Real Narrow Content

Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to develop and defend an account of narrow content that would neutralize the commonplace charge that narrow content ' is not real content ' . On the account I offer, a concept ' s narrow content consists in its bearing the right relation to the right sort of response-dependent property. Our mental life is full of thoughts, experiences, and other mental states. These states are contentful : something is being thought, something is being experienced. What is being thought or experienced is the content of the thought or experience. What kind of entity is a mental content? This question is of the fi rst importance, because ultimately it concerns the relationship between mind and reality. A more specifi c question is whether mental content is internal to us, in the sense of being fully determined by what goes on inside our head. Let us call mental content that is fully determined by what goes on inside the head narrow content , and one that is not wide content . The question, then, is whether mental content is narrow or wide. There are three general positions on this matter. Let us call internalism the view that mental content is narrow; externalism the view that it is wide; and dual content theory the view that mental states have two separate contents, one narrow and one wide. 1,2