
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 |
| Understanding | Millikan | I 151 Understanding/Syntax/Millikan: even if I do not understand a word, I have, so to speak, deputy sentences in my inner, with which I maintain the general relation of negation. That is, I know what the negation of a sentence with an unknown word is to me. E.g. I do not understand the word "monotreme". That is, my inner token is not an intentional icon, because it does not belong to any family and has no direct eigenfunction. >Terminology/Millikan. But N.B.: if it has a derived eigenfunction, there is something on which it should map. I 152 Meaning: if there is something on which a word should normally map, it has some kind of meaning. >Meaning. Use/Understanding/Millikan: there is an instance in me that even knows the use of "monotreme". My consistency tester. Consistency Tester/Millikan: its mission is to review the programs that repeat the word use and ensure that this is done according to consistent reasons. >Consistency. I 304 Understanding/belief/conviction/listening/language/conclusion/Millikan: Believing what someone else is saying is happening directly. There is no inference between. It's like direct perception! I 305 Also the use of reading devices such as e.g. fuel gauge: is direct perception without interfering inferences. Nevertheless, there is a difference: E.g. TV: here the subject must know how its relation to the world is what it does not need to know in a "normal situation". But that is not the difference between knowledge with and without conclusion. |
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 |
| Universal Quantification | Millikan | I 232 All/negation/"not all"/Millikan: the "not" in "not all A are φ" is not immunizing. If it were, then the fact that e.g. "All Blubbs are gull" is meaningless and would entail that "not all Blubbs are gull" would be true. So: from the fact that "not all unicorns are white" is not true, should not follow that "all unicorns are white" is true. Solution: if the word "unicorn" has no meaning (no mapping rule, not to be confused with intension, which the word has very well) then the sentence "All unicorns are white" should also have no meaning! Representation/non-existence: in a representative sentence, "All A's are φ" should never be true if there are no A's. Universal Quantification/Existential Quantification/Millikan: "All A's are φ" would always imply "Some A's are φ". ((s) For representative sentences). Representation/all/Millikan: but is it such that such sentences with "all" always represent? E.g. "Painfully disappointed, Johnny never returned", e.g. "the boy who delivers the newspaper is not very tall": Here "not" does not operate above the logical predicate that is contained in the grammatical subject. Suppose, it would also be like this in "All A's are φ". "Not all A's are φ" is equivalent to "Some A are not-φ". So if there is any positive sentence embedded here, then it should also be embedded in the grammatical subject "All A's" E.g. "All red cows are friendly": becomes "Not all red cows are friendly". What is equivalent to... I 233 ..."Some red cows are not friendly". The grammatical subject contains an embedded sentence here ""Some" cows are red". And that must also have embedded the original sentence! So if "All A's are f" implies "Some are ..." then the way "not" works here is perfectly compatible with the way it works on other representative sentences and does not need any special comment. Representation/Millikan: Question: are such sentences representations then? Often yes, but sometimes not! Stabilization function: what could be the stabilization function of "All A's are φ"? It must at least be that a disposition is evoked in the listener to produce certain types of inferences. For example, from "x is an A" to "x is φ" and from "x is not φ" to "x is not A". And from "no B is φ" to "no B is an A". >Terminology/Millikan. Problem: beyond these elementary functions the functions of "All A's are φ" seem to be separated. A) Nominal use/all/Millikan: licensed here "All A's are f" is a subjunction (subjunctive inference) of this type: E.g. "Suppose x is an A, then x would be φ" and B) "Suppose x should not be φ, then x would better be not an A". Representation: E.g.: "All students who cheat are exmatriculated". Now everyone is so frightened that no one cheats at all. That is, the students are adapted to this world, simply by the fact that the sentence produces dispositions to inferences which map dispositions in this world. Intentional Icons: one might think that the dispositions are correct intentional icons because they map potential dispositions. I 234 MillikanVs: but the use is not representative here, but rather nomical! Here nothing has to be mapped so that the eigenfunction is fulfilled, but a disposition is produced. ((s) The disposition is not mapped). Nomical use/"not"/Millikan: nomical use, however, is very special and always must be marked somehow. Here, e.g. through the use of the future tense. There remain two questions regarding "all": 1. Why are we tempted to believe that "all A are φ" is true, not despite, but precisely because of the fact that there are no A's? E.g. "All day-active bats are herbivores" is true, because there are no day-active bats. 2. How do sentences of the form "All A are φ" map the world at all? If we consider here only the normal and the nominal use, there is no common explanation, only a jointly focused eigenfunction. Namely, a disposition to produce inferences. If there are no A's, it is not a problem to conclude the disposition from A to φ is simply not activated. Also, the inferences from "x is not " to "x is not an A" and... I 235 ...from "no B is φ" to "no B is an A" become true. (Here, however, A must have a meaning, that is to say, in this case, a complex term.) E.g. "All bad apples have been removed from the basket". Here one can conclude that only good apples are in the basket. Whether bad apples have been in it before, does not have any consequences. |
