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    Carmelics

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

    It is not the case that Linguistic conventions are constituted by regularities in behavior and mutual expectation, not by the mental states that accompany or produce them (Lewis 1969).

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

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Regularities can exist without convention—water molecules behave regularly without constituting social conventions or linguistic meanings.
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    • 2.People can follow a linguistic rule while lacking mutual expectations, as when isolated speakers suddenly coordinate without prior interaction.
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    • 3.Mental states explaining linguistic behavior may be explanatorily prior to and constitutive of the regularities Lewis identifies as fundamental.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Observable behavior and mutual expectations are publicly verifiable, while mental states are private and epistemically inaccessible to other speakers.
      ?

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    • 2.Children acquire language by tracking behavioral regularities and social patterns, not by introspecting on their own mental content.
      ?

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    • 3.The same mental state can produce different linguistic behavior across contexts, suggesting mental states alone don't constitute linguistic meaning.
      ?

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