Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T01:11:36.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Concept Possession, Cognitive Value and Anti-Individualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2013

VÍCTOR M. VERDEJO*
Affiliation:
University of Santiago de Compostela

Abstract

Concept-individuating possession conditions constitute one of the fundamental, albeit rather unattended, polemical territories between Fregean and anti-individualistic standpoints. In this paper, I outline a compatibilist theory of cognitive value that encompasses both anti-individualistic and individualistic possession conditions. I argue that this general approach to the compatibility of Fregean and anti-individualistic accounts of concept possession suffices to call into question the claims that cognitive value must have deference and transparency among its fundamental features.

Les conditions de possession permettant l’individuation des concepts, bien que peu étudiées, constituent l’un des lieux fondamentaux de la polémique opposant les points de vue frégéen et anti-individualiste. Dans cet article, je décris une théorie compatibiliste de la valeur cognitive qui réunit des conditions de possession anti-individualistes et individualistes. Je soutiens que cette approche générale de la compatibilité des explications frégéenne et anti-individualiste de la possession de concepts suffit à mettre en doute l’idée voulant que la déférence et la transparence sont des caractéristiques fondamentales de la valeur cognitive.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bilgrami, Akeel 1992 Belief and Meaning. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bilgrami, Akeel 2006 Self-knowledge and Resentment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bilgrami, Akeel 2012Why Meaning Intentions are Degenerate”, in Coliva, A., ed., Wittgenstein, Mind, Meaning and Knowledge. Themes from the Philosophy of Crispin Wright, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 96126.Google Scholar
Block, Ned 1986Advertisement for a Semantics for Psychology”, in French, P., Uehling, T. and Wettstein, H., eds., Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, vol. 10, p. 615678.Google Scholar
Boghossian, Paul 1994The Transparency of Mental Content”, Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 8, p. 3350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briscoe, Robert 2006Individualism, Externalism and Idiolectical Meaning”, Synthese, vol. 152, p. 95128.Google Scholar
Brown, Jessica 2000Critical Reasoning, Understanding, and Self-Knowledge”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 61, p. 659676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Jessica 2004 Anti-Individualism and Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Burge, Tyler 1979Individualism and the Mental”, reprinted in T. Burge, Foundations of Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 100150 [2007].Google Scholar
Burge, Tyler 1982Other Bodies”, reprinted in T. Burge, Foundations of Mind, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 97114 [2007].Google Scholar
Burge, Tyler 1986Intellectual Norms and the Foundations of Mind”, Journal of Philosophy, vol. 83, p. 697720.Google Scholar
Burge, Tyler 1988Individualism and Self-knowledge”, Journal of Philosophy, vol. 67, p. 649663.Google Scholar
Burge, Tyler 2007Postscript to ‘Individualism and the Mental’”, in T. Burge, Foundations of Mind, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 151191.Google Scholar
Evans, Gareth 1982 The Varieties of Reference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Falvey, Kevin and Owens, Joseph 1994Externalism, Self-knowledge, and Skepticism”, Philosophical Review, vol. 103, p. 107137.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry A.1998 Concepts. Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frege, Gottlob 1892Über Sinn und Bedeutung”, in Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, vol. 100, p. 2550. Translated as “On Sense and Reference”, in Moore, A., ed., Meaning and Reference, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 23-42 [1993].Google Scholar
Goldberg, Sanford 2002Do Anti-individualistic Construals of Propositional Attitudes Capture the Agent’s Conceptions?”, Noûs, vol. 36, p. 597621.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Sanford 2007 Anti-Individualism: Mind and Language, Knowledge and Justification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Sanford 2008Must Differences in Cognitive Value be Transparent?”, Erkenntnis, vol. 69, p. 165187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Sanford 2009Experts, Semantic and Epistemic”, Noûs, vol. 43, p. 581598.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higginbotham, James 1998Conceptual Competence”, Philosophical Issues, vol. 9, p. 149162.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Matthew 2011Naïve Realism, Privileged Access, and Epistemic Safety”, Noûs, vol. 45, p. 77102.Google Scholar
Ludlow, Peter 1995Social Externalism, Self-knowledge, and Memory”, Analysis, vol. 55, p. 157159.Google Scholar
McDowell, John 1994 Mind and World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Peacocke, Christopher 1992 A Study of Concepts. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Peacocke, Christopher 1997Concepts Without Words”, in Hecke, R., ed., Language, Thought, and Logic: Essays in Honour of Michael Dummett, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 133.Google Scholar
Peacocke, Christopher 1998Implicit Conceptions, Understanding and Rationality”, Philosophical Issues, vol. 9, p. 4388.Google Scholar
Peacocke, Christopher 2008 Truly Understood. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary 1975The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”, in Gunderson, K., ed., Language, Mind, and Knowledge. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, vol. 7, p. 131193.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary 1996Introduction”, in Pessin, A. and Goldberg, S., eds., The Twin Earth Chronicles, London, M.E. Sharpe, p. XVXXII.Google Scholar
Schroeter, Laura 2008Why Be an Anti-individualist?”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 74, p. 105141.Google Scholar
Verdejo, Víctor M.2009 The Rational and Natural Mind: From Concepts to the Language of Thought. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag.Google Scholar
Wikforss, Åsa 2008Self-knowledge and Knowledge of Content”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 38, p. 399424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar