PHILOSOPHY 135 THEORY OF MEANING

ESSAY TWO

Answer ONE of the following questions in a paper of 3-5 pages, double-spaced, in a regular font. The paper is due at 10.00am on Wednesday April 9th, in your GSIs mailbox in 301 Moses Hall.

Late papers will not be accepted without prior arrangement.

The first paragraph of your essay must state the main thesis for which you wish to argue in the essay.

The last paragraph must restate the main thesis, summarize the way in which you have argued for it, and indicate any outstanding problems.

1. Can you know that you’re not a brain in a vat? How does Putnam respond to this question? Is Putnam right? Suppose we found a brain in a vat. Is it a problem for Putnam that this brain might use Putnam’s argument to establish that it is not ‘a brain in a vat’?

2. Explain Dretske’s notion of ‘functional meaning’. How would you explain the notion of ‘biological function’ that he uses? Does Dretske manage to explain how there could be a determinate answer to the question of the biological function of a structure such as the magnetosome? Does Dretske manage to explain how misrepresentation is possible?

3. What is the ‘Disjunction Problem’ for causal theories of content? Does Fodor’s ‘Causal Asymmetry’ theory solve the problem? Is there a better way of addressing it?

4. ‘Try not to think of understanding as a “mental process” at all. – For that is the expression which confuses you. But ask yourself: in what sort of case, in what kind of circumstances, do we say, “Now I know how to go on,” when, that is, the formula has occurred to me?’ (§154). What does Wittgenstein mean by a ‘mental process’? Why does he deny that understanding is a ‘mental process’? What, on his view, is involved in understanding a term?

5. ‘Wittgenstein was right to think that what determines the meaning of a sign is not a psychological process. His mistake was to appeal to the notion of a ‘custom’ of using a sign. He ought rather to have appealed to the existence of causal links between the environment and the use of a sign.’ Discuss.

Essay One. Due Friday February 28th.

Final Exam: Tuesday, May 13th, 3.00-6.00pm.