Can there be 'narrow' mental content, that is entirely determined by the goings-on inside the head of the thinker? This book argues not, and defends instead a thoroughgoing externalism: the entanglement of our minds with the external world runs so deep that no internal component of mentality can easily be cordoned off.
Juhani Yli-Vakkuri is Professor in Philosophy of Language at the University of Tartu and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bielefeld, having previously been Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), University of Oslo. He is the author of several papers in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophical logic, as well as co-editor, with Mark McCullagh, of Williamson on Modality (Routledge, 2017).; John Hawthorne is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He was previously Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. His books include Knowledge and Lotteries (OUP 2004), Metaphysical Essays (OUP 2006), Relativism and Monadic Truth (OUP 2009, with Herman Cappelen), and The Reference Book (OUP 2012, with David Manley).
Introduction; 1 What is narrow content?; 2 Truth-conditionality; 3 Narrow content and ur-content; 4 Rationality and narrow content; 5 Quasi-internalism; 6 Relational narrowness
Show moreCan there be 'narrow' mental content, that is entirely determined by the goings-on inside the head of the thinker? This book argues not, and defends instead a thoroughgoing externalism: the entanglement of our minds with the external world runs so deep that no internal component of mentality can easily be cordoned off.
Juhani Yli-Vakkuri is Professor in Philosophy of Language at the University of Tartu and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bielefeld, having previously been Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), University of Oslo. He is the author of several papers in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophical logic, as well as co-editor, with Mark McCullagh, of Williamson on Modality (Routledge, 2017).; John Hawthorne is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He was previously Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. His books include Knowledge and Lotteries (OUP 2004), Metaphysical Essays (OUP 2006), Relativism and Monadic Truth (OUP 2009, with Herman Cappelen), and The Reference Book (OUP 2012, with David Manley).
Introduction; 1 What is narrow content?; 2 Truth-conditionality; 3 Narrow content and ur-content; 4 Rationality and narrow content; 5 Quasi-internalism; 6 Relational narrowness
Show moreIntroduction
1: What is narrow content?
2: Truth-conditionality
3: Narrow content and ur-content
4: Rationality and narrow content
5: Quasi-internalism
6: Relational narrowness
Juhani Yli-Vakkuri is Professor in Philosophy of Language at the
University of Tartu and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at
the University of Bielefeld, having previously been Postdoctoral
Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature
(CSMN), University of Oslo. He is the author of several papers in
the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, epistemology,
and philosophical logic, as well as co-editor, with Mark McCullagh,
of
Williamson on Modality (Routledge, 2017). John Hawthorne is
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California,
and a Fellow of the British Academy. He was previously Waynflete
Professor of
Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Professor
of Philosophy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. His
books include Knowledge and Lotteries (OUP 2004), Metaphysical
Essays (OUP 2006), Relativism and Monadic Truth (OUP 2009, with
Herman Cappelen), and The Reference Book (OUP 2012, with David
Manley).
This important book on narrow content is presented as a third act
in what might be called the Twin Earth Wars ... the next-generation
externalists Juhani Yli-Vakkuri and John Hawthorne aim to strike
down internalists on behalf of the empire once and for all,
deploying the awesome weapon Mirror Man to give an argument that
narrow content is impossible ... Philosophers on both sides of the
issue can be grateful to Yli-Vakkuri and Hawthorne for invigorating
a debate that had been threatening to go stale, and for setting an
agenda for further work.
*David J. Chalmers, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews*
This is a book for students and scholars of philosophy of mind and
philosophical psychology... Recommended.
*CHOICE*
This is one of the most convincing philosophy books I have read in
a long time. It takes a widely held constellation of views, lays
them out with admirable clarity, and patiently reduces them to
rubble.
*Jeff Speaks, University of Notre Dame*
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