Demonstrative thought, descriptive thought, singular thought

Pořádá Oddělení logiky

Tim Crane, University of Cambridge

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It is a familiar claim in recent philosophy of mind that acquaintance with objects makes demonstrative thought about them possible. While there is significant debate about the nature of acquaintance and demonstrative thought, few philosophers have called their existence into doubt, as data with which philosophising about the mind should begin. In this talk, I challenge this consensus. I assume that those who believe that acquaintance makes demonstrative thought possible mean more by this than the truism that sometimes we can think about things because we can perceive them. However, once they try and go beyond this truism in their talk of acquaintance and demonstrative thought, philosophers often make assumptions that have dubious psychological plausibility. In particular, I will question whether anything can be salvaged from Russell's idea of acquaintance, and I will question the psychological reality of the familiar distinction between demonstrative and 'descriptive' thought.