file:///D|/Heil%20J.%20Philosophy%20of%20mind-%20a%20contemporary%20introduction%20(Routledge,1998)(html)/htm.htm
“Tigers are striped” just in case I believe that tigers are striped, and I take the
sentence to mean (or to be true if and only if) tigers are striped. In interpreting my
speech, then, you begin with guesses about what I believe and what my utterances
mean, and check these guesses against sentences you take me to hold true.
Think of sentences held true as vectors, the products of two forces: beliefs and
meanings (figure 5.1). Suppose, for instance, I hold true the sentence “Pythagoras is
peculiar.” I do so because of what I believe (among other things, that Pythagoras is
peculiar) and what I take the sentence “Pythagoras is peculiar” to mean (namely, that
Pythagoras is peculiar). (See figure 5.2.)
Pace some theorists, this does not imply that, if you are to interpret me, I must be
truthful. You might, for instance, discover that, for any sentence, p, in general I hold
true not-p when I utter p. In this respect, it is useful to distinguish the philosopher W.
V. Quine’s notion of “assent” to sentences from the attitude of holding true; we can
and do assent to what we do not

Figure 5.1
1 One consequence of such a view (foreshadowed earlier) is that only creatures
capable of linguistic utterances could be subjects of prepositional attitude ascriptions:
thought requires talk.
file:///D|/Heil%20J.%20Philosophy%20of%20mind...introduction%20(Routledge,1998)(html)/htm.htm (168 of 297) [02.06.2007 18:21:47]

file:///D|/Heil%20J.%20Philosophy%20of%20mind-%20a%20contemporary%20introduction%20(Routledge,1998)(html)/htm.htm
Churchland, Patricia (1986) Neurophilosophy, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Churchland, Paul (1979) Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Churchland, Paul (1981) “Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional
Attitudes,” Journal of Philosophy 78:67-90. Reprinted in Rosenthal (1991):601-
12.
Coren, Stanley (1994) The Intelligence of Dogs: Canine Consciousness and
Capabilities, New York: Scribner.
Crick, Francis (1994) The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the
Soul, New York: Scribner.
d
Danziger, Kurt (1980) “The History of Introspection Reconsidered,” Journal of the
History of the Behavioral Sciences 16:241-62.
Davidson, Donald (1967) “Truth and Meaning,” Synthese 17:304-23. Reprinted in
Davidson (1984):17-36.
Davidson, Donald (1973) “Radical Interpretation,” Dialectica 27:313-28.
Reprinted in Davidson (1984):125-39.
Davidson, Donald (1974a) “Belief and the Basis of Meaning,” Synthese 27:309-
23. Reprinted in Davidson (1984):141-54.
Davidson, Donald (1974b) “Psychology as Philosophy,” in S.C. Brown (ed.),
Philosophy of Psychology, New York: Barnes and Noble Books: 41-52. Reprinted
in Davidson (1980): 231-9.
Davidson, Donald (1975) “Thought and Talk,” in Samuel Guttenplan (ed.), Mind
and Language: Wolfson College Lectures 1974, Oxford: Clarendon Press: 7-23.
Reprinted in Davidson (1984):155-70.
Davidson, Donald (1977) “Reality without Reference,” Dialectica 31:247-53.
Reprinted in Davidson (1984):215-25.
Davidson, Donald (1980) Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Davidson, Donald (1984) Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Davidson, Donald (1986) “A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge,” in
Lepore (1986):307-19.
Dennett, Daniel (1987) The Intentional Stance, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Dennett, Daniel (1991a) Consciousness Explained, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown.
Dennett, Daniel (1991b) “Real Patterns,” Journal of Philosophy 89:27-51.
Dennett, Daniel (1996) Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of
Consciousness, New York: Basic Books.
Dennett, Daniel and Hofstadter, Douglas (eds) (1981) The Mind’s I, New York:
Basic Books.
Descartes, René (1641/1986) Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. John
Cottingham, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
file:///D|/Heil%20J.%20Philosophy%20of%20mind...introduction%20(Routledge,1998)(html)/htm.htm (273 of 297) [02.06.2007 18:21:48]