Harold Henry Joachim (1868—1938) Harold Henry Joachim (1868-1938) was a minor idealist philosopher working in the neo-Hegelian tradition that dominated British philosophy at the end of the nineteenth century. At the time, this tradition was divided into two main camps: personal idealism and absolute idealism. Joachim was affiliated with the latter camp, whose most prominent representative was F. H. Bradley. Although Joachim has frequently been

Fictionalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics The distinctive character of fictionalism about any discourse is (UN) recognition of some valuable purpose to that discourse, e (b) the claim that that purpose can be served even if sentences uttered in the context of that discourse are not literally true. Regarding (b), if the discourse in question involves mathematics, either pure or applied, the core of the

Conceptual Role Semantics In the philosophy of language, conceptual role semantics (hereafter CRS) is a theory of what constitutes the meanings possessed by expressions of natural languages, or the propositions expressed by their utterance. In the philosophy of mind, it is a theory of what constitutes the contents of psychological attitudes, such as beliefs or desires. CRS comes in a variety of forms, not always

Concetti I concetti sono di fondamentale importanza per una teoria complessiva della cognizione e della mente. I nostri pensieri, soprattutto quelli che esprimono o implicano proposizioni, vengono analizzati e distinti l'uno dall'altro facendo appello a vari fatti che coinvolgono concetti e alla nostra comprensione di essi. Allo stesso modo, le nostre espressioni linguistiche che esprimono proposizioni esprimono anche concetti, poiché normalmente si ritiene che i concetti siano strettamente correlati, o anche

Thick Concepts A term expresses a thick concept if it expresses a specific evaluative concept that is also substantially descriptive. It is a matter of debate how this rough account should be unpacked, but examples can help to convey the basic idea. Thick concepts are often illustrated with virtue concepts like courageous and generous, action concepts like murder and betray, epistemic concepts like dogmatic and

Functionalism Functionalism is a theory about the nature of mental states. According to functionalism, mental states are identified by what they do rather than by what they are made of. This can be understood by thinking about artifacts like mousetraps and keys. In particolare, the original motivation for functionalism comes from the helpful comparison of minds with computers. But that is only an analogy. IL