Truly Understood

In Truly Understood, Christopher Peacocke argues that truth and reference have a much deeper role in the explanation of meaning and understanding than has hitherto been appreciated. Examination of specific concepts shows that a grasp of these concepts has to be characterized in terms of reference, identity, and relations to the world. Peacocke develops a positive general theory of understanding based on the idea that concepts are individuated by their fundamental reference rules, which contrasts sharply with conceptual-role, inferentialist, and pragmatist approaches to meaning. He treats thought about the material world, about places and times, and about the self within the framework of this general account, and extends the theory to explain the normative dimensions of content, which he believes are founded in the network of connections between concepts and the level of reference and truth. In the second part of the book, Peacocke explores the application of this account to some problematic mental phenomena, including the conception of many subjects of experience, concepts of conscious states, mental action, and our ability to think about the contents of our own and others' mental states. A theory of understanding Truth's role in understanding Critique of justificationist and evidential accounts Do pragmatist views avoid this critique? A realistic account How evidence and truth are related Three grades of involvement of truth in theories of understanding Anchoring Next steps Reference and reasons The main thesis and its location Exposition and four argument-types Significance and consequences of the main thesis The first person as a case study Fully self-conscious thought Immunity to error through misidentification relative to the first person Can a use of the first-person concept fail to refer? Some conceptual roles are distinctive but not fundamental Implicit conceptions Implicit conceptions : motivation and examples Deflationary readings rejected The phenomenon of new principles Explanation by implicit conceptions Rationalist aspects Consequences : rationality, justification, understanding Transitional Applications to mental concepts Conceiving of conscious states Understanding and identity in other cases Constraints on legitimate explanations in terms of identity Why is the subjective case different? Attractions of the interlocking account Tacit knowledge, and externalism about the internal Is this the myth of the given? Knowledge of others' conscious states Communicability : between Frege and Wittgenstein Conclusions and significance 'Another I' : representing perception and action The core rule Modal status and its significance Comparisons The possession-condition and some empirical phenomena The model generalized Wider issues Mental action The distinctive features of action-awareness The nature and range of mental actions The principal hypothesis and its grounds The principal hypothesis : distinctions and consequences How do we know about our own mental actions? Concepts of mental actions and their epistemological significance Is this account open to the same objections as perceptual models of introspection? Characterizing and unifying schizophrenic experience The first person in the self-ascription of action Rational agency and action-awareness Representing thoughts The puzzle A proposal How the solution treats the constraints that generate the puzzle Relation to single-level treatments An application : reconciling externalism with distinctive self-knowledge. "In Truly Understood, Christopher Peacocke argues that truth and reference have a much deeper role in the explanation of meaning and understanding than has hitherto been appreciated. Examination of specific concepts shows that a grasp of these concepts has to be characterized in terms of reference, identity, and relations to the world. Peacocke develops a positive general theory of understanding based on the idea that concepts are individuated by their fundamental reference rules, which contrasts sharply with conceptual-role, inferentialist, and pragmatist approaches to meaning. He treats thought about the material world, about places and times, and about the self within the framework of this general account, and extends the theory to explain the normative dimensions of content, which he argues are founded in the network of connections between concepts and the level of reference and truth. In the second part of the book, Peacocke explores the application of this account to some problematic mental phenomena, including the conception of many subjects of experience, concepts of conscious states, mental action, and our ability to think about the contents of our own and others' mental states."--BOOK JACKET ## Abstract This book argues that truth and reference have a much deeper role in the explanation of meaning and understanding than has hitherto been appreciated. Examination of specific concepts shows that a grasp of these concepts has to be characterized in terms of reference, identity, and relations to the world. The book develops a positive general theory of understanding based on the idea that concepts are individuated by their fundamental reference rules, which contrasts sharply with conceptual-role, inferentialist, and pragmatist approaches to meaning. It treats thought about the material world, about places and times, and about the self within the framework of this general account, and extends the theory to explain the normative dimensions of content, which the book theorizes are founded in the network of connections between concepts and the level of reference and truth. The second part of the book explores the application of this account to some problematic mental phenomena, including the conception of many subjects of experience, concepts of conscious states, mental action, and our ability to think about the contents of our own and others' mental states. What is it to be able to think about the material world, about oneself, and about other people? Christopher Peacocke argues that our concepts are to be explained in terms of the conditions in which they refer to aspects of the world. Reference and truth are fundamental in understanding.