Daten zum Projekt
| Initiative: | Postdoctoral Fellowships in den Geisteswissenschaften an Universitäten und Forschungsinstituten in Deutschland und den USA |
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| Ausschreibung: | Postdoctoral Fellowships in den Geisteswissenschaften an Universitäten und Forschungsinstituten in den USA |
| Bewilligung: | 17.03.2017 |
| Laufzeit: | 1 Jahr |
Projektinformationen
A theory of thought has to explain the propositional unity (truth-aptness with respect to objects) and the objectivity (shareability and repeatability) of thoughts. The paradigmatic versions of the classical approaches, theories of propositions and theories of judgments, fail for several reasons. A difficulty of the paradigmatic theories of propositions, Fregeanism and Russellianism, is their inability to explain the representational properties of those mind-independent complexes of abstract or concrete entities they postulate. In addition, Fregeanism postulates entities (complete and incomplete senses), the nature and existence of which remains unexplained, while Russellianism can't do justice to false or empty thoughts by identifying propositions with the objects, properties, and relations thought is about. The paradigmatic theories of judgments are Platonism and Nominalism. Platonism's referential semantics leads to problems in doing justice to false and empty thoughts, while Nominalism's denial of abstract entities as such leads to difficulties in accounting for the objectivity and numerical identity of thoughts. These criticisms apply in one form or the other to recent theories of propositions or judgments as well. The project wants to show that a Kantian theory of judgments can be elaborated so as to do justice to the unity and objectivity of thoughts while avoiding the pitfalls of the competing theories. Drawing on resources from Kant and Analytic Kantianism, it argues that thoughts can be understood as types of predicating concepts of objects ultimately mediated by unitary intuitions of these objects. Thus, while accounting for the unity of thoughts will consist in giving semantics of types of interconnected abilities and acts of judging and intuiting, accounting for their objectivity will consist in giving an ontology of such mind- and token-dependent types. Doing this will result in a Kantian theory of judgment explaining the unity and objectivity of thoughts.
Projektbeteiligte
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Dr. Till Hoeppner
Universität Potsdam
Philosophische Fakultät
Institut für Philosophie, Theoretische Philosophie
Haus 11
Potsdam