Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 243-249). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Philosophy, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Conceptualizations of depression, this dissertation will demonstrate, are invariably structured by ontological presuppositions that constitute and define boundaries between individual and social, internal and external, body and mind, selfness and exterior, normal and pathological. Furthermore, the way in which these boundaries are set through the ontological ground underlying the modern bio-medical conception of depression are rooted in the history of Western philosophy, rather than corresponding to natural kinds discovered by neuro-medical science. Essentialist, internalist, and individualist assumptions arguably dominating contemporary practices regarding depression in Western medicine are not unavoidable and necessary, but are contingent symptoms of a certain ontological groundwork, that needs to be revealed and examined from a critical perspective to be able to deal effectively with possible deficiencies of the contemporary bio-medical model. In the following study, I focus on different historical conceptions that pathologise some altered form of affectivity that by contemporary lights we would associate with some manner of ‘depression’. These include Hippocrates’, Aristotle’s, Galen’s, and Burton’s conceptions of melancholia; Aquinas’ model of acedia; and the American Psychological Association’s Handbook (APA’s), Matthew Ratcliffe’s, and Thomas Fuchs’ accounts of depression. All these different ontologies are put through a categorical analysis consisting of six steps. In each step, each model is assessed regarding their positions between the two poles: melancholia/acedia/depression being (1) indigenous to the individual versus irreducibly social, (2) caused by internal versus external factors, (3) pathologised based on an individual versus a social dysfunction, (4) formed dependently versus independently in relation to personal characteristics, (5) defined as a bodily versus a mental phenomenon, (6) detached from versus entangled with the authentic self.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:23:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2002-10-23Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:09:01Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 santos_jls_me_mar.pdf: 262276 bytes, checksum: 93d60345dc900d1ac4bddebf047709c7 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Neste trabalho propomos a análise da natureza dos estados mentais, um tema central nos estudos em Filosofia da Mente. Para isso, sugerimos um percurso investigativo que começa com a análise da noção cartesiana de dualismo substancial definido por postular uma mente distinta do corpo e responsável pela produção de estados mentais. Em seguida, procuramos problematizar a concepção cartesiana tendo como base as críticas que Ryle dirige à por ele denominada 'doutrina oficial'. Com esse propósito, é considerado, em especial, o conceito de disposição sugerido por Ryle (2000) para combater o que ele denomina concepções intelectualistas de mente. Por fim, analisamos algumas das principais teses externalistas, iniciadas com o trabalho de Putnam (1975), sobretudo a perspectiva representacional concebida por Dretske (1997) a respeito da relação do indivíduo com o meio ambiente. Procuramos mostrar que o conceito de disposição sugerido por Ryle fornece subsídios para uma teorização externalista dos estados mentais, servindo como base para uma concepção externalista de indivíduo muito diversa da cartesiana. / In this dissertation we propose the analysis of the nature of the mental states that is a very main issue in the studies of Philosophy of Mind. In order to this, we suggested doing a research which begins with the analysis of the cartesian notion of the substantial dualism, defined by postulating a distinct mind from the body and responsible for producing mental states. Afterwards we tried to argue about the cartesian conception based on the criticisms whose Ryle refers himself as being designated official doctrine. With this purpose, it is considered, in special, the concept of disposition, suggested by Ryle (2000) in opposition to what he designates as intellectual conceptions. Finally, we analysed some of the main externalists theses which were started with Putnam (1975), above all the representational perspective conceived by Dretske (1997) as far as the relationship between the person and the environment is concerned. All things considered we tried to show that the concept of disposition suggested by Ryle supports an externalist theorisation of the mental states, considering itself as the basis for an externalist conception of the person which is very different from the cartesian conception.

