The Idea Theory

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Instructor Dr. Michael Johnson You can call me Michael If you must, Dr. Johnson

About Me From San Antonio, TX, U.S.A. Undergraduate degree (B.A. philosophy): University of Texas- Austin (2003). Graduate degree (Ph.D. philosophy): Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (2011). Moved to Hong Kong August 2011.

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Course Website michaeljohnsonphilosophy.com > PHIL 2610 Philosophy of Language 2016

Instructor Email michael.dracula.johnson@gmail.com

Academic Integrity All students are expected to read and understand HKU’s policy on plagiarism: “What Is Plagiarism?” http://www.rss.hku.hk/plagiarism /page2s.htm

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Office Hours Tuesdays: 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Assessment First paper draft: 20% Revised first paper: 30% Final paper: 50% Participation: 10%

Representations

The Meaningless World

Meaningful Artifacts

Mental Representation

Metasemantics How do representations represent? Why do they represent in the first place, rather than not representing? Why do they represent the things they do, rather than other things?

Vehicles and Content Representational vehicle: the thing that does the representing. Representational content: the thing that is represented.

Vehicle and Content Vehicle Content

Bad Argument The story is in the book. The dragon is in the story.____________ Therefore, there’s a dragon in the book.

The Possibility of Misrepresentation

The Possibility of Misrepresentation Seoul, South Korea

Original vs. Derived Representations A common view is that representational artifacts only represent because of the interpretations we give them.

Putnam’s Snail Suppose a snail sets out from under the sand and begins a journey along the beach.

Putnam’s Snail Without having any knowledge of who Winston Churchill is, or what he looks like, and not intending to draw anyone, the snails track randomly traces an image that looks just like Churchill. Is it a picture of Churchill? Does it represent him?

If other kinds of representation are derived from mental representation, we still need to answer the question: how do mental states represent?

The Idea Theory

Macbeth, Act I, scene i Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

Hallucinations Normally we talk as though we see physical things, out there in the world. “I see a dagger”– a dagger is obviously not mental. But what do I see when I hallucinate a dagger?

Ideas A popular view among 17th and 18th Century Western philosophers was that what you really saw was ideas– mental things. On this view, ideas were something like little colored pictures in the mind.

Idea Theory Mind Dagger Idea of a Dagger

Hallucination Mind No Dagger Idea of a Dagger

Indirect Realism Views of this general form are called “indirect realism.” What you directly see are mental entities (for example, ideas). You only indirectly see the real things that the ideas represent. Indirect realism allows us to maintain that there’s an appearance-gap between what we see (ideas) and the things that the ideas represent.

John Locke Father of Classical Liberalism (civil liberties, economic freedom, limited government) Along with Descartes, most important 17th Century Western philosopher.

Resemblance Theory According to the resemblance theory of representation, ideas represent things by resembling them– sort of like how painting works.

Painting

The Nature of Ideas According to Locke, ideas are “the pictures drawn in our minds” (Essay, II.x.5).

The Nature of Ideas An idea of a horse, then, is very much like a picture, image, or painting of a horse. Compare Hume: “By ideas I mean the faint images of [perceptions] in thinking and reasoning” (Treatise, I.i.1).

Resembles Sees Mind Dagger Idea of a Dagger

Resemblance This means that even though what you see are ideas, the ideas are close copies of the real things, the way a realistic painting is a close copy of a scene.

The New Science

Corpuscularianism The view was that everything is made out of corpuscles– microscopic little bits that had a certain shape, size, and momentum.

Corpuscularianism However, the corpuscles did not have color, taste, smell, sound, or warmth. These other qualities were explained as the effects of the corpuscles on our sensory organs. For example, heat is just the motion of corpuscles, but this motion causes us to experience the sensation of warmth.

The Unreality of Tastes, Colors, Etc. “I think that tastes, odors, colors, and so on are no more than mere names so far as the object in which we place them is concerned, and that they reside only in the consciousness. Hence if the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated” Galileo, The Assayer

Problems for the Idea Theory But if colors, for example, exist only in the mind, then There are no white horses. There are horses that cause me to experience whiteness when light bounces off of them. But the whiteness itself depends on me, the observer. Whiteness exists only in minds.

