The Measure of Mind: Propositional Attitudes and their Attribution

ISBN: 9780199585533

Oxford University Press 29 April 2010

Paperback | 278 pages

*The Measure of Mind: Propositional Attitudes and Their Attribution* provides a sustained critique of the widely held representationalist view of propositional attitudes and their role in the production of thought and behaviour. Robert J. Matthews argues that, contrary to representationalist claims, this view lacks sufficient theoretical and empirical support and misconstrues the role of propositional attitude attributions in cognitive scientific theorising. He then develops an alternative measurement‑theoretic account of propositional attitudes and the linguistic sentences by which we attribute them, likening these sentences semantically to statements about measurable physical magnitudes — and showing how this perspective avoids common philosophical confusions about the nature and causal efficacy of attitudes such as belief and desire. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}