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But one of the most irritating aspects of this tome is the style, a mixture of some-times exhibitionist erudition, cute glibness, and word inventions. A few examplesare: “brain expansion in homeotherms. . . [was] spurred by. . . [the] need [for]prey-catching [to]. . . keep the home fires burning”; “learning in the fetus. . . take[s]flesh”; long-term potentiation comes in different “flavors” as “vanilla”, “choco-late”, or “strawberry”; networks are not trained but “trained up on”; experimentalanimals are not cued for an action but “precued”; ‘satisficing’ is a favorite, as in“satisficing is good enough for survival” (pace Herbert Simon, ‘satisficing’ is notan English word and should at least be acknowledged as a technical term in a bookaddressed to an yinterdisciplinary audience); and then there is “milk[ing] the valueout of. . . ideas”. I could go on, but I think I have conveyed the flavor.

All this is not to say that this book is entirely without merit. Churchland andSejnowski do review some important areas of neurobiology and present some goodexamples of computer modeling. A student, however, will need guidance. For thereviews are not always authoritative, sometimes superficial, and they may evenbe misleading. For example, the topic of visual hyperacuity is subtitled “FromMystery to Mechanism”. But, after reading the skimpy account, the mechanismremains a mystery. In discussing stereoscopic vision, Churchland and Sejnowskistate that the “. . . position of the eyeballs can be used by the brain in computingabsolute depth of the fixated object”. This is incorrect. Vergence is only a weak cuefor depth perception, and the brain does not compute absolute depth.

In conclusion, although the idea behind this book is a good one, its productioncould have been a lot better.

Reference

Lehky, S. R., & Sejnowski, Terrence J. (1988), ‘Network Model of Shape from Shading’, Nature 333,pp. 452–454.

Department of Biophysical Sciences, K. NICHOLAS LEIBOVICDepartment of Opthalmology,and Center for Cognitive Science,State University of New York at Buffalo,Buffalo, NY 14260, U. S. A.(bphknl@acsu.buffalo.edu)

George Boolos (ed.), Meaning and Method: Essays in Honor of Hilary Putnam,Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990, ix + 380 pp., $69.95 (cloth),ISBN 0-521-36083-8.

Minds and Machines 7: 585–590, 1997.

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This collection of 16 essays is an impressive tribute to Hilary Putnam, a mosteminent philosopher well known for his ground-breaking contributions to centralphilosophical issues. The essays are all well written, rich in content, and insightful.Although most of them do not focus on Putnam’s work, all but one relate to it inone way or another, contributing to a better understanding of some of its aspects.They are also rather diverse and, in that respect, reflect the breadth of Putnam’sintellectual endeavours. The essays should be of interest mainly to philosophersand philosophy students at the graduate level. Some of them, however, might alsoprove instructive to cognitive scientists of other disciplines (essays 1–7), historiansof ideas (essay 14), literary critics (essay 15), and social policy planners (essay 16).

For the benefit of potential readers I provide brief summaries of the essays inthe order of their appearance, which corresponds to their thematic content.

1. Mind, Language, and Reality

1.1. Michael Dummett’s essay, ‘The Source of the Concept of Truth’, concerns theplace that the concept of truth occupies in our conceptual furniture. The main thesishe proposes is that mastery of the most primitive aspects of the use of language totransmit information does not require a grasp of the concept of truth, but only ofjustifiability. It is only when it comes to more sophisticated linguistic operations,such as the use of compound tenses and conditional sentences, that an appeal tothe conception of objective truth becomes indispensable.

1.2. On Quine’s indeterminacy of translation thesis, the question of which is thecorrect translation of one language to another is under-determined by all relevantfacts. Since Quine bases this thesis on strong behaviorist assumptions, a broadconsensus of philosophers, who find it implausible in the extreme, consider ittantamount to a reductio ad absurdum of linguistic behaviorism. Catherine Elgin’sessay, ‘Facts that Don’t Matter’, seeks to undermine this view. To this end, sheemploys two famous arguments of Putnam’s – his “Twin Earth” argument to theeffect that “meaning just ain’t in the head” and his model-theoretic argumentagainst metaphysical realism – to show that indeterminacy of translation and itsconsequences survive the repudiation of Quine’s behaviorist assumptions.

