New Essays on Singular Thought

Abstract

Abstract This book presents ten new essays about singular (de re) thought by a distinguished international group of philosophers of mind and language, as well as a comprehensive introduction by the editor. The contributors are: Kent Bach, John Campbell, Imogen Dickie, Manuel García‐Carpintero, Robin Jeshion, François Recanati, R.M. Sainsbury, Nathan Salmon, Arthur Sullivan, and Kenneth Taylor. The essays in this collection explore three main and overlapping sets of topics. One concerns the relationship between singular thought and perception. How does perception enable us to think non‐discursive thought about objects? Are there intermediaries, like sense data, that serve as the constituents of thought contents or is our thought on the basis of perceptual experience directly about the objects we perceive? The second concerns the relationship between singular thought and the semantics of demonstratives, indexicals, descriptions, proper names, and pronouns. What is the semantic content of these singular terms, and how do their semantic properties structure the nature of thoughts employing them? Topics addressed include puzzles about informative identities and the representation of them at the mentalistic level; belief attributions; the transfer of singular thought in communication; the semantics of empty referring expressions and fictional names. The third topic explores questions about the epistemic conditions for having singular thought. Is some variety of acquaintance necessary for singular thought, as Russell held? Can we convert descriptive, de dicto, thoughts into singular thoughts by manipulating the semantics, and what does this show about the mind's dependence upon language in structuring the nature of thought?

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