| Edition |
First edition. |
| Description |
viii, 240 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
|
text txt rdacontent |
|
unmediated n rdamedia |
|
volume nc rdacarrier |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-236) and index. |
| Summary |
"Ruth Garrett Millikan presents a highly original account of cognition - of how we get to grips with the world in thought. The question at the heart of her book is Kant's 'How is knowledge possible?', but answered from a contemporary naturalist standpoint. The starting assumption is that we are evolved creatures that use cognition as a guide in dealing with the natural world, and that the natural world is roughly as natural science has tried to describe it. Very unlike Kant, then, we must begin with ontology, with a rough understanding of what the world is like prior to cognition, only later developing theories about the nature of cognition within that world and how it manages to reflect the rest of nature. And in trying to get from ontology to cognition we must traverse another non-Kantian domain: questions about the transmission of information both through natural signs and through purposeful signs including, especially, language. Millikan makes a number of innovations. Central to the book is her introduction of the ideas of unitrackers and unicepts, whose job is to recognize the same again as manifested through the jargon of experience. She offers a direct reference theory for common nouns and other extensional terms; a naturalist sketch of conceptual development; a theory of natural information and of language function that shows how properly functioning language carries natural information; a novel description of the semantics/pragmatics distinction; a discussion of perception as translation from natural informational signs; new descriptions of indexicals, demonstratives and intensional contexts; and a new analysis of the reference of incomplete descriptions."--Back cover. |
| Contents |
pt. I Unicepts -- Introduction to Part I -- 0.1. Overview -- 0.2. Selection Processes -- 0.3. Ontology and Language -- 0.4. Unicepts and Unitrackers -- 0.5. Organization and Method -- 0.6. Acknowledgments -- 1. Clumpy World -- 1.1. Overview -- 1.2. Real Kinds -- 1.3. Reproduction and Mass Production -- 1.4. Historical Kinds -- 1.5. Individuals -- 1.6. Eternal Kinds -- 1.7. Shapes and Divisions of Historical Kind Clumps -- 1.8. Real Categories -- 2. Direct Reference for Extensional Terms -- 2.1. Overview -- 2.2. Conventions of Language -- 2.3. Following Precedent -- 2.4. Direct Reference to Clumps -- 2.5. Identifying through Language -- 2.6. Real Definitions -- 2.7. Names for Properties -- 2.8. Boundaries and Slippage -- 2.9. Communication with Names for Clumps and Peaks -- 3. Introducing Unitrackers and Unicepts -- 3.1. Overview -- 3.2. Initial Examples of Unitracker Function -- 3.3. Discarding Concepts -- 3.4. Details on the Nature and Function of Unicepts -- 3.5. Life Span and Growth of Unitrackers and Unicepts -- 3.6. How Names Connect with Unicepts -- 3.7. Role of Language in Unicept Development -- 3.8. On Modeling Unicepts -- 4. Functions of Same-Tracking -- 4.1. Overview -- 4.2. Perceptual Constancy Mechanisms -- 4.3. Self-Relative Location Trackers -- 4.4. Object Constancy -- 4.5. Same-Tracking for Application of Unicept Templates -- 4.6. Practical Stuffs and Affording Unicepts -- 4.7. Factic Unicepts: Substantive and Attributive -- 4.8. Two Closing Remarks -- 5. How Unicepts Get Their Referents -- 5.1. Overview -- 5.2. How Unicept Referents Are Fixed: The Quarry -- 5.3. Two General Principles Concerning Functions -- 5.4. Imprinting -- 5.5. More General Mechanisms for Priming Unitrackers -- 5.6. Some Mechanisms that Set Targets, Specifically, for Affording Unicepts -- 5.7. Problem of Location-Detached Signs -- 5.8. Third General Principle: Proxy Functions -- 5.9. Natural Epistemology for Substantive and Attributive Unicepts -- 6. Misrepresentation, Redundancy, Equivocity, Emptiness (and Swampman) -- 6.1. Overview -- 6.2. Failures of Biological Function -- 6.3. False Beliefs -- 6.4. Redundant Unitrackers and Fregean Senses -- 6.5. Equivocepts -- 6.6. Vacucepts -- 6.7. How Unicepts Fit with Biosemantics -- 6.8. Swampman -- 7. Philosophical Analysis; Referents of Names: Theory Change; Observation versus Theory; Theory of Mind -- 7.1. Overview -- 7.2. Philosophical Analysis -- 7.3. Referents of Names -- 7.4. Theory Change in Science -- 7.5. Observation versus Theory -- 7.6. "Theory of Mind" -- pt. II Infosigns, Intentional Signs, and their Interpretation -- 8. Introduction to Part II -- 8.1. Overview -- 8.2. Infosigns and Natural Information -- 8.3. Infosigns and Intentional Signs -- 8.4. Interpreting Linguistic Signs -- 9. Indexicals and Selfsigns -- 9.1. Overview -- 9.2. Assumptions to be Questioned -- 9.3. Components of Conventional Linguistic Signs -- 9.4. Preliminary Examples of Selfsigning Components -- 9.5. Indexicals and Demonstratives -- 9.6. Addendum on Intensional Contexts -- 10. Anatomy of Signs -- 10.1. Overview -- 10.2. Project -- 10.3. Infosigns Are Always Articulate and Often Productive -- 10.4. Equivocal Infosigns -- 10.5. Infosign Systems and Families -- 10.6. Variants and Invariants; Embedded Infosign Families -- 10.7. Taxonomy of Infosign Variables -- 10.8. How a Language Is Put Together -- 11. Infosigns and Natural Information -- 11.1. Overview -- 11.2. Project -- 11.3. Examples of Nonintentional Infosigns -- 11.4. Causal Connections; Dretske on Natural Information -- 11.5. Correlational Information -- 11.6. Reference Class Problem -- 11.7. Addressing the Reference Class Problem -- 11.8. Using Infosigns -- 11.9. Correlations between Types of States of Affairs -- 11.10. Infosign Strength and Response Strength -- 11.11. Redundancy -- 11.12. Metacorrelations -- 11.13. Indirect Infosigns; Indirect Natural Information -- 12. Intentional Signs -- 12.1. Overview -- 12.2. Project -- 12.3. Intentional Infosigns -- 12.4. Intentional Signs and Stabilizing Functions -- 12.5. Pure and Impure Intentional Signs -- 12.6. Entwining of Intentional Content and Nonintentional Information -- 12.7. Intentional Signs Used by Non-Human Animals -- 12.8. Maps, Charts, Diagrams, Graphs -- 12.9. Extending the Senses -- 12.10. Inner Representations -- 13. Linguistic Signs -- 13.1. Overview -- 13.2. Topic -- 13.3. Semantic Meaning -- 13.4. Communicating with Language: The Broad Picture -- 13.5. Meta-Regularities and Extra-Semantic Infocontent -- 13.6. Grice's Conversational Maxims -- 13.7. Far-Side Pragmatic Meaning, or Semantic Meaning? -- 13.8. Addendum: Gricean Temptations -- 14. Perception, Especially Perception through Language -- 14.1. Overview -- 14.2. Project -- 14.3. Perception as Sign Reading -- 14.4. Attached and Detached Signs, with an aside on Animal Cognition -- 14.5. Genuine Perception Thought of as Certain -- 14.6. Contents of Perceptual Experience -- 14.7. Translating Linguistic Signs into Understanding -- 14.8. Replies to Objections -- 15. Markers of Identity and Grounded Infosigns -- 15.1. Overview -- 15.2. Selfsigns of Identity: Duplicate Markers; Strawson Markers -- 15.3. Anaphoric Signs of Identity -- 15.4. Grounding as Indicating Identity -- 15.5. Situated Signs; Counting up Signs -- 15.6. Recognizing Identity: A Reminder -- 16. Out-Side Pragmatics: Descriptions, Quantifiers, Directives -- 16.1. Overview -- 16.2. Three Kinds of Referent -- 16.3. Functions of the Definite and Indefinite Articles -- 16.4. Quantifiers, Possessives, and Proper Names -- 16.5. Thumbnail Review of Basic Themes. |
| Subject |
Knowledge, Theory of.
|
|
Knowledge, Theory of. (OCoLC)fst00988194
|
| ISBN |
9780198717195 |
|
0198717199 |
|
9780198717201 (pbk.) |
|
0198717202 |
|
