Sobre a viabilidade da noção de conteúdo mental estreito

Abstract

In the relevant philosophical sense, contents are abstract entities that a semantic theory usually associates with utterances and thought acts. These abstract entities are used in the interpretation of language and thought when the cognitive states underlying speech acts and thoughts are specified. We resort to contents in order to account for temporal development of these cognitive states, its unfolding into other cognitive states and, eventually, in intentional acts. This abstract “calculus” involving contents aims at explaining the practical andtheoretical inferences involving cognitive states. Many philosophers consider it to be plausible the thesis that says that the development of the cognitive states of a rational agent depends entirely on his intrinsic properties. This plausibility corresponds to the thesis that there is a narrow mental content that abstracts away the relation that an individual maintains to its social and natural environment. The philosophical discussion in the last decades shown that it is difficult or perhaps (as some of the philosophers might prefer to say) impossible to give a satisfactory formulation to the notion of narrow content. Specifically, my goal is to motivate the rehabilitation of internalism as a compelling position in order to account for mental causation problem, introspective knowledge and puzzles of rationa