Title

Thoughts and oughts

Authors

Authors

M. Cash

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Philos. Explor.

Keywords

normativity; mental content; meaning; naturalism; intersubjectivity; objectivity; rationality; mental causation; EVOLUTION; MIND; LANGUAGE; Philosophy

Abstract

Many now accept the thesis that norms are somehow constitutively involved in people's contentful intentional states. I distinguish three versions of this normative thesis that disagree about the type of norms constitutively involved. Are they objective norms of correctness, subjective norms of rationality, or intersubjective norms of social practices? I show the advantages of the third version, arguing that it improves upon the other two versions, as well as incorporating their principal insights. I then defend it against two serious challenges: (1) If content is constituted by others' normative judgments, how can content be causally efficacious? (2) This account appears to make having contentful thoughts a matter of people having contentful thoughts about your thoughts. That appears to be viciously circular and so can't be naturalistic.

Journal Title

Philosophical Explorations

Volume

11

Issue/Number

2

Publication Date

1-1-2008

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

93

Last Page

119

WOS Identifier

WOS:000263140100002

ISSN

1386-9795

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