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 |
| Use | Millikan | I 72 Use/stabilization function/Millikan: Question: why do words have a stabilization function and a standardization function? >Terminology/Millikan. Def genetic type/Millikan: we need a genetic type if we classify words only because of their affiliation to families (reproductively established families). So Tokens count as "the same word". Function: this is not a reference to a function: that shows the example of the parrot. E.g. a Martian who by chance expresses a word which a Frenchman would use in the situation, does not express a French word but a Martian one. Language/Davidson/Millikan: language is as difficult to determine as propositions. (Quine: dito in word and object). Equality/Definition/Davidson: Languages are identical when identical sentences express identical propositions. >Language/Davidson, >Proposition/Davidson, >Translation/Davidson. I 73 Identity/equality/words/propositions/sentences/Millikan: this is about the history of use, not about form or function. Form/function/Millikan: form and function can be relevant for subordinate lexicon entries, so that types which correspond to superordinate entries are divided with modern usage by family and form in accordance. Function: also subdivision into "verb", "noun", etc. Definition Lowest types/lexicon entries: Entries are also asked if they have "the same meaning". But this is not Fregean sense! Stabilization function/SF/Millikan: some lexicon meanings are not distinguished by actual functions, but the lowest types are classified by independent stabilization functions of the tokens! And so they correspond to branches of the family. Each of these stabilization functions can provide further transmission of tokens of the word. There are stabilization functions arranged in layers,... I 74 ...some of which stir from earlier times of use, others from more modern times. Meaning/Word Meaning/Millikan: word meaning is therefore divided into historically earlier and later meanings. >Word meaning. I 77 Use/history/language/Millikan: the history of use is often not documented. History: here it can be about temporally closer or distant stabilization functions. E.g. "You will go to ..." is this indicative or imperative? Stabilization function/Millikan: the stabilization function is part of the public importance. Only through stabilization functions can one differentiate the word meaning and the speaker meaning. I 152 Use/word usage/Evolution/Millikan: Programs for repeating words have survived because they have led to consistent sets of beliefs. The programs pass the tester only if they work in accordance with a normal explanation. Intentional icon: when they have passed the test, such token are elements of intentional icons, with direct Fregean sense. Derived eigenfunction: has a word when I hear it for the first time. It becomes an inner term. Over time this becomes an intentional icon. >Terminology/Millikan. |
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 |
| World/Thinking | Millikan | I 88 Sentence/world/meaning/MillikanVsRorty/Millikan: 1. We assume that a sentence belongs to the world (at least if it is true). (MillikanVsRorty). ((s) Explanation: World/Rorty: the world is everything that is not a sentence. This is so for an author who is dealing with the problem of circular reasoning. Sentences are about the world. So the can not be in the world at the same time). >World/Rorty. Mathematical equation/Millikan: here it is perhaps different. Truth/Millikan: Let us assume that it has to do with some mapping relation or mapping rule. N.B.: this cannot be a natural status (status within the natural world). e.g. wrong sentence: does not map anything, but still has meaning. But if it has a meaning, it must mean something. But not something actual. So not something in the natural world. N.B.: then that what a true sentence means, cannot be something in the actual world. Solution: the relation of a true sentence to something undoubtedly actual in the world is mediated by a relation that is not itself in the world. This relation is the meaning. Meaning/Millikan: is not itself in the world, but the relation between a true sentence and what is in the world. Therefore, this relation is not causal. Truthmaker/Millikan: Cannot be found in false sentences. And we do not understand false sentences by merely saying that it is not true. Meaning/Millikan: meaning must be something that is common to true and false sentences. Image/Meaning/Millikan: Meaning also seems to be irrelevant for actual mapping relations. Solution/Millikan: our terms "Eigen ..." and "Normal". True and false sentences "are supposed to correspond" with facts in the world in