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Propositional Attitude Psychology As An Ideal Type, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

his paper critiques the view, widely held by philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists, that psychological explanation is a matter of ascribing propositional attitudes (such as beliefs and desires) towards language-like propositions in the mind, and that cognitive mental states consist in intentional attitudes towards propositions of a linguistic quasi-linguistic nature. On this view, thought is structured very much like a language. Denial that propositional attitude psychology is an adequate account of mind is therefore, on this view, is tantamount to eliminative materialism, the denial that human beings are thinking beings.

I dispute this on the basis of recent work …