1.3. On the description theory of proper names, these linguistic items have a sensewhich is somehow necessary to fixing their reference. Due to recent criticismsby Kripke (1980) and others (e.g., Donnellan, 1972), it is widely believed thatthis theory has been refuted. The main thrust of Jerrold Katz’s essay, ‘Has theDescription Theory of Names Been Refuted?’, is that this judgment is much toohasty. To show this, he first sketches a version of the theory that lies between Frege’sextreme descriptivism – “sense determines the reference of names” – and Mill’sextreme non-descriptivism – “sense plays no role in fixing the reference of names”.

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Then he defends this version against the criticisms responsible for the allegeddemise of descriptivism, and he provides evidential basis for its applicability toproper names.

1.4. A major driving force behind the idea that there is more to meaning than deno-tation is “substitution arguments” – namely, attempts to show that co-referentialexpressions need not be synonymous, by appealing to their failure to substitutesalve veritate in the context ‘believes that . . .’. In the first part of his essay, ‘Sub-stitution Arguments and the Individuation of Beliefs’, Jerry Fodor seeks to showthat a couple of particular arguments of this type are fairly unconvincing. Then heoutlines an account of belief individuation that is not implausible in its own rightand that might explain why substitution arguments are bound to fail.

1.5. Intentional content is what relates mind to reality. On the externalist approach,advocated most forcefully by Putnam, intentional content is determined at leastpartially by features of the external world. On the opposite, internalist approach, amajor proponent of which is Searle, intentional content is completely determinedby intrinsic features of mental states. Searle’s brand of internalism also groundshis rejection of contemporary cognitive science in general and the computationaltheory of the mind in particular. Michael Devitt’s essay, ‘Meanings Just Ain’t inthe Head’, attempts to refute Searle’s internalism by showing that it must ascribesome unexplainable, magical power to the mind. In addition, it exposes dualist andvitalist elements in Searle’s approach to intentionality.

1.6. On the representational theory of mind (RTM), computational psychologyprovides the basic framework for an empirical theory that could ultimately providea scientific vindication for belief–desire talk (“folk psychology”, as it has cometo be known). A couple of powerful criticisms of RTM, due to Putnam, are basedon the widely shared assumption that RTM must construe mental states narrowly,that is, without reference to anything outside the speaker’s head. Louise Antony’sessay, ‘Semantic Anorexia: On the Notion of “Content” in Cognitive Science’,is an attempt to undermine Putnam’s criticisms by arguing that the assumptionunderlying them stems from a misconception about RTM’s purpose and that RTMhas no need, and in fact no place, for “narrow states”.

1.7. Ned Block begins his essay, ‘Can the Mind Change the World?’, with an argu-ment to the effect that the computer model of the mind entails epiphenomenalism,the problematic doctrine that what we think or want has no causal relevance towhat we do. Then he examines three proposals for warding off this argument: (1)identifying content properties of the mind with neurophysiological properties, (2)appealing to a nomological view of causation, and (3) adopting a counterfactu-al account of causal relevance together with an identification of the meanings of

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internal representations with their functional roles. He rejects the first two of thesealtogether, while arguing that the third might also lead to epiphenomenalism.

2. Science and Reality

2.1. In general, the case for scientific realism depends on the observation that centralscientific concepts and practices seem to involve reference to theory-independent,unobservable, causal structures. A characteristic anti-realist response is to interpretthe concepts and practices at issue as nothing but reflections of linguistic con-vention. These opposing argumentative strategies give rise to the question of howmuch conventionality a systematic scientific realist can consistently acknowledgewithout making a genuine concession to scientific anti-realism. This question is thefocus of the essay ‘Realism, Conventionality, and “Realism About” ’, by RichardBoyd, who also examines some closely related issues.

2.2. Classical positivists rigidly partitioned the terms of scientific theories intoobservational and non-observational, taking only the former to be genuinely refer-ential. This partitioning has come in for much criticism, which has led to both real-istic and anti-realistic reactions sharing a fundamental guiding principle – namely,that we should treat all the putative referring apparatus of scientific theories ona par. But is this principle indeed true? Or are there still general methodologicalgrounds for making the distinction between the genuinely and the only apparentreferential? Lawrence Sklar’s ‘Invidious Contrasts within Theories’ outlines dif-ferent considerations about theories that have repeatedly led to resurrection of thisdistinction, claiming that they provide interesting grounds for suspicion of genuinereferentiality.

