Michelle Montague: What is the Attitude/Content Distinction?
Duration: 45 mins 51 secs
Share this media item:
Embed this media item:
Embed this media item:
About this item
| Description: |
This a talk from 'Intentionality: New Directions', a workshop on intentionality, the mind’s capacity to represent the world. The workshop took place at Peterhouse, Cambridge, 21-23 March 2017, as part of the New Directions in the Study of the Mind project, supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
Image: Compass Study, Calsidyrose. |
|---|
| Created: | 2017-04-08 22:02 |
|---|---|
| Collection: | Intentionality: New Directions |
| Publisher: | University of Cambridge |
| Copyright: | Faculty of Philosophy |
| Language: | eng (English) |
| Distribution: |
World
(downloadable)
|
| Explicit content: | No |
| Abstract: | In describing the structure of conscious intentional states, philosophers typically appeal to what I will call the attitude/content distinction. On the standard view, attitudes are understood as relations relating subjects to contents, understood as propositions or something proposition-like. I will argue that the attitude/content distinction is not a ‘real’ metaphysical distinction. Rather, the words and concepts we use to distinguish between the attitudes (e.g. belief, thought, desire) are heuristic devices for grouping together certain classes of phenomenological properties, which themselves determine certain kinds of intentional content. In the end, all we have, metaphysically speaking, are phenomenological properties, intentional content, and a determination relation between them. I will focus on belief, thought, and perception. |
|---|---|