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Andrea Polonioli
University of Edinburgh
a.polonioli@sms.ed.ac.uk
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Plan of Lectures
Today
Present Dennetts attempt to rescue commonsense propositional
attitude psychology
Tomorrow
Discuss some problems this proposal seems to face
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Todays lecture
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Todays lecture
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Todays lecture
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Against eliminativism
E.g., My thesis will be that [...] belief is a perfectly objective
phenomenon (1981,58)
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FP is not a theory
Paul Churchland now wants to say that folk psychology is a theory; but
theories do not have to be formulated the way they are formulated in
books. I think that is a good reason for not calling it a theory, since it
does not consist of any explicit theorems or laws (1991, 135)
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Design Stance
Ignore the actual details of an object, and, on the assumption that it has a
certain design, predict that it will behave as it was designed to behave
under various circumstances
Intentional Stance
Treat the object as a rational agent, figure out what beliefs it ought to
have, given its place in the world and purpose, and what desires it ought
to have. Then predict that it will act to further its desires in the light of
its beliefs
Andrea Polonioli (University of Edinburgh)
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Todays lecture
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Against realism
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Is the belief that 3 is bigger than 2 the same as the belief that 2 is
smaller than 3?
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Against eliminativism
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Against eliminativism
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Against eliminativism
Folk psychology is abstract in that the beliefs and desires it attributes are
not intervening distinguishable states of an internal behavior-causing
system
Beliefs and desires are abstracta: calculation-bound entities
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Second Lecture
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Second Lecture
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Second lecture
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Simulation theory
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Second lecture
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Second lecture
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Peacockes Body is just like a normal human body except it has no brain
Its afferent and efferent nerves are connected by radio to a computer on
Mars
The behaviour of the Body is reliably predictable via the Intentional
Strategy
So,the Body fulfills the condition of behavioral prediction
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The End
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