Frege Lectures 2017: Tim Crane "Thoughts, Thinking, and Thinkers"
GOTTLOB FREGE LECTURES IN THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY 2017
TIM CRANE (Central European University): THOUGHTS, THINKING, AND THINKERS
The Lecturer:
Tim Crane is a professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the Central European University. He has founded the Institute of Philosophy in the University of London and he is the President of the Aristotelian Society for 2016-17. Crane is well-known for his work in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. His books include The Mechanical Mind: A Philosophical Introduction to Minds, Machines and Mental Representation (1st ed. Penguin 1995), Elements of Mind (Oxford University Press 2001), Intentionalität als Merkmal des Geistigen: Sechs Essays zur Philosophie des Geistes (Fischer Verlag 2007), The Objects of Thought (Oxford University Press, 2013), Aspects of Psychologism (Harvard University Press, 2014), and The Meaning of Belief: Religion from an Atheist's Point of View (Harvard University Press 2017). He has also edited several books on topics in philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
The lectures:
One of Frege’s most famous principles was ‘always to separate sharply the psychological from the logical, the subjective from the objective’. Given Frege’s influence on analytic philosophy, it is surprising that the philosophy of mind has not followed his advice here. Many discussions of intentionality or mental representation, for example, have concentrated exclusively on the nature of the proposition, whether in the specific version defended by Frege in ’The Thought’ (1918), or the versions defended by Bertrand Russell, David Lewis or Robert Stalnaker. But it is not obvious what the theory of the proposition has got to do with the psychological, as opposed to (say) the semantics of propositional attitude attributions. Frege himself distinguished between thoughts (propositions) and ideas, or mental representations. In these lectures Tim Crane examines the consequences of following Frege’s advice, and approaching the study of thinking or intentionality in terms of ideas rather than propositions.
Times and Venue
October 9 - at Jakobi 2, 336
10.15-11.45: Intentionality: the state of the debate
14.15-15.45: Thoughts
October 10 - at Jakobi 2, 336
10.15-11.45: Thinking
14.15-15.45: Thinkers
The event is supported by the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies, and the University of Tartu ASTRA Project PER ASPERA (Graduate School of Linguistics, Philosophy and Semiotics), and financed by the (European Union) European Regional Development Fund.