Imogen Dickie

Fixing Reference (eBook, PDF)

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

Imogen Dickie develops an account of aboutness-fixing for thoughts about ordinary objects, and of reference-fixing for the singular terms we use to express them. Extant discussions of this topic tread a weary path through descriptivist proposals, causalist alternatives, and attempts to combine the most attractive elements of each. The account developed here is a new beginning. It starts with two basic principles. The first connects aboutness and truth: a belief is about the object upon whose properties its truth or falsity depends. The second connects truth and justification: justification is truth conducive; in general and allowing exceptions, a subject whose beliefs are justified will be unlucky if they are not true, and not merely lucky if they are. These principles-one connecting aboutness and truth; the other truth and justification-combine to yield a third principle connecting aboutness and justification: a body of beliefs is about the object upon which its associated means of justification converges; the object whose properties a subject justifying beliefs in this way will be unlucky to get wrong and not merely luck to get right. The first part of the book proves a precise version of this principle. Its remaining chapters use the principle to explain how the relations to objects that enable us to think about them-perceptual attention; understanding of proper names; grasp of descriptions-do their aboutness-fixing and thought-enabling work. The book includes discussions of the nature of singular thought and the relation between thought and consciousness.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 288
• Erscheinungstermin: 3. Dezember 2015
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780191072208
• Artikelnr.: 44390378

Autorenporträt

Imogen Dickie did her first degree in New Zealand and her graduate work at Oxford. She is currently a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto.

Inhaltsangabe

1: Introduction
2: In which a precise version of the connection between aboutness and justification is derived from more basic principles
3: The mind has a basic need to represent things outside itself
4: Perceptual demonstratives
5: Proper names
6: The delicate question of reference by description
7: Descriptions and singular thought
8: Thought and consciousness
Appendix: Key to notation
References
Index