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An Introduction to Direct Realism: The Views of D.M. Armstrong
DOI link for An Introduction to Direct Realism: The Views of D.M. Armstrong
An Introduction to Direct Realism: The Views of D.M. Armstrong book
An Introduction to Direct Realism: The Views of D.M. Armstrong
DOI link for An Introduction to Direct Realism: The Views of D.M. Armstrong
An Introduction to Direct Realism: The Views of D.M. Armstrong book
ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the proposals of Daniel Dennett. Dennett seems to draw the most consistent conclusions from the Darwinian story, and the chapter shows how that involves his appeal in crucial ways to W. V. O. Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of radical translation. It focuses on two important works of his, The Intentional Stance, and his essay about his own views in Blackwell's A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind. According to his own self-description, Dennett considers his theory of 'mental' content to be functionalist, and not realist. This functionalist approach to mental content works together with his concept of an intentional system, which works hand in hand with his tactical strategy called the intentional stance. Dennett explains that intentional system theory is like a competence model, rather than a performance one. The chapter focuses on languages, including the indeterminacy of translation between various discourses, such as between the language of folk psychology and that of materialistic, cognitive science.