accordance with certain mapping rules. This can be explained with the terms of normality and eigenfunction. >Terminology/Millikan. I 89 False/false sentence/Millikan: is then just as unproblematic as e.g. a chameleon, which does not adapt to the color of its environment. ((s)> mistake, error, disturbance). >Error. Meaning/Millikan: 2. Sounds become sentences with meaning when they are interpreted. Intentionality/language/tradition/Millikan: is therefore a dependent (on interpretation) intentionality . ((s) > derived intentionality). Sentence/subject/world/Millikan: without the intentionality a sentence would be an ordinary object. Thought/Thinking/Intentionality/Millikan: N.B.: then the intentionality of thoughts cannot be interpreted as that of sentences. Otherwise we would have a regress. >Regress. Representation/Millikan: those who think sentences are internal representations forget that sentences and images are only intentionally derived. >Representation/Millikan. |
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 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frege, G. | Millikan Vs Frege, G. | I 102 Relation of projection/language/Millikan: We begin by saying that at least a few words are coordinated with objects. Accordingly, true propositions correspond with facts in the world. Problem: Incorrect sentences do not correspond to any facts. How can individual words that correspond very well to objects, be composed in a way that in the end the whole sentence does not correspond? Ex "Theaetetus flies": "Theaetetus" corresponds to Theaitetus, "flies" corresponds to flying. wrong solution: to say that it was up to the relation between the Theaetetus and the flying. Because the relation corresponds somewhat, this may be instantiated (Ex between Theaitetos and walking) or uninstantiiert. Everything corresponds to something - just not the whole sentence "Theaetetus flies". Solution/Frege: he joined the singular term with "values" that were the objects in the world. I 103 Sentence/Frege/Millikan: he interpreted thus similarly to names, as complex characters that marked truth or falsity in the end. (Millikan pro Frege: "elegant") Solution/Wittgenstein/WittgensteinVsFrege/Millikan (Millikan: better than Frege): complex aRb, whereas in the case of false sentences the correspondence with the world lacks. Correspondence/Wittgenstein/Millikan: but that is another meaning of "corresponding"! Words should correspond with different things than sentences with the world. ((S) double difference: 1. aRb unlike 2. SLW!. It would have already made a difference, if aRb and SRW were opposed.). ((S) Sense/Wittgenstein/(S): corresponds to the possibility of derogations.) I 190 real value/indexical adaptor/denotation/Millikan: Ex "the ___ N of ....". indexical adaptor: has to be a real value of "N" to be in the embedded clause "N ..." and a real value of "the" in the embedded sentence "the ...". focused eigenfunction/eigenfunction: to be translated into an internal name, which identifies the individual N. This has the entire denotation if it is properly adapted. intentional Icon: Ex "the ___m of..." thus includes two intentional icons or projections on facts. But these are different from the purpose of the sentence as a whole or a subset. embedded sentence: does not only want to introduce the listener to a fact, but o show to which complex category belongs what corresponds to the subject in the independent sentence containing the embedded sentence. Reference: that's how the reference of a designation is determined. Sense / Millikan: now it is clear why I have called sense the rules. Because the various markings differ in terms of the rules, even if they have the same references. Sense according to Frege/Millikan: this difference of rules is the difference in meaning. Meaning/reference/MillikanVsFrege: but a reference has to take on only a meaning of a certain kind. Thus, there is something that has been previously discriminated before the meaning of the remainder of the sentence has been identified. I 191 Reference/meaning/Millikan: but the having of meaning or of references are very similar types of "having". I 274 Property/object/predicate/substance/individual/ontology/Millikan: Strawson'S distinction between "monogamous" and "non-monogamous" entities is not absolute but relative: Object/thing: Ex if my ring is made of gold, it can not be made of silver at the same time. polygamous: Gold is relative to my ring. ((S) it could have been made of silver - the gold could have belonged to another subject.). Then gold is a property (as opposed to another) and my ring a substance. But in relation to other substances the identity of gold seems to be like the identity of an individual. Ontology/MillikanVsFrege/MillikanVsRussell: we must drop the rigid distinction between concept and object or individual thing and property. I 275 Description: not only predicates are variations in world states, but also substances or individuals (they can be exchanged). Substance: if we consider gold as a property that does not prevent interpreting it also as a substance. As Aristotle said: Individuals/Aristotle/Millikan: are merely primary substances, not the only substances that exist, that is, substances which are not properties of something else. Substance/Millikan: is actually an epistemic category. Substance/Millikan: Ex Gold, Ex Domestic Cat, Ex '69 Plymouth Valiant 100th. Substance/category/Millikan: substances fall into categories defined by exclusive classes, in regard to which they are determined. Ex gold and silver fall into the same category because they belong to the same exclusive classes: have a melting point, atomic weight, etc. I 308 Truth/accuracy/criterion/Quine/Millikan: For Quine a criterion for correct thinking seems to be that the relation to a stimulus can be predicted. MillikanVsQuine: but how does learning to speak in unison facilitate the prediction? Correspondence/MillikanVsQuine/MillikanVsWittgenstein: both are not aware of what conformity in judgments really is: it is not to speak in unison. If one does not say the same, that does not mean that one does not agree. Solution/Millikan: correspondence is to say the same about the same. Mismatch: can arise only if sentences have subject-predicate structure and negation is permitted. One-word sentence/QuineVsFrege/Millikan: Quine goes so far as to allow the sentence "Ouch!" He thinks the difference between word and sentence in the end only concernes the printer. Negation/Millikan: the negation of a sentence is not proven by a lack of evidence, but by positive facts (supra). Contradiction/Millikan: that we do not agree on a sentence and its negation simultaneously lies in the nature (natural necessity). I 309 Thesis: lack of contradiction is essentially based on the ontological structure of the world. |
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 |
| Millikan, R. | Verschiedene Vs Millikan, R. | Millikan I 90 Sentence/Belief/Language/Thinking/Millikan: it seems clear that if we had no beliefs, we would stop speaking or uttering sentences with meaning. But why is that clear? We need another explanation (see below). Sentence/Intentionality/Millikan: Thesis: a sentence (and any other typical intentional pattern) is intentional because of the eigenfunctions and normal relations that this pattern has to a producer and an interpreter. These two are cooperating units in this process. N.B.: then sentences are fundamentally intentional and have no derived intentionality. (MillikanVsTradition, MillikanVsSearle). ((s) Intentionality/Millikan/(s): must then no longer refer to the mental.) VsMillikan: one could argue that intentionality must be connected with the mental, because the analysis of the intentionality of thoughts or inner representations must at least take place in accordance with principles according to which consciousness and the mental itself must be analyzed. Relation/VsMillikan: the relations offered by Millikan are merely external. At best, they correlate changes in consciousness with changes in the external world. They themselves lie outside the mind and outside consciousness. Consciousness/Tradition: but be a consciousness of the world, not merely consciousness of the changes of itself. I 91 Tradition: we experience our consciousness directly. MillikanVsTradition: what kind of experience of intentionality should this be? What kind of power should this argument have? The force should be epistemic and rational. Uncorrectability/MillikanVsTradition: the experience of consciousness (experience of intentionality) should have something infallible. We would then also have to have an immediate understanding. It would also have to assume the existence of intentionality and consciousness, otherwise the experience could not be "in" it. Consciousness/Tradition: assumes that consciousness is transparent. And therefore it cannot only consist of external relations to the outer world, and these are necessary for nature. MillikanVsVs: suppose we reject this epistemic rationalistic picture, i.e. we deny that there is "something epistemically given". Then we could admit that sometimes people are aware of their thoughts. But we could maintain that this awareness is partly an external relation. The "inside" of this feeling (consciousness, awareness) I 92 does not guarantee that it is the inside of a true awareness relation. Consciousness/Millikan: even consciousness of consciousness is not an immediate object. There is nothing transparent about consciousness. N.B./Millikan: this is disturbing because it follows (negative thesis) that it is possible that we do not know what we think! ((s) DavidsonVsHume: ditto). I.e. nothing is guaranteed from the act of consciousness itself. Rationalism/rationalist/intentionality/consciousness/MillikanVsRationalism/Millikan: the traditional rationalist view of consciousness and intentionality leads to one dead end after the other. |
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 |
