Questioning Propositionalism in Philosophy and Linguistics
When:
—
Venue:
External
No booking required
Many mental states represent the world and one of the best ways to understand the representational features of the mind is by looking at the representational nature of language. This event aims to pressure a fundamental assumption in theories of representation. It is often assumed that all representational states are 'propositional', but detailed arguments for that assumption call it 'Propositionalism' are rarely given, and arguments against it are starting to gain ground in the literature. Two classes of mental states in particular seem to cause a problem for the Propositionalist, those attributed using an objectual construction of the form 'S ψ's o' ('Don fears the media'; 'I can hear a peacock'), and those attributed using an infinitival construction of the form 'S ψ's to ?' ('We want to take the dog for a walk'; 'I intend to go to bed before midnight'). This 1-day event will bring together philosophers and linguists to explore questions such as: Are these mental states really non-propositional? If these states' contents are not propositions, what are they? And what does it mean to classify a mental state as 'propositional' in the first place?
Schedule:
9:45-10:00 Welcome and coffee/tea
10:00-11:15 Jennifer Hornsby (Birkbeck, University of London): 'What sort of thing might one intend to be doing?'
11:15-12:15 Alex Grzankowski (Birkbeck, University of London): 'Non-propositional contents and how to find them'
12:15-1:15 Lucy Campbell - (University of Oxford): 'Propositionalism about Intention: some metaphysical worries'
1:15-2:30 Lunch
2:30-3:45 Sean Crawford (University of Manchester): 'Falling out of propositional thinking'
3:45-5:00 Kasia Jaszczolt (University of Cambridge): 'Representing beliefs and belief reports in default semantics: In search of a proposition'