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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1992 43(4):537-553; doi:10.1093/bjps/43.4.537
© 1992 by British Society for the Philosophy of Science
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Mental Content1

COLIN ALLEN

Department of Philosophy Texas A&M University College Station Texas 77843-4237 U.S.A.

Daniel Dennett and Stephen Stich have independently, but similarly, argued that the contents of mental states cannot be specified precisely enough for the purposes of scientific prediction and explanation. Dennett takes this to support his view that the proper role for mentalistic terms in science is heuristic. Stich takes it to support his view that cognitive science should be done without reference to mental content at all. I defend a realist understanding of mental content against these attacks by Dennett and Stich. I argue that they both mistake the difficulty of making content ascriptions precise for the impossibility of doing so.

1I would like to thank Keith Donnellan, Alan Nelson, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments.


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