| Quine, W.V.O. | Millikan Vs Quine, W.V.O. | I 215 descriptive/referential/denotation/classification/Millikan: you can force a descriptive denotation to work referentially, Ex "He said that the winner was the loser." Ex (Russell) "I thought your yacht was larger than it is." I 216 Solution: "the winner" and "larger than your Yacht" must be regarded as classified according to the adjusted (adapted) sense. On the other hand: "The loser" probably has only descriptive of meaning. "Your Yacht" is classified by both: by adjusted and by relational sense, only "your" is purely referential. Quine: (classic example) Ex "Phillip believes that the capital of Honduras is in Nicaragua." MillikanVsQuine: according to Quine that's not obviously wrong. It can be read as true if "capital of Honduras" has relational sense in that context. referential/descriptive/attribution of belief/intentional/Millikan: there are exceptions, where the expressions do not work descriptively, nor purely referential, but also by relational sense or intension. Ex "the man who us drove home" is someone the speaker and hearer know very well. Then the hearer must assume that someone else is meant because the name is not used. Rule: here the second half of the rule for intentional contexts is violated, "use whichever expression that preserves the reference". This is often a sign that the first half is violated, "a sign has not only reference but also sense or intension, which must be preserved. Why else use such a complicated designation ("the man who drove us home"), instead of the name? Ortcutt/Ralph/spy/Quine/Millikan: Ex there is a man with a brown hat that Ralph has caught a glimpse of. Ralph assumes he is a spy. a) Ralph believes that the man he has caught a glimpse of is a spy. I 217 b) Ralph believes that the man with the brown hat is a spy. Millikan: The underlined parts are considered relational, b) is more questionable than a) because it is not clear whether Ralph has explicitly perceived him as wearing a brown hat. Quine: In addition, there is a gray-haired man that Ralph vaguely knows as a pillar of society, and that he is unaware of having seen, except once at the beach. c) Ralph believes that the man he saw on the beach is a spy. Millikan: that's for sure relational. As such, it will not follow from a) or b). Quine: adds only now that Ralph does not know this, but the two men are one and the same. d) Ralph believes that the man with the brown hat is not a spy. Now this is just wrong. Question: but what about e) Ralph believes that Ortcutt is a spy. f) Ralph believes that Ortcutt is not a spy. Quine: only now Quine tells us the man's name (which Ralph is unaware of). Millikan: Ex Jennifer, an acquaintance of Samuel Clemens, does not know that he is Mark Twain. I 218 She says: "I would love to meet Mark Twain" and not "I'd love to meet Samuel Clemens". language-dependent: here, "Mark Twain" is classified dependent on language. So also language bound intensions are not always irrelevant for intentional contexts. It had o be language-bound here to make it clear that the name itself is substantial, and also that it is futile to assume that she would have said she wanted to meet Samuel Clemens. Ralph/Quine/Millikan: Quine assumes that Ralph has not only two internal names for Ortcutt, but only one of them is linked to the external name Ortcutt. Millikan: Description: Ex you and I are watching Ralph, who is suspiciously observing Ortcutt standing behind a bush with a camera (surely he just wants to photograph cobwebs). Ralph did not recognize Ortcutt and you think: Goodness, Ralph believes that Ortcutt is a spy ". Pointe: in this context, the sentence is true! ((S) Because the name "Ortcutt" was given by us, not by Ralph). referential/Millikan: Solution: "Ortcutt" is classified here as referential. referential/Millikan. Ex "Last Halloween Susi actually thought, Robert (her brother) was a ghost." ((S) She did not think of Robert, nor of her brother, that he was a ghost, but that she had a ghost in front of her). MillikanVsQuine: as long as no one has explicitly asked or denied that Tom knows that Cicero is Tullius, the two attributions of belief "Tom believes that Cicero denounced Catiline" and "... Tullius ..." are equivalent! Language-bound intension/Millikan: is obtained only if the context makes it clear what words were used, or which public words the believer has as implicit intentions. Fully-developed (language-independent) intension/Millikan: for them the same applies if they are kept intentionally: I 219 Ex "The natives believe that Hesperus is a God and Phosphorus is a devil." But: Pointe: It is important that the intrinsic function of a sentence must be maintained when one passes to intentional contexts. That is the reason that in attribution of belief one cannot simply replace "Cicero is Tullius" by "Cicero is Cicero". ((S) trivial/non-trivial identity). Stabilizing function/statement of identity/Millikan: the stabilizing function is that the listener translates "A" and "B" into the same internal term. Therefore, the intrinsic function of "Cicero is Cicero" is different from that of "Cicero is Tullius". Since the intrinsic function is different one can not be used for the other in intentional contexts. Eigenfunction: Ex "Ortcutt is a spy and not a spy": has the Eigenfunkion to be translated into an internal sentence that has a subject and two predicates. No record of this form can be found in Ralph's head. Therefore one can not say that Ralph believes that Ortcutt is a spy and not a spy you. I 299 Non-contradiction/Millikan: the test is also a test of our ability to identify something and whether our concepts represent what they are supposed to project. MillikanVsQuine: but this is not about establishing "conditions for identity". And also not about "shared reference" ("the same apple again"). This is part of the problem of uniformity, not identity. It is not the problem to decide how an exclusive class should be split up. I 300 Ex deciding when red ends and orange begins. Instead, it's about learning to recognize Ex red under different circumstances. Truth/accuracy/criterion/Quine/Millikan: for