Partly Resembles Sees Mind Dog Idea of a Dog

Note This was already really part of the original resemblance theory… nobody thinks your idea of a dog smells like a dog!

Terminology Locke called properties like shape, size, and motion– properties that both ideas and real things could have– primary qualities. Other properties that only ideas had were called secondary qualities.

Partly Resembles??? Sees Mind Idea of a Red Red Light

Problem #1: Abstract Ideas

George Berkeley (1685-1753)

Locke on General Terms “It is not enough for the perfection of language, that sounds can be made signs of ideas, unless those signs can be so made use of as to comprehend several particular things…”

Locke on General Terms “…for the multiplication of words would have perplexed their use, had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be signified by…”

Locke on General Terms “To remedy this inconvenience, language had yet a further improvement in the use of general terms, whereby one word was made to mark a multitude of particular existences.”

Particular Terms Locke

General Terms Dog

Abstract Ideas If we accept the idea theory, then, we have to accept that there are “abstract ideas”– not mental pictures of a particular person, but mental pictures that resemble equally a group of things. These abstract ideas are the meanings of general terms.

Berkeley vs. Abstract Ideas The abstract idea of a man is supposed to apply equally to a tall man and a short man; a black man and a white man; a skinny man and a fat man; etc. Can there be such pictures?

Problem #2: The Determinacy of Thought

Wittgenstein’s Man on the Hill “A picture which corresponds to a man walking up a hill forward corresponds equally, and in the same way, to a man sliding down the hill backward.”

Wittgenstein’s Man on the Hill “Perhaps a Martian would describe the picture [as the man sliding down]. I do not need to explain why we do not describe it so.” -- Philosophical Investigations

Problem #3: Error

Representation and Error On the Idea Theorist’s view, I can only represent a thing if I have a mental image that sufficiently resembles it. But there seem to be lots of things that we can think about, while being massively in error about.

Problem #4: The Structure of Resemblance

Equivalence Relations

Resemblance as an Equivalence Relation Resemblance, like identity, is an equivalence relation, meaning it’s reflexive, symmetric, and transitive: Reflexive: for all X, X resembles X. (Everything resembles itself.) Symmetric: for all X and Y, if X resembles Y, then Y resembles X. Transitive: for all X, Y, and Z, if X resembles Y and Y resembles Z, then X resembles Z.

Resemblance vs. Representation Problem for the idea theory: resemblance is an equivalence relation, but representation is not. Therefore representation ≠ resemblance.

1. Representation is Not Reflexive You can have a representation that represents itself (for example, a map that includes the map’s location), but most representations don’t represent themselves. You can have a painting of a horse, that is not a painting of a painting of a horse (not a painting of itself).

2. Representation is Not Symmetric Most of what gets represented is not representational. My thoughts represent lakes and rivers and trees, but lakes and rivers and trees don’t represent my thoughts. And even when I do represent representations (when I think about a painting, say), usually they don’t represent me or my thoughts.

3. Representation is not Transitive The directory at the museum might represent the location of a certain Picasso painting. That painting could represent a horse. But the directory doesn’t represent any horses, it only represents paintings.

Problem #5: Truth-Evaluability

Concepts Concepts are representations of things or qualities: so I can have a concept of Obama, or a concept of red, or a concept of a horse, or a concept of a concept. Importantly, concepts are not truth-evaluable. My concept of red isn’t true, and it isn’t false either. It might be more or less accurate.

Propositions We can say that when I think of a thing, or think about a thing, then I am entertaining a concept. However, when I think that such-and-such, I am entertaining a proposition.

Propositions For example, I can think that Obama is the US president, or think that grass is red, or think that the concept of a horse is not a concept. Propositions are truth-evaluable: when I think that grass is red, my thought is false. (Not so when I just think of red.)

Dilemma The idea theory seems to have trouble distinguishing concepts and propositions. According to the idea theory, thought is having ideas, and ideas are like mental pictures. Are mental pictures truth-evaluable? If they are, then concepts aren’t ideas. If they aren’t, then propositions aren’t ideas.