Troubles with the Received View

Abstract

Abstract There are two general arguments in support of the Received View. First, it is argued that if propositional attitudes, cognitive capacities, and cognition were the sort of things (and processes) that the Received View claims they are, then that fact would explain their having the salient properties that they do. Second, it is argued that the Received View enjoys indirect but nevertheless strong empirical support from cognitive science. Such science, it is claimed, presupposes the Received View, and hence the former's successes provide support for the presupposed view. This chapter examines critically these two arguments in support of the Received View's account of the metaphysical nature of propositional attitudes. With respect to the first sort of argument, dubbed ‘abductive argument’, it is argued that the case made by these arguments is actually quite weak. With respect to the second sort of argument, dubbed the ‘indirect empirical support argument’, it is argued that the alleged empirical support is largely non-existent: either the computational theories that are claimed to provide indirect empirical support do not presume the Received View, or to the extent that they do, there is little or no empirical rationale.