Conceptual flux

About this book

"How can one think about a thing, think something false about it, and still be thinking about that thing at all? If a concept is applied to something outside its meaning, how are we to say it does not mean that thing as well? This makes up one of the central issues in contemporary philosophy of mind: The problem of misrepresentation. This book criticizes the way all contemporary theories of mental representation seek to account for misrepresentation, and concludes that it cannot be explained naturalistically. It specifically evaluates and criticizes the theories of mental content proposed by Fodor, Dretske, Millikan, Block, Harman, and others, as well as examining verificationist approaches to meaning of Quine, Davidson, and Stich." "Yet this book goes much further than mere criticism - Perlman formulates a naturalistic theory of representation that reluctantly accepts the unfortunate conclusion that there is no misrepresentation (which, he argues, is an unavoidable consequence of the rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction)." "This book is one of the most thorough examinations of mental representation and meaning holism in the literature. It should be of interest to everyone interested in the mind and how ideas can have meaning. It crosses boundaries from philosophy into psychology, linguistics, and AI, and cognitive science."--Jacket.