1 Roderick Chisholm, "Sentences about Believing," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 (1955-56): 125-148.
2 Rodenck Chisholm, "A Note on Carnap's Meaning Analysis," Philosophical Studies, 6 (1955), 87-89.
3 The following paragraphs have been renumbered A-1, A-2, etc., in order to avoid confusion and permit ready reference. A similar procedure has been followed in the case of subsequent groups of numbered paragraphs or sentences.
4 The nature and role of theories and models in behavioristic psychology is discussed in §§ 51-55 of "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" (referred to, hereafter, as EPM), in H. Feigl and M. Scnven, eds., Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. I (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1956).
5 " . . once our fictitious ancestor, tones, has developed the theory that overt verbal behavior is the expression of thoughts, and taught his compatnots to make use of the theory in interpreting each other's behavior, it is but a short step to the use of this language in self-description. Thus, when Tom, watching Dick, has behavioral evidence which warrants the use of the sentence (in the language of the theory) 'Dick is thinking 'p' ' (or 'Dick is thinking that p'), Dick, using the same behavioral evidence, can say, in the language of the theory, I am thinking 'p' ' (or 'I am thinking that p'). And it now turns out -- need it have? -- that Dick can be trained to give reasonably reliable self-descriptions, using the language of the theory without having to observe his overt behavior. Jones brings this about, roughly, by applauding utterances by Dick of 'I am thinking that p' when the behavioral evidence strongly supports the theoretical statement 'Dick is thinking that p'; and by frowning on utterances of 'I am thinking that p,' when the evidence does not support this theoretical statement. Our ancestors begin to speak of the privileged access each of us has to his own thoughts. What began as a language with a purely theoretical use has gained a reporting role" (EPM, p. 320).
6 See the distinction between the model around which a theory is built, and the 'commentary' on the model in EPM, §§ 51 and 57.
7 See EPM, Part VII, "The Logic of Means"; also § 80 of my essay "Counterfactuals, Dispositions and the Causal Modalities," in H. Feigl et al., eds., Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. II (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1958), pp. 225-308; see also below, pp. 525ff. and pp. 530ff.
9 Rudolf Carnap, "Meaning and Synonymy in Natural Languages," Philosophical Studies 6 (1955): 33-47.
11 Wilfrid Sellars "A Semantical Solution of the Mind-Body Problem," Methodos, 5 (1953), 45-84; see also Wilfrid Sellars, "Mind, Meaning and Behavior," Philosophical Studies, 3 (1953): 83-95.
12 Wilfrid Sellars, "Empiricism and Abstract Entities," in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap. ed. P.A. Schilpp (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1963).
14 ". . . once we give up the idea that we begin our sojourn in this world with any -- even a vague, fragmentary, and undiscnminating -- awareness of the logical space of particulars, kinds, facts, and resemblances, and recognize that even such 'simple' concepts as those of colors are the fruit of a long process of publicly reinforced responses to public objects (including verbal performances) in public situations . . . we . . . recognize that instead of coming to have a concept of something because we have already noticed that sort of thing, to have the ability to notice a sort of thing is already to have the concept of that sort of thing, and cannot account for it" (EPM, p. 306).
15 See EPM, p. 320; quoted above in note 5.
18 In other words, one must distinguish two dimensions in the role played by semantical statements about overt linguistic performances as models for the concept of thoughts as episodes having aboutness or reference: (a) the dimension involving the semantical form itself. "S means p" being the model for "T is about p"; (b) the dimension in which the verbal-behavioral facts implied by semantical statements about overt linguistic performances are the model for the factual or descriptive character of mental episodes, their relationship in the causal order to one another and to overt behavior.
It is the descriptive structure of mental episodes which, as was written above, "we (reasonably) expect to interpret in terms of neurophysiological connections, as we have succeeded in interpreting the 'atoms,' 'molecules,' etc. of early chemical theory in terms of contemporary physical theory." For a discussion of the logic of this 'interpretation' or 'fusion,' as it is sometimes called, see EPM, §§ 55, 58 and 40-41; also §§ 47-50 of my essay "Counterfactuals, Dispositions and the Causal Modalities," particularly § 49. For a reprise of the above analysis of the sense in which thoughts are really neurophysiological states of affairs, an analysis which defends the substance of the naturalistic-materialistic tradition while avoiding the mixing of categories characteristic of earlier formulations, see below, p. 246 f.
21 "Imperatives, Intentions and the Logic of 'Ought'," Methodos, 8 (1956).
See also §§ 77-78 of my essay "Counterfactuals, Dispositions and the Causal Modalities."
22 I now (March, 1957) find it somewhat misleading (though not, as I am using these terms, incorrect) to say that statements as to what a person is thinking about do not describe, but, rather, imply a description of the person. This, however, is not because I reject any aspect of the above analysis, but because I am more conscious of the extent to which my use of the term "describe" is a technical use which departs, in certain respects, from ordinary usage. For the sort of thing I have in mind, see the discussion in §§ 78-79 of my essay "Counterfactuals, Dispositions and the Causal Modalities" of the sense in which the world can 'in pnnciple' be described without the use of either prescriptive or modal expressions. It is in a parallel sense that I would wish to maintain that the world can 'in principle' be described without mentioning either the meaning of expressions or the aboutness of thoughts.
23 Herbert Feigl and Wilfnd Sellars, eds., Readings in Philosophical Analysis (New York: Appletols-Century-Crofts, 1949).