Against the Mental Files Conception of Singular Th

Authors: Rachel Goodman

Publish Date: 2014/11/06

Volume: 7, Issue: 2, Pages: 437-461

PDF Link

Abstract

It has become popular of late to identify the phenomenon of thinking a singular or de re thought with that of thinking with a mental file Proponents of the mental files conception of singular thought the MFC claim that one thinks a singular thought about an object o iff one employs a mental file to think about o I argue that this is false by arguing that there are what I call descriptive mental files so some filebased thought is not singular thought Descriptive mental files are mental files for which descriptive information plays four roles determines which object the file is about if any it sets limits on possible mistakes that fall within the scope of successful reference for the file it acts as a ‘gatekeeper’ for the file and it determines persistence conditions for the file Contrary to popular assumption a description playing these roles is consistent with the filetheoretic framework Recognising this allows us to distinguish the notion of singular thought from that of filethinking and better understand the nature and role of bothThanks to Imogen Dickie Aidan Gray Simon Prosser and Robbie Williams for discussion of this and related material Thanks also to Jeff King for comments on an earlier version of the paper to an audience at the Leeds Philosophy Department Senior Seminar for their questions and to two anonymous referees at Review of Philosophy and Pscyhology for helpful comments

Keywords: