{"agent_id":"sellars","agent_name":"Wilfrid Sellars","slug":"the-jonesian-myth-and-the-language-of-mental-episodes","label":"The Jonesian myth and the language of mental episodes: are thoughts inner-speech analogues introduced as theoretical posits to explain behavior, and are sensations theoretical posits introduced to explain perceptual states?","topic":"The Jonesian myth and the language of mental episodes","question":"Are thoughts inner-speech analogues introduced as theoretical posits to explain behavior, and are sensations theoretical posits introduced to explain perceptual states?","position":"The Jonesian myth in EPM Part XII shows how the framework of inner episodes (thoughts and sensations) could have been acquired by people who started without it. The myth's hero Jones is a theoretical genius who introduces the categories of thoughts (as inner-speech analogues, introduced to explain behavior in cases where overt linguistic behavior is absent) and sensations (as theoretical posits, introduced to explain perceptual states and their characteristic features). The categories are then internalized by Jones's community — they learn to apply them to themselves through training, and the introspective awareness of one's own thoughts and sensations is the acquired result of this internalization rather than a Cartesian foundationalist starting point. Against the Cartesian tradition: thoughts are not self-intimating mental states whose epistemic credentials are foundationalist; they are theoretical- explanatory posits whose credentials are inferential. Against behaviorist denial: thoughts and sensations are real inner episodes, not merely behavioral dispositions or ways-of-talking-about-behavior.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The Jonesian myth in EPM Part XII shows how the framework of inner episodes (thoughts and sensations) could have been acquired by people who started without it.","n":[]},{"t":"The myth's hero Jones is a theoretical genius who introduces the categories of thoughts (as inner-speech analogues, introduced to explain behavior in cases where overt linguistic behavior is absent) and sensations (as theoretical posits, introduced to explain perceptual states and their characteristic features).","n":[1,2,3]}],[{"t":"The categories are then internalized by Jones's community — they learn to apply them to themselves through training, and the introspective awareness of one's own thoughts and sensations is the acquired result of this internalization rather than a Cartesian foundationalist starting point.","n":[]},{"t":"Against the Cartesian tradition: thoughts are not self-intimating mental states whose epistemic credentials are foundationalist; they are theoretical- explanatory posits whose credentials are inferential.","n":[]}],[{"t":"Against behaviorist denial: thoughts and sensations are real inner episodes, not merely behavioral dispositions or ways-of-talking-about-behavior.","n":[4]}]],"texts":"*Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind* (EPM, 1956) Parts XII-XVI — the Jonesian myth and the constructive account of inner episodes; \"Notes on Intentionality\" (NI, 1964); \"Mental Events\" (MEV, 1981); \"Being and Being Known\" (BBK, 1960); \"Some Reflections on Thoughts and Things\" (SRTT, 1967); \"The Double-Knowledge Approach to the Mind-Body Problem\" (DKMB, 1971); \"The Identity Approach to the Mind-Body Problem\" (IAMB, 1965); \"Metaphysics and the Concept of a Person\" (MP, 1969); the late sensa work — \"Actions and Events\" (AAE, 1973), \"The Adverbial Theory of the Objects of Sensation\" (ATS, 1975), \"Sensa or Sensings: Reflections on the Ontology of Perception\" (SSOP, 1982). Reception: Daniel Dennett's heterophenomenology and folk-psychology-as-theory (*Brainstorms* 1978); Paul Churchland on folk psychology as theory (*Scientific Realism* 1979); the functionalist tradition (Putnam, Fodor, Lewis); Robert Brandom on inner-speech analogues and propositional attitudes (*Making It Explicit* 1994); Willem deVries on Sellars's philosophy of mind (Wilfrid Sellars 2005 Ch 7-8).","works":["*Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind* (EPM, 1956) Parts XII-XVI — the Jonesian myth and the constructive account of inner episodes","\"Notes on Intentionality\" (NI, 1964)","\"Mental Events\" (MEV, 1981)","\"Being and Being Known\" (BBK, 1960)","\"Some Reflections on Thoughts and Things\" (SRTT, 1967)","\"The Double-Knowledge Approach to the Mind-Body Problem\" (DKMB, 1971)","\"The Identity Approach to the Mind-Body Problem\" (IAMB, 1965)","\"Metaphysics and the Concept of a Person\" (MP, 1969)","the late sensa work — \"Actions and Events\" (AAE, 1973), \"The Adverbial Theory of the Objects of Sensation\" (ATS, 1975), \"Sensa or Sensings: Reflections on the Ontology of Perception\" (SSOP, 1982)"],"reception":"Daniel Dennett's heterophenomenology and folk-psychology-as-theory (*Brainstorms* 1978); Paul Churchland on folk psychology as theory (*Scientific Realism* 1979); the functionalist tradition (Putnam, Fodor, Lewis); Robert Brandom on inner-speech analogues and propositional attitudes (*Making It Explicit* 1994); Willem deVries on Sellars's philosophy of mind (Wilfrid Sellars 2005 Ch 7-8).","status":"settled-as-articulated","era":"1912-1989","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Science Perception and Reality - includes Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind EPM","page":"p. 194","canonical":"","quote":"Thus, it should be noted that Jones's theory, as I have sketched it, is perfectly compatible with the idea that the ability to have thoughts is acquired in the process of acquiring overt speech and that only after overt speech is well established, can 'inner speech' occur without its overt culmination.","label":"Science Perception and Reality - includes Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind EPM, p. 194"},{"n":2,"work":"Science Perception and Reality - includes Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind EPM","page":"p. 200","canonical":"","quote":"This brings me to the final chapter ofmy story. Let us suppose that as his final service to mankind before he vanishes without a trace, Jones teaches his theory of perception to his fellows. As before in the case of *thoughts,* they begin by using the language of impressions to draw theoretical conclusions from appropriate premises.","label":"Science Perception and Reality - includes Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind EPM, p. 200"},{"n":3,"work":"The Metaphysics of Epistemology - Lectures by Wilfrid Sellars","page":"pp. 344–345","canonical":"","quote":"Remember Jones with something on the tip of his tongue: \"Why it didn't stop?\" When you think of a person's thinking it did not stop, your model for that thought is a candid speech event, viz., the saying \"It didn't stop.\" But then, of course, every model will carry withitinto the theory a commentary explaining how unlike the items you are postulating in your theory are from the items that you take as your model.","label":"The Metaphysics of Epistemology - Lectures by Wilfrid Sellars, pp. 344–345"},{"n":4,"work":"Science Perception and Reality - includes Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind EPM","page":"p. 195","canonical":"","quote":"Thus, when Tom, watching Dick, has behavioural evidence whch warrants the use of the sentence (in the language of the theory) 'Dick is thinking \"p\" ' (or 'Dick is thinking that p'), Dick, using the same behavioural evidence, can say, in the language of the theory, 'I am thinking \"p\" ' (or 'I am thinking that p').","label":"Science Perception and Reality - includes Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind EPM, p. 195"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-myth-of-the-given","label":"The Myth of the Given: are non-inferential cognitive states that ground empirical knowledge independent of any conceptual framework incoherent, and does EPM destroy the foundationalist tradition?"},{"slug":"psychological-nominalism-and-the-space-of-reasons","label":"Psychological nominalism and the space of reasons: is all awareness of universals, abstract entities, and sense-qualities mediated by language, and is knowledge placement in the normative logical space of justification rather than a natural-causal relation?"},{"slug":"manifest-vs-scientific-image-and-the-synoptic-vision","label":"Manifest vs Scientific image and the synoptic vision: is philosophy's task the stereoscopic fusion of the two images, and does the scientific image have ontological priority on what exists?"},{"slug":"scientific-realism-sellarsian-kantianism-picturing","label":"Scientific realism + Sellarsian Kantianism + picturing: do theoretical entities have ontological priority, does language picture the world in a second-order isomorphism beyond inferential semantics, and does the Cassirer Lectures' transcendental project complete the Sellarsian system?"}]}