Raquel Krempel

Jerry Fodor has claimed to have a solution to the traditional problem of what comes first, thought or language. Compositionality, he says, will give us the answer, for at least one must be compositional, and if only one of them is, that is the one that has underived semantic content. He argues that natural languages are not compositional, and therefore that the content of language is derived from the content of thought. I will argue that the idea that language is not compositional conflicts with his productivity and systematicity arguments for the existence of a language of thought. I will also show that Fodor’s solution to the problem fails, as his main argument is circular. Finally, I suggest that Fodor’s argument against the compositionality of language is not decisive, and that we can still attribute at least some degree of compositionality to language.

In this paper I critically address some ideas presented in Patrick Duffley’s book Linguistic Meaning Meets Linguistic Form. Duffley adopts the semiological principle that linguistic signs have stable meanings. I argue that this principle leads Duffley to an artificial description of the meaning of the preposition for, in attempting to avoid the charge of polysemy. Another issue is that the principle is not consistently followed throughout the book, such as in Duffley’s analysis of the meaning of start, or in his acceptance of words with encyclopedic meanings. I also point out that the proposed meaning of start and the view that the meaning of some words is encyclopedic have problems of their own.

My goal here is to assess whether Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical conception of a descriptive philosophy is in accordance with his philosophical practice. I argue that Wittgenstein doesn’t really limit himself to description when he criticizes Moore’s use of the verb “to know”. In On Certainty, Wittgenstein argues that Moore’s claims of knowledge are at odds with the everyday use of the verb “to know”, because, among other things, they don’t allow the possibility of justification. That is, Wittgenstein considers that proper, everyday claims of knowledge require the possibility of justification. What I try to show is that this idea cannot be derived from the mere observation and description of knowledge claims in ordinary language. I conclude that Wittgenstein’s treatment of the verb “to know” constitutes an inconsistency between his metaphilosophical posture and his philosophical practice

According to a common view, conscious thoughts necessarily involve quasi-perceptual experiences, or mental images. This is alleged to be the case not only when one entertains conscious thoughts about perceptible things, but also when one thinks about more abstract things. In the case of conscious abstract propositional thoughts, the idea is that they occur in inner speech, which is taken to involve imagery (typically auditory) of words in a natural language. I argue that unsymbolized thinking and total aphantasia cast doubt on this common view. Unsymbolized thinking is the experience of thoughts that does not involve imagery. Total aphantasia is the inability to produce mental images of all sensory modalities. I consider and reject the objection that these individuals are mistaken either because their thoughts do involve images, or because those thoughts are not conscious. Thus, unsymbolized thinking and aphantasia provide evidence that conscious thoughts can occur without imagery.

I address the question of whether differences in color terminology cause differences in color experience in speakers of different languages. If linguistic representations directly affect color experience, then this is a case of what I call the linguistic penetrability of perception, which is a particular case of cognitive penetrability. I start with some general considerations about cognitive penetration and its alleged occurrence in the memory color effect. I then apply similar considerations to the interpretation of empirical studies of color perception in speakers of different languages. I argue that findings such as differences in categorical perception in speakers of different languages do not show that language affects color experience. They therefore do not support the claim that color experience is linguistically penetrable. But even if we grant that color experience is different in speakers of different languages, I argue that this might still not be a case of linguistic penetration. Finally, I consider some epistemological consequences of the assumption that speakers of different languages have different color experiences.

The goal of this paper is to present some advantages of the representational and computational theories of mind when compared to other views, especially behaviorism. The idea is that representational and computational theories allow us to conceive propositional attitudes in a way that preserves two essential features we take them to have in common sense psychological explanations: semantic evaluability and causal efficacy. Behaviorism reconceives mental states in a way that doesn’t preserve these essential features. In so doing, it makes a mystery of the success of common sense psychology. I illustrate some of the difficulties that behaviorism faces by considering and criticizing Wittgenstein’s approach to linguistic understanding. The upshot is that representational and computational theories of mind do a better job at vindicating common sense psychology, and so are to be preferred when compared to behaviorism.

In On Certainty, Wittgenstein formulates several criticisms against skepticism about our knowledge of the external world. My goal is to show that Wittgenstein does not here offer a convincing answer to the skeptical problem. First, I will present a strong version of the problem, understanding it as a paradoxical argument. In the second part, I will introduce and raise problems for two pragmatic responses against skepticism that appear in On Certainty. Finally, I will present some of Wittgenstein’s logical criticisms against skepticism, which may initially be considered strong, because they seem to refute some skeptical assumptions. They concern Wittgenstein’s ideas that it is logically impossible to doubt and to be mistaken about Moorean propositions, and that these propositions don’t have a truth-value. But even these, I intend to show, do not really challenge skepticism, for they are not well grounded.

Aphantasia is a condition that is often characterized as the impaired ability to create voluntary mental images. Aphantasia is assumed to selectively affect voluntary imagery mainly because even though aphantasics report being unable to visualize something at will, many report having visual dreams. We argue that this common characterization of aphantasia is incorrect. Studies on aphantasia are often not clear about whether they are assessing voluntary or involuntary imagery, but some studies show that several forms of involuntary imagery are also affected in aphantasia (including imagery in dreams). We also raise problems for two attempts to show that involuntary images are preserved in aphantasia. In addition, we report the results of a study about afterimages in aphantasia, which suggest that these tend to be less intense in aphantasics than in controls. Involuntary imagery is often treated as a unitary kind that is either present or absent in aphantasia. We suggest that this approach is mistaken and that we should look at different types of involuntary imagery case by case. Doing so reveals no evidence of preserved involuntary imagery in aphantasia. We suggest that a broader characterization of aphantasia, as a deficit in forming mental imagery, whether voluntary or not, is more appropriate. Characterizing aphantasia as a volitional deficit is likely to lead researchers to give incorrect explanations for aphantasia, and to look for the wrong mechanisms underlying it.

Echoing Socrates’ remarks to Phaedrus — namely, that it is by “perceiving and bringing together in one idea the scattered particulars, that one may make clear by definition the particular thing which he wishes to explain”, and that we shall divide things “where the natural joints are, and not trying to break any part, after the manner of a bad carver” —, one could say that in some ways each of the papers in this special issue aims at carving an aspect of cognition, or language, or both, at its joints. This does not imply that this is a volume of Platonist variations. However, it calls our attention to the metaphysical framework of contemporary understandings of cognition and language.

Os artigos que compõem este dossiê lidam com temas centrais da filosofia da mente e da filosofia da linguagem. Alguns deles abordam temas clássicos e apresentam panoramas em língua portuguesa, de modo que se fazem úteis a jovens leitores. Outros textos apresentam propostas mais ousadas e prometem incitar debate entre filósofos mais experientes. Desse modo, este volume se equilibra ao oferecer conteúdo para diversos públicos. Esta introdução pretende fornecer uma descrição sintética das contribuições deste volume, para que o leitor possa ter uma visão sinóptica do conteúdo apresentado. Em filosofia da mente, há discussões sobre o consciente e o inconsciente, qualia, fisicalismo, alucinações, hipótese da mente estendida, emoções, o problema da lacuna explicativa e reducionismo nas explicações em ciências cognitivas. Em filosofia da linguagem, são tratados temas como a relação entre pensamento e linguagem, normatividade linguística e demonstrativos. Além disso, contamos com textos com abordagens históricas que tratam dos escritos de Wittgenstein acerca da psicologia e da investigação de Antístenes acerca dos nomes.