What is it about?

A counterargument against Jerry Fodor's Language of Thought Hypothesis, which shows how language is used to bring about change in the world (Austin's speech act theory, refracted through Derrida and Bakhtin).

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Why is it important?

In challenging the "internalists," like Adams and Aizawa, who rely heavily on Fodor and Dretske and company, Andy Clark does not bother to challenge the philosophy of language on which that whole internalist argument rests. This does.

Perspectives

This is my attempt not only to reframe Austin (and Derrida and Bakhtin) for the Extended Mind Thesis but to rethink speech acts in terms of conative force, and thus of shared qualia and social regulation.

Professor Douglas J. Robinson
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

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This page is a summary of: Language as Conative Force, August 2013, The MIT Press,
DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/9780262019477.003.0004.
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