Overview

A good understanding of the nature of a property requires knowing whether that property is relational or intrinsic. Gabriel Segal's concern is whether certain psychological properties -specifically, those that make up what might be called the ""cognitive content"" of psychological states - are relational or intrinsic. He claims that content supervenes on microstructure, that is, if two beings are identical with respect to their microstructural properties, then they must be identical with respect to their congitive contents. Segal's thesis, a version of internalism, is that being in a state with a specific cognitive content does not essentially involve standing in any real relation to anything external. He uses the fact that content locally supervenes on microstructure to argue for the intrinsicness of content. Cognitive content is fully determined by intrinsic, microstructural properties: duplicate a subject in respect to those properties and you duplicate their congitive contents. The book, written in a clear style, contains four chapters. The first two argue against the two leading externalist theories. Chapter 3 rejects popular theories that endorse two kinds of content: ""narrow""

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9780262692304

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Psychological states clearly enter into action, and relate in some way to the mind-external world. They have 'causal' and 'representational' properties, in standard usage (which is far from innocent). How these dual aspects of such states can be understood and reconciled has become a central topic in the study of thought and language. Segal provides a judicious critical analysis of much of the important work that has addressed these issues, also developing original and provocative ideas of his own that offer new perspectives. It is a valuable and most welcome contribution. Noam Chomsky, MIT

Psychological states clearly enter into action, and relate in some way to the mind-external world. They have 'causal' and 'representational' properties, in standard usage (which is far from innocent). How these dual aspects of such states can be understood and reconciled has become a central topic in the study of thought and language. Segal provides a judicious critical analysis of much of the important work that has addressed these issues, also developing original and provocative ideas of his own that offer new perspectives. It is a valuable and most welcome contribution. --Noam Chomsky, MIT

Author Information

Gabriel M.A. Segal is Professor of Philosophy at King's College London.

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