Introduction

Author: Harman, Gilbert

Source: Reasoning, Meaning, and Mind, July 1999 , pp. 1-7(7)

Publisher: Oxford Scholarship Online Monographs

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Abstract:

Many themes in the papers collected here are negative: there is no a priori knowledge or analytic truth; logic is not a theory of reasoning; a theory of truth conditions is not a theory of meaning; a purely objective account of meaning or mind cannot say what words mean or what it is like to see things in colour. Other themes are positive: theoretical reasoning has important practical aspects; meaning depends on how words are used to think with i.e. on how concepts function in reasoning, perception and action; the relevant uses or functions relate concepts to aspects of the environment and other things in the world; translation plays a central role in any adequate account of mind or meaning.

Keywords: analyticity; understanding; reasoning; functionalism; meaning; colour; experience; Gilbert Harman; logic; knowledge; philosophy; philosophy of language; translation; a priori; mind; concepts; philosophy of mind; rationality