Objects of Representation

• Authors: Leslie Stevenson
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

I distinguish four questions within Kant's "problem of reality": (1) What constitutes propositional content? (2) What constitutes truth? (3) What constitutes referential content? (4) What constitutes successful singular reference? I argue that Kant's transcendental idealism applies primarily to (3) - understood as: What makes some mental or linguistic items would-be referential representations - and secondly to (1). But with regard to (4) and (2), we do not create the objects and states of affairs in the world (there are human artifacts, of course, but most of them continue to exist quite independently of our representing activities). However the contents of our representations in (3) and (1) do depend crucially on our conventions and rules, which are almost always socially learned.

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii - Uniwersytet Jagielloński
• Journal: Diametros
• Year: 2011
• Issue: 27
• Pages: 4-24

Contributors

author

Leslie Stevenson

• University of St. Andrews, UK

References

• A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, ed. S. Guttenplan, Blackwell, Oxford 1994.
• Allison H.E., Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, Yale University Press, New Haven 2004.
• Aquila R.E., Representational Mind: A Study of Kant's Theory of Knowledge, Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1983.
• Evans G., The Varieties of Reference, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1982.
• Gardner S., Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason, Routledge, London 1999. Kołakowski L., Towards a Marxist Humanism, Grove Press, New York 1968.
• McDowell J. Woodbridge lectures, “The Journal of Philosophy”, vol. XCV, no. 9, 1998: 431-491. Plantinga A., Warranted Christian Belief, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000.
• Rescher N., Conceptual Idealism, Blackwell, Oxford 1973.
• Searle J., Intentionality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1983.
• Wiggins D., Sameness and Substance Renewed, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001.

Identifiers

DOI

10.13153/diam.27.2011.425