Em 1975, no artigo The Meaning of Meaning, Putnam defende a doutrina que ficou conhecida por externalismo semântico. A ideia é a de que os significados das palavras não podem ser estabelecidos por um sujeito em isolamento (ou por uma mente pensada em isolamento). Neste trabalho, investigamos a doutrina de Putnam a partir de várias perspectivas, visando dar ao leitor elementos para compreendê-la em detalhes. Essas perspectivas envolvem a definição precisa do externalismo, o exame dos argumentos com os quais Putnam o defende e, também, a investigação de algumas consequências da doutrina para as filosofias da linguagem, da ciência e da mente. / In 1975, Hilary Putnam published the article The Meaning of Meaning in which he proposed the doctrine that became known as semantic externalism. His idea was that the meaning of words cannot be established by an individual in isolation (or by mind taken in isolation). In this work, we investigate Putnams thesis from several different perspectives, aiming at giving the reader elements to understand it in detail. These perspectives include the precise definition of semantic externalism, the arguments Putnam uses to support it, and the investigation of some consequences of the doctrine for the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of mind.

A posição filosófica chamada de externismo semântico caracteriza-se pela tese segundo a qual a individuação do conteúdo de estados mentais deve recorrer a fatores que não podem ser localizados na região geralmente circunscrita pela noção mesma de mente. Tal tese implica, em todo caso, que a suposta interioridade da vida psicológica não se basta para tornar inteligível as condições de possibilidade que o pensamento conceitual requer. Assim, se fatores externos aos indivíduos são vistos como desempenhando uma contribuição decisiva na própria determinação de seu conteúdo mental, isto é algo que torna necessário compreender em que sentido mente e mundo podem ser tomados como intrinsecamente relacionados. A aposta teórica do presente trabalho é a de que apenas uma concepção da individuação liberada dos grilhões substancialistas permite fornecer um solo ontológico fértil para uma teoria externista do conceito. Daí que a noção de triangulação, que Donald Davidson forjou para dar conta de alguns fatores cruciais na gênese da conceitualidade, seja lida a partir de filosofias que ressaltam o caráter decisivo da vida como referencialidade fundamental do conceito. Logo, é na ordem vital que se busca dissolver os impasses ligados à origem da normatividade e à dualidade entre interno e externo, oposição a partir da qual a subjetividade desde muito tempo tem sido pensada. / The philosophical position called semantic externalism is characterized by the thesis according to which the individuation of the content of mental states must make reference to traits that cannot be placed inside the sphere usually circumscribed by the very notion of mind. Such a thesis implies, anyway, that the supposed interiority of the psychological life is not enough to make intelligible the conditions that conceptual thought requires. If factors external to individuals are seen as entertaining a decisive contribution in the very determination of their mental content, that is makes it necessary to understand in what sense mind and world can be taken as intrinsically related. The theoretical bet of the present thesis is that only a conception of individuation free from the substantialist commitments can provide a fertile ontological ground to an externalist theory of the concept. In this sense, the notion of triangulation, that Donald Davidson has forged to explain some crucial elements in the genesis of conceptuality, is read from the standpoint of philosophies that highlight the decisive character of life as fundamental referentiality of the concept itself. So, it is in the vital order that some deadlocks concerning the origins of normativity and the inner outer duality structural opposition under which from a long time subjectivity is thought upon, are dissolved.

