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ISBN: 9780262279888 | 367 pp. | April 1984

Topics

 Evolution/Culture
Cultural Evolution
Evolutionary Psychology/Sociobiology
Folk Psychology
 Linguistics/Language
Ambiguity
Discourse Analysis
Figurative Language/Metaphor
Grammatical Relations
Language
Language and Thought
Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis
Linguistics
Meaning
Reference, Theories of
Relational Grammar
Semantics
Sense and Reference
Sentence Processing
Syntax
 Neuroscience
Brain
Brain Mapping
Cognitive Neuroscience
Signal Detection Theory
Time/Timing
 Philosophy of Mind
Explanation
Intentionality
Intersubjectivity
Language of Thought
Logic
Metarepresentation
Natural Kinds
Realism and Anti-Realism
 Psychology I: Foundations of Cognition
Consciousness
Perception and Sensation
Perceptual Development
Spatial Perception
 Psychology II: High-Level Cognition
Behavioral Economics
Beliefs
Cognitive Maps
Concepts/Concept Formation
Knowledge
Mental Representation
Probabilistic Reasoning
Scientific Thinking

Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories

New Foundations for Realism
By Ruth Garrett Millikan
Overview

Beginning with a general theory of function applied to body organs, behaviors, customs, and both inner and outer representations, Ruth Millikan argues that the intentionality of language can be described without reference to speaker intentions and that an understanding of the intentionality of thought can and should be divorced from the problem of understanding consciousness. The results support a realist theory of truth and of universals, and open the way for a nonfoundationalist and nonholistic approach to epistemology.

A Bradford Book

Table of Contents

  1. Foreword

    Daniel C. Dennett

    PDF (283 KB)

  2. Acknowledgments

    PDF (212.1 KB)

  3. Introduction

    PDF (1.8 MB)

  4. 1. Direct Proper Functions

    PDF (2.9 MB)

  5. 2. Adapted Devices and Adapted and Derived Proper Functions

    PDF (1.5 MB)

  6. 3. Indicatives, Imperatives, and Gricean Intentions

    PDF (2.6 MB)

  7. 4. Language Device Types; Dictionary Senses; Stabilizing Proper Function as the First Aspect of Meaning

    PDF (1.7 MB)

  8. 5. Intentionality as a Natural Phenomenon

    PDF (1.3 MB)

  9. 6. Intentional Icons: Fregean Sense, Reference, and Real Value Introduced

    PDF (2.4 MB)

  10. 7. Kinds of Signs

    PDF (1.6 MB)

  11. 8. Hubots, Rumans, and Others: Case Studies of Intensions, Senses, and "Stimulus Meanings"

    PDF (2.6 MB)

  12. 9. Intension: The Third Aspect of Meaning

    PDF (1.6 MB)

  13. 10. Simple Indexicals

    PDF (1.9 MB)

  14. 11. Descriptions

    PDF (2.3 MB)

  15. 12. "Is" and "Exists": Represented Referents and Protoreferents

    PDF (1.7 MB)

  16. 13. Quotation Marks, "Says That" and "Believes That"

    PDF (1.8 MB)

  17. 14. "Not" and "All": Two More Kinds of Indefinite Description

    PDF (2.1 MB)

  18. 15. The Act of Identifying

    PDF (2.3 MB)

  19. 16. Notes on the Identity of Substances and Properties

    PDF (3.3 MB)

  20. 17. Notes on the Identity of Enduring Objects

    PDF (1.8 MB)

  21. 18. Epistemology of Identity: The Law of Noncontradiction

    PDF (1.8 MB)

  22. 19. Epistemology of Identity: Concepts, Law, and Intrusive Information

    PDF (1.9 MB)

  23. Epilogue

    PDF (1.1 MB)

  24. Notes

    PDF (1.1 MB)

  25. Index of Technical Terms

    PDF (233.4 KB)

  26. Analytical Index

    PDF (1.1 MB)