Troubles for Content I

Abstract

It is widely accepted that thinkers can have thoughts involving concepts that, intuitively, they incompletely grasp. I argue, however, that the import of the phenomenon for the theory of linguistic and mental content has not been adequately appreciated: prominent theories of content, even if they specify modal determinants or grounds of content, lack an account of what it is for a representation to have content. The problem is easiest to see with respect to conceptual-role theories of content. And once we distinguish genuine incomplete understanding from mere error, we see that appeals to ideal conditions or a competence/performance distinction are no help with respect to incomplete understanding. Covariation theories are vulnerable to a parallel problem, for thinkers need not have a disposition to discriminate the relevant property in order to have the concept. An appeal to deference to other people cannot rescue conceptual role and covariation theories. A proviso about deference to others, understood in the most promising way, is a specification of an alternative way in which a representation's having content can be grounded, one that is inconsistent with the central position of conceptual-role and covariation theories about what it is for a representation to have particular content. Thus, those theories, once supplemented by an appeal to deference, lack a unified account of the phenomenon. In a companion paper, “Troubles for Content II: Explaining Grounding,” I consider the response that it is enough for an account to specify different ways in which a phenomenon, such as a representation's having content, can be determined or grounded. I argue that such a specification leaves us without an understanding of why the phenomenon can be grounded in diverse ways and that, in general, an account of the nature of the phenomenon can explain its grounding.

Keywords: theory of linguistic and mental content, covariation theories