Quine a criterion for right thinking seems to be that the relationship to a stimulus can be predicted. MillikanVsQuine: but how does learning to speak in unison facilitate the prediction? Agreement/MillikanVsQuine/MillikanVsWittgenstein: both are not aware of what agreement in judgments really is: it is not to speak in unison. If you do not say the same, that does not mean that one does not agree. Solution/Millikan: agreement is to say the same about the same. Mismatch: can arise only if sentences have subject-predicate structure and negation is permitted. One-word sentence/QuineVsFrege/Millikan: Quine goes so far as to allow "Ouch!" as a sentence. He thinks the difference between word and sentence in the end only concernes the printer. Negation/Millikan: the negation of a sentence is not proven by lack of evidence, but by positive facts (supra). Contradiction/Millikan: that we do not agree to a sentence and its negation simultaneously lies in nature (natural necessity). I 309 Thesis: lack of Contradiction is essentially based on the ontological structure of the world. agreement/MillikanVsWittgenstein/MillikanVsQuine/Millikan: both do not see the importance of the subject-predicate structure with negation. Therefore, they fail to recognize the importance of the agreement in the judgment. agreement: this is not about two people getting together, but that they get together with the world. agreement/mismatch/Millikan: are not two equally likely possibilities ((s) > inegalitarian theory/Nozick.) There are many more possibilities for a sentence to be wrong, than for the same sentence to be true. Now, if an entire pattern (system) of coinciding judgments appears that represent the same area (for example color) the probability that each participant reflects an area in the world outside is stupendous. ((s) yes - but not that they mean the same thing). Ex only because my judgments about the passage of time almost always matches with those of others, I have reason to believe that I have the ability to classify my memories correctly in the passage of time. Objectivity/time/perspective/mediuma/communication/Millikan: thesis: the medium that other people form by their remarks is the most accessible perspective for me that I can have in terms of time. I 312 Concept/law/theory/test/verification/Millikan: when a concept appears in a law, it is necessary I 313 to test it along with other concepts. These concepts are linked according to certain rules of inference. Concept/Millikan: because concepts consist of intensions, it is the intensions that have to be tested. Test: does not mean, however, that the occurrence of sensual data would be predicted. (MillikanVsQuine). Theory of sensual data/today/Millikan: the prevailing view seems to be, thesis: that neither an internal nor an external language actually describes sensual data, except that the language depends on the previous concepts of external things that usually causes the sensual data. I 314 Forecast/prediction/to predict/prognosis/MillikanVsQuine/Millikan: we project the world to inhabit it, not to predict it. If predictions are useful, at least not from experiences in our nerve endings. Confirmation/prediction/Millikan: A perceptual judgment implies mainly itself Ex if I want to verify that this container holds one liter, I don't have to be able to predict that the individual edges have a certain length.That is I need not be able to predict any particular sensual data. I 317 Theory/Verification/Test/MillikanVsQuine/Millikan: is it really true that all concepts must be tested together? Tradition says that not just a few, but most of our concepts are not of things that we observe directly, but of other things. Test/logical form/Millikan: if there is one thing A, which is identified by observing effects on B and C, isn't then the validity of the concepts of B and C tested together with the theory that ascribes the observed effects onto the influence of A, tested together with the concept of A? Millikan. No! From the fact that my intension of A goes back to intensions of B and C does not follow that the validity of the concepts, that govern B and C, is tested when the concept that governs A is tested and vice versa. Namely, it does not follow, if A is a specific denotation Ex "the first President of the United States" and it also does not follow, if the explicit intention of A represents something causally dependent. Ex "the mercury in the thermometer rose to mark 70" as intension of "the temperature was 70 degrees." I 318 Concept/Millikan: concepts are abilities - namely the ability to recognize something as self-identical. Test/Verification: the verifications of the validity of my concepts are quite independent of each other: Ex my ability to make a good cake is completely independent of my ability to break up eggs, even if I have to break up eggs to make the cake. Objectivity/objective reality/world/method/knowledge/Millikan: we obtain a knowledge of the outside world by applying different methods to obtain a result. Ex different methods of temperature measurement: So we come to the conclusion that temperature is something real. I 321 Knowledge/context/holism/Quine/MillikanVsQuine/Millikan: doesn't all knowledge depend on "collateral information", as Quine calls it? If all perception is interwoven with general theories, how can we test individual concepts independently from the rest? Two Dogmas/Quine/Millikan. Thesis: ~ "Our findings about the outside world do not stand individually before the tribunal of experience, but only as a body." Therefore: no single conviction is immune to correction. Test/Verification/MillikanVsHolismus/MillikanVsQuine/Millikan: most of our beliefs never stand before the tribunal of experience. I 322 Therefore, it is unlikely that such a conviction is ever supported or refuted by other beliefs. Confirmation: single confirmation: by my ability to recognize objects that appear in my attitudes. From convictions being related does not follow that the concepts must be related as well. Identity/identification/Millikan: epistemology of identity is a matter of priority before the epistemology of judgments. |
