Conceptual role semantics and the explanatory role of content

According to conceptual role semantics (CRS), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, for example, in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well-known ‘use’ theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and, more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to are not just actual, but also counterfactual: not only what effects a thought does have, but what effects it would have had if stimuli or other states had differed. Of course, so defined, the functional role of a thought includes all sorts of causes and effects that are non-semantic, for example, perhaps happy thoughts can bolster one’s immunity, promoting good health. Conceptual roles are functional roles minus such non-semantic causes and effects. The view has arisen separately in philosophy (where it is sometimes called ‘inferential’ or ‘functional’ role semantics) and in cognitive science (where it is sometimes called ‘procedural semantics’).

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The role of ``Conceptual role semantics'': comments on Harman's paper.

Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic ◽

10.1305/ndjfl/1093870090 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 305-315 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Barry Loewer

Keyword(s):

Conceptual Role Semantics ◽

Conceptual Role

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Conceptual Role Semantics

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199552238.003.0014 ◽

2009 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Mark Greenberg ◽

Gilbert Harman

Keyword(s):

Mental Representations ◽

Mental States ◽

The Other ◽

Language Of Thought ◽

Symbol System ◽

Ordinary Sense ◽

Symbol Systems ◽

Conceptual Role Semantics ◽

Conceptual Role

Conceptual role semantics (CRS) is the view that the meanings of expressions of a language (or other symbol system) or the contents of mental states are determined or explained by the role of the expressions or mental states in thinking. The theory can be taken to be applicable to language in the ordinary sense, to mental representations, conceived of either as symbols in a ‘language of thought’ or as mental states such as beliefs, or to certain other sorts of symbol systems. CRS rejects the competing idea that thoughts have intrinsic content that is prior to the use of concepts in thought. According to CRS, meaning and content derive from use, not the other way round.

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LINGUOSTYLISTIC ASPECTS OF THE CONCEPTUAL ROLE OF LOVE IN THE PROSE FICTION OF RUSSIAN WRITER AND POET IVAN BUNIN

10.21506/j.ponte.2017.11.22 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 73 (11) ◽

Author(s):

Elena Luludova

Keyword(s):

Prose Fiction ◽

Conceptual Role

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In Defense of Perceptual Content

10.1093/oso/9780198827702.003.0006 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Susanna Schellenberg

Keyword(s):

Perceptual Experience ◽

Representational Content ◽

Perceptual Content ◽

Explanatory Role ◽

Relational Understanding ◽

The Way

Chapter 5 takes a step back and traces the way in which excessive demands on the notion of perceptual content invite an austere relationalist account of perception. It argues that any account that acknowledges the role of discriminatory, selective capacities in perception must acknowledge that perceptual states have representational content. The chapter shows that on a relational understanding of perceptual content, the fundamental insights of austere relationalism do not compete with representationalism. Most objections to the thesis that perceptual experience has representational content apply only to austere representationalist accounts, that is, accounts on which perceptual relations to the environment play no explanatory role. By arguing that perceptual relations and perceptual content are mutually dependent the chapter shows how Fregean particularism can avoid the pitfalls of both austere representationalism and austere relationalism. With relationalists, Fregean particularism argues that perception is constitutively relational, but with representationalists it argues that it is constitutively representational.

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