Externalism is the dominant doctrine in the contemporary philosophy of mind.  There are several variants of this doctrine. According to passive externalism, "meanings are not in the head" because they depend on the constitution of the world (Putnam) or social conventions (Burge).  According to active externalism, "the mind is not in the head" because it includes common accessories such as notebooks and laptops (Clark and Chalmers).  In his latest book, Georgalis opposes both variants of externalism. He is explicitly opposed to passive externalism because he maintains that meanings are in some sense internal to the mind.  He is implicitly opposed to active externalism because he maintains that mental states are correlated with certain features of the body (in particular, brain activity) regardless of the rest of the world.  As a result, Georgalis is an anti-externalist in all current senses of the word.

In order to explain his position, Georgalis introduces the notion of minimal content. He describes minimal content as "the subject of an agent's intentional state as the agent conceives it.''  In his opinion, minimal content is narrow, subjective and first-person.  Thus, minimal content is different from (objective) narrow content in the sense of Fodor. Also, minimal content does not involve phenomenal features.  This distinguishes Georgalis' account from certain other modern accounts of intentionality.

 What is minimal content?  An example may make this clear.  Some formal systems may have several interpretations.  They may, for example, be interpreted as truths about numbers and also as truths about sets.  Suppose that T is such a system. And suppose that some person A has learned T as a system about numbers and that another person B has learned T as a theory about sets.  This may not be noticeable from the outside: A and B may be equally proficient with respect to all formal operations involving T.  However, the persons would still have different interpretations of T.  They can only know themselves how they interpret T. In such a case, Georgalis would say that A and B have different minimal contents.

Georgalis argues that minimal content is an important notion because the notion of intended reference can be based on it.  I see no problems with this proposal.  However, Georgalis also thinks that the notion of linguistic meaning can be based on it because the latter notion can be based on the notion of intended reference.  I consider this dubious, however.  If meaning were collectively intended reference, then the proposal would be acceptable.  But Putnam's twin-Earth counterexamples precisely show that meaning is more than collectively intended reference: the external world plays a crucial role in establishing the meanings of terms such as "water."  I think there is a serious gap in Georgalis' argument at this point, and I do not see how it could be removed. Nor do I understand how minimal content or intended reference could establish the meaning of the terms and other constructions in our language because language is a public phenomenon and anyone's private interpretations of it are, at most, of secondary importance.  They accompany one's use of the language and do not determine its meaning.  As a result, it is, incidentally, well-nigh impossible to give an accurate description of anybody's minimal content in any situation: language is a public instrument which was not made for this purpose and could not have been made for this purpose (as Wittgenstein has argued).

In the above, I have only indicated the main line of the argument in Georgalis' book and advanced some objections to it.  The book is richer and also discusses other material, for example, private correspondence with Quine about the indeterminacy of reference.  Despite the riches, however, I think that the book is ultimately unsatisfactory.  It is not a historical accident that externalism is the dominant doctrine in the current philosophy of mind: it has obtained this status for good reasons. Anyone who wants to topple an orthodoxy has to present unusually good arguments for his or her case.  In my opinion, Georgalis fails to do so in the case at hand.  Externalism, at least in its passive form (externalism about meaning), still stands secure.

© 2007 Gert-Jan C. Lokhorst

Gert-Jan C. Lokhorst PhD, Delft University of Technology

Categories: Philosophical