Abstract
We have already seen the notion of an ens rationis, a thing conceived, at work at several points in Reid’s thought. Reid offers his fullest consideration and explanation of this notion in the course of his treatment of the signification of words, to which we now turn. For that notion is most naturally explained within a discussion of the problem of how the linguistic representation of entia rationis is possible. That topic, in turn, is best pursued within the full topic of linguistic representation.
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Notes
See John Haidane, ‘Whose Theory? Which Representations?’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 74 1993, p249.
See P.T. Geach and A. Kenny, eds., Prior A.N., Objects of Thought, Oxford 1971, p4: ‘... to believe in the greenness of grass in this sense is just to believe that grass is green.’
The issue of whether Reid is committed to any version of the representational theory of mind, and, in particular, to Fodor’s version of this theory is vigorously taken up by Robert Stecker, ‘Does Reid Reject/Refute the Representational Theory of Mind’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 73 1992, pp174–84. Haldane’s reply is ‘Whose Theory? Which Representations?’ previously cited.
See Jerry Fodor, The Language of Thought, Harvester Press 1976, p56: Computational Models presuppose representational systems. But the representational systems of pre-verbal and infrahuman organisms surely cannot be natural languages. So either we abandon such pre-verbal and infrahuman psychology as we have so far pieced together, or we admit that some thinking, at least, isn’t done in English.
In Representations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science, Harvester Press 1981, p26.
See his ‘Mental Representations: An Introduction’ in N. Rescher ed. Scientific Enquiry in Philosophical Perspective, University Press of America 1987, pl26.
Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind, The MIT Press 1987, p17.
We have already come across this letter in an earlier, though related, discussion. The original is Aberdeen University Library MS2814/1/39.
See Adrian Cussins, ‘The Connectionist Construction of Concepts’, in M.Boden ed. The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, Oxford 1990, pp368–440.
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Gallie, R.D. (1998). Language, Conception and Representation. In: Thomas Reid: Ethics, Aesthetics and the Anatomy of the Self. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 78. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9020-4_4
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