Singular mental abilities

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AbstractLucy O'Brien has argued that defenders of the object‐dependence of singular thought should attend to mental agency. A recent trend in action theory, towards what John Maier calls ‘agentive modality’, suggests that we conceive agency in terms of the exercise of abilities, and this is how I propose to approach O'Brien's challenge. For Gareth Evans, an early defender of object‐dependence, maintained that thinking is the exercise of a complex of abilities. The debate about object‐dependence gives way to the question whether we have what I call dedicated singular mental abilities. In arguing that we do, I defend the thesis of object‐dependence.