In recent years, much attention has been given to the question of whether content externalism is compatible with an account of self-knowledge maintaining that we have an epistemically privileged access to the content of our propositional mental states. Philosophers who maintain the two are incompatible (incompatibilists) have put forward two majors types of challenge, which I call - following Martin Davies - the Achievement and Consequence Problems, which aim to demonstrate that self-knowledge cannot be reconciled with externalism. These challenges have spawned a great deal of literature, and a diverse range of arguments and positions have emerged in response. In this dissertation, I intend to focus on examples of these different avenues of response, and show how none of them are adequate. In the first chapter, I lay the groundwork for the debate, setting up how externalism and self-knowledge are to be understood, and outlining both the incompatibilist challenges as well as the available responses to them. In the second chapter I examine these responses in more detail, concluding finally that the best available response is Tyler Burge's. Burge has two arguments that together establish his compatibilist position. First, he shows that even if externalism is true, our judgements about our occurrent thoughts are immunejrom error. This establishes that our judgements about our thoughts must be true. Second, he offers a transcendental argument for self-knowledge, arguing that our access to our mental states must be not only true, but non-accidentally true, in a way sufficient for genuine knowledge. This establishes that we possess the correct epistemic entitlement to our thoughts. In the third chapter, I argue Burge's arguments do not, in fact, give us good reason to suppose externalism and self-knowledge to be compatible. This, I argue, is because B urge relies upon a transcendental argument, which, in this context, cannot establish that we have self-knowledge if externalism is true. All it establishes, I argue, is that we do possess self-knowledge. And this is insufficient to establish that externalism and self-knowledge are compatible. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

The dissertation lays the foundations for a naturalistic account of word meaning capable of addressing the conflicting intuitions that word meanings are both “out there”, world-involving and objective (the “objectivist” intuition) and in the heads of speakers, i.e. cognitive and perspectival (the “mentalist” intuition). The strong naturalization constraint endorsed in this project has it that the sought-after syncretic notion of word meaning must be nonmysterious and constitute a potential object for the natural sciences. The objectivist intuition is discussed within the framework of semantic externalism and the theory of semantic deference. Whereas the importance of the phenomenon of semantic deference (i.e. the fact that speakers defer to semantic standards for the fixation of the meaning of their words) is recognized, it is shown that taking the normativity of meaning evidenced by semantic deference at face value leads to embracing a form of meaning objectivism that is incompatible with naturalism. On the one hand, the objectivist/externalist commitment to independent meaning-determining realities could be stronger than the commitments actually undertaken by the natural sciences themselves. On the other hand, the degree of idealization inherent in the objectivist account makes it oddly disconnected from and ultimately irrelevant to actual linguistic practice. However, usage-based accounts – which have meanings determined by the way words are actually used rather than determined “from outside” – notoriously struggle to provide a satisfactory account of the normativity of meaning. The proposed move consists in biting the bullet and treating the inherent normativity of meaning as a form of cognitive illusion, albeit an unavoidable illusion and one which must be taken seriously in order to explain the properties of linguistic understanding. A strictly usage-based account is shown to be viable and even to be able to account for the objectivist explanandum, once it is coupled with biological functionalism. Word meanings “out there” turn out to be viable natural objects, yet quite unlike the apparent objects of our pre-theoretical intuitions. “Complete”, world-involving word meanings are complex functional kinds (like organs or artifacts) constituted (rather than determined) by speakers’ actual dispositions and relevant environmental factors. As such, complete meanings – whether at the communal level (conventional meanings) or at the level of the individual speaker (idiosyncratic patterns of use) – are essentially opaque to speakers and can only be identified from a theoretical point of view on the basis of functional considerations. Moreover, the environmental factors intuitively corresponding to the traditional notion of objective reference or extension cannot be considered independently of the other internal and relational meaning-constitutive factors. The view of meaning defended is thus supportive of a certain form of anti-realism, where reference and truth are relativized to evolved interests, yet it is not supportive of any global form of anti-realism, for the presuppositions of biological normativity still provide a realist anchor to natural-language meanings. From this theoretical perspective, the mentalist intuition is taken to concern the internal, cognitive sub-components of complete meanings. Internal meanings are the cognitive