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John-Michael Kuczynski

The concept of a symbol and the vacuousness of the symbolic conception of thought

According to many research programs in philosophy and psychology, we think in symbols. I argue that, on pain of a vicious regress, these internal symbols cannot themselves be grasped through symbols. At the same time, anything that is functioning as a symbol is necessarily grasped. Thus the symbolic conception of thought (SCT) actually entails that we grasp some things non-symbolically, and is therefore self-undermining. In response to this argument, SCT must deny that something must be grasped to function as a symbol. I show that there is no way to make this maneuver work. The proponent of SCT might respond by weakening his position ? by saying that we grasp mental symbols directly, but everything else symbolically. But this opens the door to our grasping everything non-symbolically. For the representational abilities implicated in grasping mental symbols will be implicated in our grasping anything.

Semiotica, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0037-1998
Volume: 2005, 04/2005
Pages: 243 - 263

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