Private states and language

By Craig, Edward

Something is ’private’ if it can be known to one person only. Many have held that perceptions and bodily sensations are in this sense private, being knowable only ...

Folk psychology

By Stich, Stephen P.; Rey, Georges

There is wide disagreement about the meaning of ordinary mental terms (such as ‘belief’, ‘desire’, ‘pain’). Sellars suggested that our use of these terms is governed by a ...

Action

By Hornsby, Jennifer

Philosophical study of human action owes its importance to concerns of two sorts. There are concerns addressed in metaphysics and philosophy of mind about the status of reasoning ...

Action

Philosophical study of human action owes its importance to concerns of two sorts. There are concerns addressed in metaphysics and philosophy of mind about the status of reasoning ...

Behaviourism, analytic

By Braddon-Mitchell, David

Analytical behaviourism is the doctrine that talk about mental phenomena is really talk about behaviour, or tendencies to behave. For an analytical behaviourist, to say that Janet desires ...

Frege, Gottlob (1848–1925)

By George, Alexander; Heck, Richard

A German philosopher-mathematician, Gottlob Frege was primarily interested in understanding both the nature of mathematical truths and the means whereby they are ultimately to be justified. In general, ...

Functionalism

By Papineau, David

The term ‘functionalism’ means different things in many different disciplines from architectural theory to zoology. In contemporary philosophy of mind, however, it is uniformly understood to stand for ...

Language, social nature of

By Smith, Barry C.

Language is mostly used in a social setting. We use it to communicate with others. We depend on others when learning language, and we constantly borrow one another’s ...

Meaning and verification

By Hart, W.D.

The verifiability theory of meaning says that meaning is evidence. It is anticipated in, for example, Hume’s empiricist doctrine of impressions and ideas, but it emerges into full ...

Private language argument

By Candlish, Stewart

Ludwig Wittgenstein argued against the possibility of a private language in his 1953 book Philosophical Investigations, where the notion is outlined at §243: ‘The words of this language ...

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann (1889–1951)

By Heal, Jane

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna on 26 April 1889 and died in Cambridge on 29 April 1951. He spent his childhood and youth in Austria and Germany, ...

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann (1889–1951)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna on 26 April 1889 and died in Cambridge on 29 April 1951. He spent his childhood and youth in Austria and Germany, ...

Intuitionistic logic and antirealism

By Pagin, Peter

The law of excluded middle (LEM) says that every sentence of the form A∨¬A (‘A or not A’) is logically true. This law is accepted in classical logic, ...

Language, philosophy of

By Crimmins, Mark

Philosophical interest in language, while ancient and enduring (see Language, ancient philosophy of; Language, medieval theories of; Language, Renaissance philosophy of; Language, early modern philosophy of), has blossomed ...

Meaning and rule-following

By Smith, Barry C.

Wittgenstein’s discussion of rules and rule-following, and the recent responses to it, have been widely regarded as providing the deepest and most challenging issues surrounding the notions of ...