Abstract

The beginning intuition for this work is that our minds are fundamentally under our control, and that some parts of our mind are directed by other parts of our mind. From the seemingly obvious fact of our control over our own minds it is necessary to find out what would be needed by such controlling elements of the mind in order for us to direct our cognitive processes, think about things external to us, and use the devices of language successfully. This fact of control seems to demand Descriptionist views of language and Internalist views of meaning and mental contents. Other views would seem to deny the fact of cognitive control and should be rejected. ;The individuation of mental states can be considered as either metaphysical individuation or as conceptual individuation . Conceptual individuation of a mental state requires that we consider their contents as "narrow," and narrow contents include the way that the person is thinking about the subject of their thought, or a "mode of conception." The mode of conception can be employed for completing many linguistic tasks, such as referring to objects by use of a term or phrase. The facts about our language use tell us that semantic reference by the use of terms is a plastic act, and the referent of a term can be altered virtually at will. This fact, the semantic plasticity of our minds, cannot be explained by views of the mind that discount our having internal resources that are fundamentally accessible, assessible, and under our control.