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 |
| Rorty, R. | Millikan Vs Rorty, R. | I 88 Sentence/world/meaning/MillikanVsRorty/Millikan: 1. Let's assume that a sentence belongs to the world (at least, if it is true). Mathematical equation: here, it is perhaps different. Truth/Millikan: let's assume it has to do with some projective relation or projective rule. Pointe: this can not be a natural state (status within the natural world). Ex false sentence: projects nothing, but still has a meaning. But if it has a meaning, it must mean something. But not something actual. So, not something in the natural world. Pointe: then even what a true sentence means cannot be anything that is in the actual world. Solution: the relation of a true sentence to something undoubtedly actual in the world is mediated by a relation which is itself not in the world... This relation is the meaning. Meaning/Millikan: is not itself in the world, but the relation between a true statement and what is in the world. Therefore, this relationship is not causal. Truthmaker/Millikan: not to be found in the sentences. And we don't understand false sentences by simply saying that ithey are not true. Meaning/Millikan: must be something that true and false sentences have in common. Projection/meaning/Millikan: meaning seems to be irrelevant for the actual projective relation. Solution/Millikan: our concepts of "intrinsic ..." and "Normal". True and false sentences "should" ("are supposed to") to correspond to the facts in the world in accordance with specific projective rules. This can be explained with the concepts of normality and the eigenfunction. I 89 Falsehood/false sentence/Millikan: is then just as unproblematic as Ex a chameleon, which does not adopt the color of its surroundings. ((S) defect, error, mistake). Meaning/Millikan: 2. sounds turn into sentences with meaning if they are interpreted. Intentionality/language/tradition/Millikan: is therefore dependent intentionality (on interpretation). ((s) > derived intentionality). Sentence/object/world/Millikan: without intentionality a sentence would be an ordinary object. Thought/thinking/intentionality/Millikan: Pointe: then the intentionality of thoughts can not be interpreted as the one of sentences. Otherwise we would have a regress. Representation/Millikan: those who view sentences as internal representations forget that sentences and images are derived intentionally. |
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 |
| Tradition | Millikan Vs Tradition | I 13 classical realism: thought and knowledge are separated and intentionality is transparent. Intentionality/about/aboutness/MillikanVsTradition: intentionality is not transparent: many processes which are "about" something, are not done consciously. Ex von Frisch knew what a bee dance is, but bees do not know. Bees merely react adequately to bee dances. Thought: requires that the reference is identified. Inference: involves acts of identification of what the thoughts are. That's why they are representations. Ontology/Millikan: we are interested in what general structure the world has to have so that subject-predicate sentences, negation, etc. can be projected onto it. Realism/Millikan: properly understood realism does not require that the world must be "allocated correctly" for that. I 17 Eigenfunction/Millikan: Ex heart has something to do with the fact that it pumps blood. But what kind of connection to the blood pump must be given? Some hearts are malformed and can not pump, others, Ex water pumps could perfectly pump blood, but they are not hearts. Ex artificial hearts: do not belong to the biological category. So it's not the actual constitution, the actual forces, dispositions etc that make something an element of a biological category. Eigenfunction/Millikan: causes to submit something into a biological category. It has nothing to do with forces and dispositions, but with history. Having an intrinsic function means to be "slated for something", "to want" something ("supposed to", designed to "). We must now examine in a naturalistic, non-normative way. Language/propositional attitude/Millikan: So we have to ask, "what are they good for." Sentence/Millikan: Just as a heart sometimes may be deformed, a sentence can also not be well-formed. Other sentences are simply wrong. Tradition/falsehood/Millikan: the tradition was obliged to accept that false beliefs are beliefs. Then we also have to have the forces to influence our dispositions. MillikanVsTradition: but a broken kidney does not have the power to fulfill its function. I 18 And wrong and confused thoughts also do not have such forces. Tradition: here has more to do with input-output relations. Millikan: thesis: we are dealing with the biological functions, the functions that "something thought for". Millikan: thesis: by focusing on the intrinsic function (biological function), we are free to find the defining characteristics between true convictions and the world outside. Eigenfunction/Millikan: 1. direct eigenfunction: the first part of the theory relates only to the functions of things that are members of families that are similar to each other Ex hearts, or are similar to an archetype Ex sentences, words, Ex shaking hands. 