Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism Reprint Edition

by Ruth Garrett Millikan (Author)

2 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0262631150

ISBN-10: 0262631156

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Beginning with a general theory of function applied to body organs, behaviors, customs, and both inner and outer representations, Ruth Millikan argues that the intentionality of language can be described without reference to speaker intentions and that an understanding of the intentionality of thought can and should be divorced from the problem of understanding consciousness. The results support a realist theory of truth and of universals, and open the way for a nonfoundationalist and nonholistic approach to epistemology.

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Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism

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Editorial Reviews

Review

An exciting book. It is a sustained effort at developing a naturalistic view of intentionality. Millikan's writing is clear, forceful, and illuminating.

(Hector Neri-Casteneda, Indiana University)

About the Author

Ruth Garrett Millikan is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut. She is the author of Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories (MIT Press, 1984) and White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice (MIT Press, 1995) and On Clear and Confused Ideas.

Series: MIT Press
Paperback: 367 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press; Reprint edition (December 16, 1987)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0262631156
ISBN-13: 978-0262631150
Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.9 x 8.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 2 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,081,334 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #962 in Books > Textbooks > Social Sciences > Psychology > Cognitive Psychology
- #2377 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Cognitive
- #3411 in Books > Science & Math > Behavioral Sciences > Cognitive Psychology

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Aaron Boyden

An essential source for philosophy of mind

May 25, 2007

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

And probably for related topics. Millikan's account of functions and "Normal" functioning is extremely well-developed, and can provide much needed content to "functionalist" accounts of various kinds, helping greatly in evaluating their merits and their defects. Her notion of a function also enables a unified account to be given of functions for which things are designed and for things which are not designed (obviously without the theological dodge of saying everything is designed).

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Toni Wuersch

defines "function" in a non-circular way

March 31, 2002

Format: Paperback

The book explains why the reproduction of tools, actions, adaptations and habits can matter separately from single instances of use, without referring to any specialized internal mechanisms, as Fodor or Chomsky might require.
It thus throws an enormous weight of exemplary philosophical junk (Dennett might claim most of the literature on free will goes here) in the dumpster, by showing that a battery of single counterexamples can be irrelevant to a reproductive motive.
The book also defines "function" by referring to reproductive motives, not use motives. A mass of literature referring to function becomes clearer thereby. Dysfunction becomes far less relevant than one might expect when one sees "dysfunction" opposed to "function", as if a law of contradiction applied.
I like the formalism in the book, which Millikan seems to have felt compelled to softpedal in her subsequent writings. In a way, Millikan does for "function" here what Abraham Robinson did for infinitesimals. She rehabilitates an aid to intuition, so that people who might be inclined to deny it because it lacks a formal well-definition might have to admit it.
The context is biological, i.e., survival and posterity matter more than origins in the mist, a process is step by step, and ideas can persist despite cases of failure.

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