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Carmelics
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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Belief content and sentence meaning cannot be defined independently of one another

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Causal-informational theories (Dretske, Fodor) ground belief content in reliable causal covariations with external states, independent of linguistic meaning.
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      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.If belief content is fixed by mind-world causal relations rather than linguistic behavior, sentence meaning can then be derived from independently grounded mental content.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Grice's program derives sentence meaning from speaker intentions and belief states that are characterizable without prior appeal to conventional linguistic meaning.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.If non-natural meaning reduces to complex arrangements of pre-linguistic propositional attitudes, then belief content is conceptually prior to and independent of sentence meaning.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.An independent account of belief content would allow derivation of sentence meaning, but no such independent account is available
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.An independent account of sentence meaning would allow derivation of belief content, but no such independent account is available
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Many distinct assignments of beliefs and meanings are consistent with the same linguistic behavior
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Next step

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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.