The Problems of Mind and Consciousness [catalog]

and related writing

ANIL MITRA PHD, DATE: NONE


Home | Site-Map | Contact


Document status: May 31, 2003

Outdated; maintained out of interest

Essential content absorbed to and no further action needed for Journey in Being

Possibilities: after phases 2, 3, 4, and then later after “after”

Combine the essence of the discussion of meaning with that of Problems in Consciousness and incorporate in Journey in Being

Reorganize Problems in Consciousness according to the possible reorganization below


1      General issues

Content: ID needs including AI, Cognitive Science, Psychiatry... intentionality, language

The Logic

Shorten

Reviews of McGinn, Dretske, Flanagan, Nagel’s books, Kim; systematically, comprehensively and minimally review the literature

Eliminate or change comments re “this site” since the nature of the site has changed since first planned

“What’s the Catalog About” page; popular appeal

Cognitive Science and AI: be systematic and minimal; add critical and creative material; collect, review and summarize sources that define the field the main problems and issues and their status; review the Companions series e.g., Companion the Philosophy of Mind articles on Artificial Intelligence and Connectionism; review Chomsky, Fodor…

Circles: add objectives and results of each circle; the relation and sequence of the circles i.e., the detour through and meaning of idealism

2      The Catalog of Problems: a possible reorganization

The reorganization would be determined and modeled by the structure of the Journey in Being

3      On Meaning…for the catalog and in general

i.         Generally, clarification of meaning is an ongoing process; and interacts with diffusion of meaning

ii.       Analysis of meaning… by itself does not all constitute the endeavor of discovery and elucidation within or without philosophy; clarification of meaning… is nonetheless important to avoid confusion and inconsistency… and in terms of clarification of concepts

iii.      The meaning of “meaning” is doubly recursive in that the process of meaning applies also to “meaning”

iv.      Meaning and knowing; modes of knowing and meaning… elaborate: symbol, language… various sources

v.       Sense, reference and family resemblance

Sense/connotation… reference/denotation

Intension/extension

vi.      Senses of meaning

Sense and reference is central here

Sentence vs. speaker meaning

Significance, essence and other meanings of “meaning” are not in issue; these meanings may be metaphorical

vii.    Theory or theories of meaning

The meaning of “meaning” is the sense, reference… of the word “meaning”… a theory of meaning as used here is an explanation or mechanism about how meaning is determined and clarified. Thus, in The Problems of Mind and Consciousness, I considered different levels and senses of “meaning”. These different senses of “meaning” had rough correspondence to the historical determinants and the ways of clarification of meaning. Thus the meaning of “meaning”, and a theory of “meaning”, though apparently distinct, are related and co-determinate, and on some senses of “meaning”, are not distinct. What is true of “meaning” is also true of other words/Words. But, the determination of the meaning of “meaning” is doubly indeterminate as the concept figures in the reference and referent. In general, this points to the idea of no final anchor

viii.   On family resemblance

Degrees of resemblance

Modes of resemblance: similarity of kind, of sound, of accident; metaphorical resemblance

…therefore, frequently what are two senses referred to by one sound are in essence two separate Words [that sound the same] or two separate concepts. Separate words should be used for words; except, however, that logic cannot always rule over history and the same word for different Words is a source of productive suggestion, analogy and metaphor even if it is also a source of confusion

Frequently, much is made of one word in its separate senses:

Temperature, heat

Momentum, energy… this is of historical interest

Phenomenality, awakeness and content or access [consciousness]

Some times the resemblance may be so minimal or merely by word association [accident, coinage, historical divergence/convergence…] that we consider together, often with heated but fruitless and pointless debate, meanings that should semantically be almost, even completely, separate

There may be distinct words with less variance in meaning than among the different senses or reference of the same word. A given word may have more than one meaning - this is obvious; each of these meanings may designate a family system of resemblance; the relations among the families may be tight, loose, or non-existent

A phase of discovery and creation must be the clarification and specification of meaning… but this is, in a sense, supportive - remember, however, that meaning and theory are not finally and absolutely distinct

ix.      References:

Ogden and Richards

Runes

My writing

Companion series: Mind, Metaphysics, and Epistemology…