kinds associated with word types (lexical meanings) or word tokens (ways in which words are understood/interpreted on an occasion of use). It is argued that internal meanings – whether stable or occasion-specific – have an irreducible abstract dimension for which no naturalistically plausible worldly counterpart is to be found. The experience of aboutness of the concepts intuitively encoded and expressed by words is again to be treated as a cognitive illusion, on a par with the illusion of the inherent normativity of word meaning. However, the abstract nature of internal meanings explains some of the key properties of linguistic understanding – aboutness, compositionality, co-reference – without which productive thought and linguistic communication would be impossible. The proposed account thus makes room for compositional-extensional semantics and shared understanding, as long as these are fully internalized. The connection with the external components of complete meanings is indirect, mediated by procedures whose workings are to a large extent opaque to users. The main consequence of the proposed framework is the incommensurability of internal meaning and complete meaning, and therefore a rejection of the possibility of an articulation of internal meaning and complete meaning compatible with the commonsense view from which traditional accounts of semantic deference and semantic externalism are built.Cette thèse jette les bases d’une théorie naturaliste de la signification des mots à même de rendre compte de deux intuitions en apparence conflictuelles :d’une part, l’intuition selon laquelle les significations des mots ont une existence extérieure objective et impliquent le monde (l’intuition « objectiviste ») ;d’autre part, l’intuition selon laquelle les significations sont dans la tête des locuteurs, c’est-à-dire correspondent à des réalités cognitives et perspectivales (l’intuition « mentaliste »). La contrainte naturaliste assumée dans ce projet veut que la notion syncrétique de signification que l’on cherche à développer puisse constituer un objet potentiel d’investigation pour les sciences naturelles, c’est-à-dire qu’elle soit, au moins en principe, localisable dans le monde naturel. L’intuition objectiviste est débattue dans le cadre de l’externalisme sémantique et de la théorie de la déférence sémantique. Bien que l’importance du phénomène de la déférence sémantique (le fait que les locuteurs défèrent à des standards sémantiques pour la fixation de la signification des mots qu’ils emploient) soit pleinement reconnue, l’argument poursuivi mène à la conclusion que la normativité de la signification que semble imposer la déférence sémantique ne doit pas être prise pour argent comptant, sous peine d’épouser une forme d’objectivisme de la signification incompatible avec le projet de naturalisation stricte. D’une part, l’engagement ontologique objectiviste/externaliste vis-à-vis de réalités indépendantes déterminant les significations pourrait être plus fort que les engagements ontologiques implicites des sciences naturelles elles-mêmes. D’autre part, le degré d’idéalisation propre au point de vue objectiviste le rend étrangement détaché de la pratique linguistique effective, et en définitive sans pertinence pour rendre compte de celle-ci. Cela étant dit, les théories fondées sur l’usage – pour lesquelles les significations sont déterminées par la façon dont les mots sont effectivement employés plutôt que déterminées « de l’extérieur » – sont en général critiquées pour leur incapacité à rendre compte de la normativité de la signification. La proposition que fait la thèse consiste à assumer cette conséquence d’une théorie fondée sur l’usage et à considérer la normativité intrinsèque de la signification comme une forme d’illusion cognitive, bien qu’une illusion inévitable et devant être prise au sérieux s’il s’agit d’expliquer les propriétés remarquables de la compréhension linguistique. Une théorie strictement fondée sur l’usage est viable et même capable de rendre compte de l’intuition objectiviste, une fois que cette théorie est couplée avec un fonctionnalisme biologique. Les significations « extérieures » des mots sont bien des objets naturalisables, quoique fort différents des objets apparents de nos intuitions pré-théoriques. Les significations « complètes », c’est-à-dire impliquant le monde, correspondent à des espèces fonctionnelles complexes (à la manière des organes ou des artéfacts) qui sont constituées (plutôt que déterminées) par les dispositions effectives des locuteurs et les facteurs environnementaux pertinents. En tant que telles, les significations complètes – que ce soit au niveau de la communauté linguistique (significations conventionnelles) ou au niveau du locuteur individuel (usages idiosyncrasiques) – sont fondamentalement opaques pour les locuteurs et ne peuvent être identifiées qu’à partir d’un point de vue théorique externe et sur base de considérations fonctionnelles. En outre, les facteurs environnementaux correspondant intuitivement à la notion traditionnelle de référence ou d’extension objective ne peuvent être considérés indépendamment des autres facteurs internes et relationnels constitutifs de la signification. La théorie de la signification défendue suggère donc une certaine forme d’anti-réalisme, dans lequel la référence et la vérité sont relativisées à des intérêts spécifiques produits par l’évolution naturelle. Cette théorie ne sert pour autant guère d’appui à un quelconque anti-réalisme global, car les présupposés de la normativité biologique continuent à fournir un ancrage réaliste