{"content":[{"text":"Cognition, 12 (1982) 219-227","bbox":{"left":0.147059,"top":0.020996,"width":0.19617100000000004,"height":0.016877000000000003}},{"text":"Discussion","bbox":{"left":0.147059,"top":0.070106,"width":0.086147,"height":0.020212000000000008}},{"text":"Why we think what we do about why we think what we do: \n Discussion on Goodman's \"On thoughts without words\"","bbox":{"left":0.175487,"top":0.107545,"width":0.544894,"height":0.04384699999999997}},{"text":"DANIEL C. DENNETT* \n Tufts University","bbox":{"left":0.323529,"top":0.165939,"width":0.20092799999999994,"height":0.037469999999999976}},{"text":"I find myself in almost complete agreement with Goodman's remarks about \n thought without words, so I am not going to pick a fight or chime agree- \n ment. Everything Goodman says here is plausible. Better yet, Goodman's \n major claims have the virtue of not being altogether obvious. How then did \n he get to them? What kind of investigation or research is Goodman conduc- \n ting-and what methods has he used? Are the methods reliable? What kind \n of results do they yield? On what basis do we respond with agreement, or \n judgments of plausibility? \n What Goodman is doing, clearly enough, is philosophy. It is not even the \n disguised sort of philosophy that is everywhere discernible in the discussions \n of cognitive scientists. It is straight, traditional philosophy, but it is also a \n special sort of straight philosophy of mind, a brand of phenomenology \n practiced, for instance, by Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant-but also Witt- \n genstein and Ryle. The products of this traditional method in philosophy of \n mind are not presented as discoveries or claims or hypotheses, but as obser- \n vations. The reader is reminded (it seems) of this or that; various things are \n pointed out to the reader, who can presumably acknowledge their truth. \n Philosophers are used to this diction, but it is, or ought to be, puzzling. What \n kind of pointing out is it really? What is the method behind the production \n of these observations? \n The method, I think, has two components that are traditionally (and \n utterly unwittingly) blended together into near total indiscernibility. One \n component is aprioristic reasoning about what must be-what thoughts \n must be, what meaning must be, what symbols must be, and so forth. This \n reasoning is based on tacit assumptions-perhaps 'obvious' ones-about \n what thoughts, symbols, and so forth are for, so this is functionalistic aprior- \n istic reasoning. It is also enriched by the facts, concepts and metaphors of \n the science of the day, but again, the reliance on these ideas is typically \n unannounced. The other component is a reliance on (and generalization \n from) quite casual self-observation: 'introspection' in the most theory- \n neutral, garden-variety sense.","bbox":{"left":0.147059,"top":0.218136,"width":0.606427,"height":0.5429390000000001}},{"text":"*Reprint requests should be sent to Daniel C. Dennett, Philosophy Department, Tufts University, \n Medford, Massachusetts 02155, U.S.A.","bbox":{"left":0.147059,"top":0.805019,"width":0.6346890000000001,"height":0.031425999999999954}},{"text":"001 0-0277/82/050219-09/$02.50","bbox":{"left":0.147059,"top":0.848591,"width":0.22056899999999996,"height":0.01687700000000003}},{"text":"© Elsevier Sequoia/Printed in The Netherlands","bbox":{"left":0.147059,"top":0.892162,"width":0.308002,"height":0.01687700000000003}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}