Saddled with Content

Abstract

The central issue in this thesis is whether the world, as we fnd it in
perceptual experience, shares structure with thought. According to the
view that I label “monism”, it does; according to “dualism”, it does not.
It is my aim to defend monism: in a basic case, we think of something
that it is some way; we can also see that something is some way, so that
it is then manifest before our eyes that something is some way.
Thought, experience, and the world share predicative structure. In
chapter I, I argue for monism by arguing against dualism, which in
chapter III is discussed more specifcally as the view of Charles Travis.

But an at least equally important aim is to overcome a certain philosophical
framework within which monism cannot come into its own.
The core assumption of this framework is that a thinkable content is, in
itself, without assertoric force, and to hold it to be true one must add
such force. In chapter II, I argue that a thinkable content rather has the
character of a claim, even if this character can be muted in certain special
contexts, or when the content occurs in a more complex whole.
Only against this background can monism be understood as the truism
that it is. When it comes to this framework issue, “Fregean monism”
functions as a foil, which in chapter IV is discussed more specifcally as
the view of John McDowell in Mind and World.

Date of Award	2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	King's College London
Supervisor	Sacha Golob (Supervisor) & Bill Brewer (Supervisor)