Sensations, Thoughts, Language: Essays in Honour of Brian Loar

365 Pages·2019·1.415 MB·

by  Arthur Sullivan

Sensations, Thoughts, Language
Brian Loar (1939–2014) was an eminent and highly respected philosopher
of mind and language. He was at the forefront of several different field-
defining debates between the 1970s and the 2000s—from his earliest
work on reducing semantics to psychology, through debates about
reference, functionalism, externalism, and the nature of intentionality, to
his most enduringly influential work on the explanatory gap between
consciousness and neurons. Loar is widely credited with having developed
the most comprehensive functionalist account of certain aspects of the
mind, and his “phenomenal concept strategy” is arguably one of the most
significant developments on the ancient mind/body problem.
This volume of essays honours the entirety of Loar’s wide-ranging
philosophical career. It features fifteen original essays from influential
figures in the fields of philosophy of language and philosophy of mind,
including those who worked with and were taught by Loar. The essays are
divided into three thematic sections covering Loar’s work in philosophy
of language, especially the relations between semantics and psychology
(1970s-80s), on content in the philosophy of mind (1980s-90s), and on
the metaphysics of intentionality and consciousness (1990s and beyond).
Taken together, this book is a fitting tribute to one of the leading minds
of the latter-20th century, and a timely reflection on Loar’s enduring
influence on the philosophy of mind and language.
Arthur Sullivan is Associate Professor at Memorial University of
Newfoundland, Canada. He works primarily in the Philosophy of Language,
and in overlapping parts of Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Cognitive
Science. He is the author of Reference and Structure (Routledge, 2013),
The Constitutive A Priori (2018), and dozens of published articles.
Routledge Festschrifts in Philosophy
Mind, Language and Morality
Essays in Honor of Mark Platts
Edited by Gustavo Ortiz Millán and Juan Antonio Cruz Parcero
Sensations, Thoughts, Language
Essays in Honor of Brian Loar
Edited by Arthur Sullivan
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Festschrifts-in-Philosophy/book-series/RFSP
Sensations, Thoughts,
Language
Essays in Honor of Brian Loar
Edited by Arthur Sullivan
First published 2020
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
ARTHUR SULLIVAN
PART I
Philosophy of Language, and Relations Between
Semantics and Psychology 9
1 Intention Recognition as the Mechanism of Human
Communication 11
DANIEL W. HARRIS
2 Loar, Donnellan, and Frege on Descriptions 38
JOHN PERRY
3 Modes of Presentation in Attitude Reports 54
FRANÇOIS RECANATI
4 Expression-Meaning and Vagueness 78
STEPHEN SCHIFFER
5 Limning the External Dimensions of Meaning 113
ARTHUR SULLIVAN
PART II
On Content in the Philosophy of Mind 135
6 Relational vs Adverbial Conceptions of Phenomenal
Intentionality 137
DAVID BOURGET
vi Contents
7 Phenomenal Intentionality and the Perception/
Cognition Divide 167
URIAH KRIEGEL
8 Cognitive Phenomenology, Sensory Phenomenology,
and Rationality 184
MICHELLE MONTAGUE
9 Loar’s Compromised Internalism 203
DAVID PITT
10 Loar on Lemons: The Particularity of Perception and
Singular Perceptual Content 225
MARK SAINSBURY
11 The Sense of “Looks” 248
MICHAEL TYE
PART III
The Metaphysics of Intentionality and Consciousness 263
12 Hard, Harder, Hardest 265
KATALIN BALOG
13 “Phenomenal States” and the Scope of the Phenomenal
Concepts Strategy 289
JANET LEVIN
14 Phenomenal Concepts and the First-Person Perspective 314
JOSEPH LEVINE
15 The Non-Primacy of Subjective Intentionality 331
GEORGES REY
Contributors 353
Index 355
Acknowledgements
Many people have helped with various aspects of this project, in lots
of different little ways, over the past few years. In many cases, it was
just genuine enthusiasm about the driving idea, which of course is ulti-
mately attributed to Brian, but which definitely helped to steer this proj-
ect through to completion. Thank you.
I am grateful to Biplab Halder, a graduate student research assistant
at Memorial University, who did a lot of work on the production of
this volume—always well done and on time. Most of all, huge thanks to
Stephanie Beardman and Stephen Schiffer, for too many things to try to
summarize.

Introduction
Arthur Sullivan
Brian Loar (1939–2014) was an eminent and highly respected philoso-
pher of mind and language. He was at the forefront of several different
field-defining debates between the 1970s and the 2000s—from his earli-
est work within the Gricean program of reducing semantics to psychol-
ogy, through debates about reference, functionalism, externalism, and the
nature of intentionality, on into his most enduringly influential work on
what has become known as “the phenomenal concept strategy” for under-
standing the explanatory gap between consciousness and neurophysiol-
ogy. This volume of essays honours the entirety of Brian’s wide-ranging
philosophical career. It features 15 original essays from influential figures
in the fields of philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, including
some who were fellow students with Brian, some who worked alongside
him, and some who were his students.1
Brian was born in Brooklyn and raised in Morristown, New Jersey.
He received his B.Phil from Oxford in 1965, and then went on to write
a D.Phil dissertation on “Sentence Meaning” at Magdalen College. His
B.Phil supervisor was A.J. Ayer, though Brian has remarked that regu-
lar conversations with Peter Geach were the most valuable to him in
his undergraduate years. The D.Phil thesis grew out of conversations
with Paul Grice and Stephen Schiffer (both of whom remained lifelong
friends). The “Acknowledgements” page on Brian’s D.Phil dissertation
also registers thanks to Peter Strawson, among others. So, Brian was at
the center of the Oxford 1960s Philosophy scene, and it shaped his con-
ception of the substance and methods of the discipline in a deep, enduring
way. Brian established many important philosophical friendships there.
After Oxford, Brian taught briefly at the Universities of Calgary and
Michigan, before moving to the University of Southern California in
1976. There he was a sustained, influential force in the rising fortunes of
the department. Students and junior colleagues at USC remember Brian
for being patient and encouraging, despite his well-earned reputation as a
forceful debater. In 1994, Brian moved on to Rutgers University, where he
was at the center of Rutgers’ rise to the highest echelon of the philosophi-
cal world, and where he remained until his retirement. Adding to the