2. derived eigenfunction: here we have to show that new things can have eigenfunction: Ex new behavior, new bee dances, new convictions. I 133 Intension/tradition/Millikan: always has to do with the application criteria. 1. set of properties or characters that are associated in the mind. 2. this criterion defines what the term is applied to - the extension! Extension/intension/tradition: the two are connected in spirit. Intension/MillikanVsTradition/Millikan: instead, it is the evolution that defines the connection between intention and extension. Sense/Millikan: results from the combination of term and reference, how the term "is intended to project". We still need the concept of testing. I 157 Rationalism/rationalist/tradition/Millikan: (similar argument): what a term means in one idiolect must be known to the speaker of this idioleckt a priori. But all that can be known a priori is whether two expressions in the idiolect have the same intension. If a term now has more than one intension, one can not know a priori whether the intensions will converge in the application. Therefore, each unambiguous term must have only one intension. meaning/sense/MillikanVsTradition: importance of Frege'ian sense, not intension. Then emptiness is the primary type of insignificance and neither ambiguity nor synonymy are determined by reasoning that is purely a priori. Intension/Millikan: is only the secondary meaning. I 158 They can be meaningful only insofar as these intentions are explicit and have meaning themselves. I 171 Error/delusion/to show/indexical word/Millikan: Ex there are two items on the table, an ashtray, which I do not consider an ashtray and a thing that is not an ashtray but I think it is and say "This is a nice Ashtray". Question: have I thereby said that the ashtray is nice, although I meant the other object? Ex I hold up a book and say, "This belonged to my grandfather." However, I am mistaken and am holding up the wrong book. I 172 What I have said, of course, is wrong. What is not so clear is whether what I meant is something other than what I said. Millikan: thesis: here it is not the case that I and my token of "this" have meant different things. Solution: "this" is ambiguous with respect to Frege's sense. MillikanVsTradition: philosophers have so often ignored that. Solution/Millikan: perception can lead us to temporary concepts. temporary concepts/intensions/Millikan: intensions are then linked to our ability to pursue things and to re-identify them. preliminary concept: Ex this coffee mug for me is totally indistinguishable from a dozen others, but at the moment it's my cup. I 173 Question: whether that even counts as a concept. Ability to track the object leads to an interior concept. This leads to the distinction between perception and thought. Thinking/Millikan: if thinking is not mediated by perception the objects one thinks of are not indexed. Perception: here the objects are provided with an index. I 174 Error/delusion/indexical word/perception/misidentification/Millikan: Ex Suppose I'm wrong when I identify a recurring object. Then my inner concept has two senses, it has an ambiguous Fregean sense. 1. derived meaning from the ability to track the object. 2. inner concept I already had previously. "This" is therefore ambiguous. I 270 Standard conditions/content/Millikan: 1. in order to give them a content a "standard observer" must mean more than "observers to whom red things appear red under standard conditions". And accordingly for "standard conditions". Solution: standard conditions for red must be spelled out. Problem: no one has any idea how that could work. Problem: if you have every reason to believe that to be a standard observer, there are circumstances in which an object seems to have a different color than it has. But one would not conclude that the thing would not be red. Problem: if sameness of a thing is defined by its opposite properties, an observer must be able to identify these opposite characteristics, also. And it may be that these never come to light! Problem: how can my experience testify to the oppositeness of red and green? Many authors: think that one could never argue that red and green could even be in the same place at the same time. I 271 MillikanVsTradition: but that is not true, in fact there are many ways, Ex strabismus. Complementary colors/perception/seeing/certitude/Millikan: our trust in the fact that red and green are opposites (perhaps incorporated into nature) is an empirical certainty. And this is exactly the objective validity of these concepts, of the fact that red and green are properties - and not just hallucinations. |
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 |
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