3. Mathematics, Logic, and Ontology

3.1. A major alternative to Platonism about mathematics is the denial that there areany mathematical entities. Hartry Field begins his essay, ‘Mathematics and Modal-ity’, by motivating this brand of anti-Platonism. Then he examines a suggestion asto how to avoid the postulation of mathematical entities in physics by using a nom-inalistically acceptable possibility operator. His final conclusion is serious doubtas to the usefulness of modality in eliminating the commitment to mathematicalentities in science.

3.2. On a Fregean account, there must be mathematical objects in order for whatis said by mathematical language to be true. The goal of Harold Hodes’s essay,‘Ontological Commitment: Thick and Thin’, is to present an alternative accountthat does not carry this ontological commitment. To this end, he first outlines threeways in which a first-order language that does not permit talk about mathematical

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objects could be enriched with a mathematical vocabulary. Then he illustrates twoways of modeling these enrichments: one in keeping with the Fregean account, theother with its alternative. Finally, he gives reasons for preferring the alternativeapproach to the Fregean one.

3.3. George Boolos begins his essay, ‘The Standard of Equality of Numbers’, byshowing that Dedekind’s demonstration that “arithmetic is part of logic” requiressomething that Dedekind fails to provide – a proof from logical truths that there areinfinitely many objects. Then he considers Frege’s demonstration of the existenceof an infinite system, which might help Dedekind out. However, Frege’s proof alsowill not do, since it is based on Hume’s principle of the equality of numbers, whichturns out to be non-analytic. This being the case, Boolos concludes that neitherDedekind nor Frege showed that arithmetic is part of logic (nor did anyone else,for that matter).

4. Reason, Action, and Morality

Ruth Anna Putnam’s essay, ‘Doing What One Ought to Do’, concerns the questionsof how we come to know what we morally ought to do and what carries us fromsuch knowledge to action. She begins by arguing that our moral reasoning is shapedby our moral images or ways of seeing the world, in particular, other human beingsand our relations to then. Then she defends the suggestion that the conclusions ofsuch reasoning constitute knowledge. Finally, she argues that we come to deliberateand act on our moral conclusions because we care about the things they deal withand are emotionally affected by them.

5. Conceptual Change

Arnold Davidson’s essay, ‘Closing Up the Corpses: Diseases of Sexuality and theEmergence of the Psychiatric Style of Reasoning’, is a case study of the history ofthe concept of sexual perversion. The main claim of the essay is that this conceptwas made possible only by the late-19th-century transition from an anatomicalunderstanding of the notion of sexual instinct to a functional understanding of it.By showing this, Davidson seeks to illustrate the thesis, advocated by Putnam, thatthe very possibility of conceiving of certain statements as part of the domain ofscientific knowledge might depend upon the historically specific formation of newconcepts and new forms of reasoning and argumentation.

6. Politics and Society

6.1. Henry James’s The Princess Casamassima (1886) can be read as embodyingan approach that gives priority in our political discourse to perceptions of theparticular and the personal over abstract generalizations. In her essay, ‘Perceptionand Revolution: The Princess Casamassima and the Political Imagination’, Martha

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Nussbaum clarifies and elaborates this political stance, defending it against IrvingHowe’s (1957) and Hilary Putnam’s (1983) criticisms.

6.2. In the first part of his essay, ‘Human Rights, Population Aging, and Inter-generational Equity’, Norman Daniels outlines a general approach for solving twopressing problems that underlie disputes about intergenerational equity. First, whatis a fair distribution of resources between the old and the young? Second, whatis a fair treatment for different birth cohorts as they pass through institutions thatdistribute goods aver the lifespan? He then develops a few implications of thisapproach for several controversial issues of intergenerational equity.1

Note

1I would like to thank Oron Shagrir for his helpful suggestions.

References

Donnellan, Keith (1972), ‘Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions’, in Donald Davidson andGilbert Harman (eds.), Semantics of Natural Language, 2nd edition, Dordrecht, The Netherlands:D. Reidel, pp. 356–379.

Howe, Irving (1957), Politics and the Novel, New York: Meridian Books.James, Henry (1886), The Princess Casamassima, London: Penguin Books, 1987.Kripke, Saul (1980), Naming and Necessity, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Putnam, Hilary (1983), ‘Taking Rules Seriously: A Response to Martha Nussbaum’, New Literary

History 15, pp. 193–200.

Department of Philosophy, YAKIR LEVINThe Hebrew University,Mount Scopus,Jerusalem 91905, Israel

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