II—Jody Azzouni: Singular Thoughts

Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 85 (1):45-61 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Tim Crane characterizes the cognitive role of singular thought via singular mental files: the application of such files to more than one object is senseless. As many do, he thus stresses the contrast between ‘singular’ and ‘general’. I give a counterexample, plurally-directed singular thought, and I offer alternative characterizations of singular thought—better described as ‘objects-directed thought’—initially in terms of the defeasibility of the descriptions associated with one's thinking of an object, and then more broadly in terms of whether descriptions of the object or description-independent epistemic routes to the object are primarily operative in an agent's thinking.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 102,546

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Singular Thought.Tim Crane & Jody Azzouni - 2011 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 85 (1):21-43.
Against the Mental Files Conception of Singular Thought.Rachel Goodman - 2016 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7 (2):437-461.
Reclaiming Russellian Singular Thoughts.Heimir Geirsson - 2024 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 24 (71):235-254.
On the Cognitive Role of Singular Thoughts.Bartłomiej Czajka & Jędrzej Piotr Grodniewicz - 2017 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 8 (3):573-594.
Singular Thoughts and Singular Propositions.Joshua Armstrong & Jason Stanley - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 154 (2):205 - 222.
Thinking about many.James Openshaw - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):2863-2882.
Singular Thought and Mental Files: An Introduction.Rachel Goodman & James Genone - 2020 - In Rachel Goodman, James Genone & Nick Kroll (eds.), Singular Thought and Mental Files. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press. pp. 1-17.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-05-18

Downloads
307 (#92,339)

6 months
20 (#143,556)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Jody Azzouni
Tufts University

Citations of this work

Singular Thought.Tim Crane & Jody Azzouni - 2011 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 85 (1):21-43.
Private Investigators and Public Speakers.Alexander Sandgren - 2023 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 9 (1):95-113.
On the Cognitive Role of Singular Thoughts.Bartłomiej Czajka & Jędrzej Piotr Grodniewicz - 2017 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 8 (3):573-594.

View all 10 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The Varieties of Reference.Gareth Evans - 1982 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Henry McDowell.
Naming and Necessity: Lectures Given to the Princeton University Philosophy Colloquium.Saul A. Kripke - 1980 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edited by Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel.
Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals.David Kaplan - 1989 - In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes From Kaplan. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563.
Themes From Kaplan.Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.) - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The origin of concepts.Susan Carey - 2009 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 25 references / Add more references