Creatures of Darkness

Analytic Philosophy 54 (4):379-400 (2013)
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Abstract

In this paper, I present and defend an explication of content in terms of the mathematical notion of information. In its most general formulation, the theory says that two states have the same content just in case they carry the same information, relative to a communication network. My account reifies content (it is the discrete counterpart to continuous information) and supports the idea that agents have internal means of comparing the contents of two thoughts. Further, it makes sense to say that agents have communicated successfully when they coordinate on content in this sense; they have transmitted information without loss.

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Samuel John Cumming
University of California, Los Angeles

Citations of this work

Mental Files.François Récanati - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Minimal Fregeanism.Aidan Gray - 2022 - Mind 131 (522):429-458.
A Puzzle about Communication.Matheus Valente & Andrea Onofri - 2023 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 14 (3):1035-1054.
Coordination, Triangulation, and Language Use.Josh Armstrong - 2016 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 59 (1):80-112.

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References found in this work

The Varieties of Reference.Gareth Evans - 1982 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Henry McDowell.
Origins of Objectivity.Tyler Burge - 2010 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Convention: A Philosophical Study.David Kellogg Lewis - 1969 - Cambridge, MA, USA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Intention, plans, and practical reason.Michael Bratman - 1987 - Cambridge: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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