Description
Book SynopsisFrançois Recanati presents his theory of mental files, a new way of understanding reference in language and thought. He aims to recast the ''nondescriptivist'' approach to reference that has dominated the philosophy of language and mind in the late twentieth century. According to Recanati, we refer through mental files, which play the role of so-called ''modes of presentation''. The reference of linguistic expressions is inherited from that of the files we associate with them. The reference of a file is determined relationally, not satisfactionally: so a file is not to be equated to the body of (mis)information it contains. Files are like singular terms in the language of thought, with a nondescriptivist semantics.In contrast to other philosophers, Recanati offers an indexical model according to which files are typed by their function, which is to store information derived through certain types of relation to objects in the environment. The type of the file corresponds to the type of c
Trade ReviewMental Files raises some great issues and investigates some major problems with lucid and rich arguments. Hence, the book is more than worth reading, and its lucidity both induces agreement and helps at clarifying one's dissent. * Paolo Leonardi, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
Table of ContentsPART I. SINGULAR THOUGHT AND ACQUAINTANCE : REJECTING DESCRIPTIVISM; PART II. INTRODUCING FILES; PART III. THE INDEXICAL MODEL; PART IV. MENTAL FILES AND COREFERENCE; PART V. EPISTEMIC TRANSPARENCY; PART VI. BEYOND ACQUAINTANCE; PART VII : VICARIOUS FILES; PART VIII. THE COMMUNICATION OF SINGULAR THOUGHTS; PART IX. CONCLUSION