aux significations linguistiques. Une fois cette perspective théorique sur les significations impliquant le monde adoptée, on fait la supposition que l’intuition mentaliste concerne les sous-composantes internes et cognitives des significations complètes. Les significations internes sont les espèces cognitives associées avec les types lexicaux (significations lexicales) et avec les tokens lexicaux (façons dont les mots sont compris/interprétés lorsqu’ils sont employés). Il est avancé que les significations internes – qu’elles soient stables ou propres à une occasion d’usage – ont une composante abstraite irréductible à laquelle ne correspond aucune contrepartie mondaine acceptable d’un point de vue naturaliste. L’expérience de l’ « être-à-propos » (aboutness) des concepts intuitivement encodés et exprimés par les mots doit encore une fois être considérée comme une illusion cognitive, à l’instar de l’illusion de la normativité intrinsèque de la signification. Cependant, la nature abstraite des significations internes explique certaines des propriétés centrales de la compréhension linguistique – être-à-propos, compositionnalité, co-référence – sans lesquelles la pensée productive et la communication proprement linguistique seraient impossibles. La théorie proposée fait donc une place à la sémantique compositionnelle-extensionnelle et à la compréhension partagée, pour autant que celles-ci soient complètement internalisées. La connexion avec les composantes externes des significations complètes est indirecte, médiée par des procédures dont le fonctionnement est en grande partie opaque aux utilisateurs du langage. La conséquence principale du cadre proposé est l’incommensurabilité de la signification interne et de la signification complète et, partant, le rejet de la possibilité d’une articulation entre les deux types de signification qui soit compatible avec le point de vue de sens commun à partir duquel sont construites les théories traditionnelles de la déférence sémantique et de l’externalisme sémantique. / Doctorat en Langues et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

What is the relationship between judging something as good and being motivated to acton this judgment? Motivational internalism is the thesis that there is a necessaryconnection between moral judgments and motivation. Externalists typically believe that ajudgment-independent desire is needed for the moral judgment to be motivating. Tobridge the gap between internalism and externalism, a few philosophers have appealed totheories of identification-based moral judgments. This implies that although moraljudgments may not be necessarily motivating in general, it could be possible to define acertain kind of identification-based moral judgment that is necessarily motivating. HereinI will examine the role identification plays for moral motivation. I will first analyse anargument that uses an identification-incompatible moral judgment to show thatinternalism is false. I will argue that this argument is unconvincing and that identificationdoes not preclude identification-incompatible moral judgments from being motivating.The identification-based argument hence does not support that internalism is false.Second, I will argue that identification can provide the motivational force needed to makecertain identity-based moral judgments necessarily motivating. This identification-basedaccount does however, I will argue, not support internalism. Despite presenting a kind ofmoral judgment that is necessarily motivating, it is an externalist account of theconnection between moral judgments and motivation since a judgment-independentdesire is a necessary source of its motivational force.

Student Number : 0311005K - MA dissertation - School of Social Sciences - Faculty of Humanities / In this paper I track the work of Alvin Goldman, the American epistemologist, from 1979 to 1992 to assess its adequacy as a theory of justified belief. Many philosophers have pointed out that the theory faces problems, the three most important of which I consider. The first is the “clairvoyance problem.” In this case we intuitively deny the status of “justified” to certain beliefs produced by the reliable process of clairvoyance. This indicates that reliable belief formation is not sufficient for justification. The “generality problem,” the second problem, concerns the correct identification and description of the process forming each belief. If the process cannot be identified, then no assessment can be made of a belief’s epistemic status. Moreover, if the process is described too narrowly such that each process only has one output belief, then all true beliefs will be “justified” and all false beliefs “unjustified,” an unacceptable result. If the process is described too broadly then all output beliefs of that process will share an equal epistemic status, also an unacceptable result. Finally, it is possible to challenge the necessity of reliable formation for justification using the case of a cognizer in an evil demon world such that his unreliable visual beliefs are intuitively “justified” since those beliefs are produced by the same reliable processes in our world where they produce justified beliefs. I defend Goldman against these challenges by elucidating subtleties in Goldman’s work that answer these problems and by adding three necessary conditions to his theory. I argue that by modifying Goldman’s early work and rejecting parts of his later work, we can formulate a version of his theory that counts as an adequate theory of justified belief immune to the foregoing problems.