Description

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Our mental lives are entwined with the world. There are worldly things that we have beliefs about and things in the world we desire to have happen. We find some things fearsome and others likable. The puzzle of intentionality -- how it is that our minds make contact with the world -- is one of the oldest and most vexed issues facing philosophers.

Many contemporary philosophers and cognitive scientists have been attracted to the idea that our minds represent the world. This book explores an important assumption about representation, namely, that when we represent things in the world, we represent them as having properties, and in this way our representations have "propositional" structure. The contributors examine what the commitment to propositionalism amounts to; illuminate why one might find the thesis attractive (or unattractive); and consider ways in which one might depart from propositionalism. The hope is that this will lead towards a more complete understanding of how the mind and world are connected.

About the Author

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Alex Grzankowski is a lecturer in the department of philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, working primarily on intentionality and representation. He has published a number of articles on issues concerning intentionality and representation. Before coming to the University of London, Alex taught and researched at the University of Cambridge and at Texas Tech University. He received his PhD in 2013 at the University of Texas at Austin. Michelle Montague is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin. Her work focuses on the philosophy of mind, primarily on consciousness and intentionality. In addition to publishing numerous articles in these areas, she is the author of The Given: Experience and its Content (Oxford University Press, 2016), the co-editor with Tim Bayne of Cognitive Phenomenology (Oxford University Press, 2011), and the co-editor with Galen Strawson of Philosophical Writings by P.F. Strawson (Oxford University Press, 2011).