Propositions about real as opposed to fictitious things

Abstract

It would be fair to say that cognitive psychology is way behind the natural sciences when it comes to developing rigorous terms, methods and theories to describe and account for the mental states and phenomena falling within its subject area. This is partly due to the immense complexity of cognitive phenomena, and partly due to the misconceptions, reminiscent of the Mind-Matter bifurcation, that they are phenomena which may be conceived of as some sort of “psychological objects”, the properties of which — just like the properties of physical objects — may be studied scientifically in isolation, or sui generis. According to this view, cognitive phenomena, such as beliefs and propositional attitudes of people (i.e. their thoughts, hopes, intentions, desires, fears, etc.) are some sort of mental states, the content and properties of which can be treated and accounted for independently of that which it is about1 — despite the fact that neither the content nor the properties of “aboutness” or intentionality of such states are well defined without reference to something existing independently of these states.