Background
Millikan, Ruth Garrett was born on December 19, 1933 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Daughter of Milan Wayne and Eunice (Peterson) Garrett.
(Ruth Millikan's extended argument for a biological view o...)
Ruth Millikan's extended argument for a biological view of the study of cognition in Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories caught the attention of the philosophical community. Universally regarded as an important, even brilliant, work, its complexity and dense presentation made it difficult to plumb. This collection of essays serves both as an introduction to that much discussed volume and as an extension and application of Millikan's central and controversial themes, especially in the philosophy of psychology. The title essay, referring to the White Queen's practice of exercising her mind by believing impossible things, discusses meaning rationalism and argues that rationality is not in the head, indeed, that there is no legitimate interpretation under which logical possibility and necessity are known a priori. Nor are there any laws of rational psychology. Rationality is not a lawful occurrence but a biological norm that is effected in an integrated head-world system under biologically ideal conditions. In other essays, Millikan clarifies her views on the nature of mental representation, explores whether human thought is a product of natural selection, examines the nature of behavior as studied by the behavioral sciences, and discusses the issues of individualism in psychology, psychological explanation, indexicality in thought, what knowledge is, and the realism/antirealism debate. Ruth Garrett Millikan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262132885/?tag=2022091-20
(Written by one of today's most creative and innovative ph...)
Written by one of today's most creative and innovative philosophers, Ruth Garrett Millikan, this book examines basic empirical concepts; how they are acquired, how they function, and how they have been misrepresented in the traditional philosophical literature. In a radical departure from current philosophical and psychological theories of concepts, this book provides the first in-depth discussion on the psychological act of reidentification. It will be of interest to a broad range of students of philosophy, especially those interested in the application of evolutionary theory to analytic philosophy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052162553X/?tag=2022091-20
( Beginning with a general theory of function applied to ...)
Beginning with a general theory of function applied to body organs, behaviors, customs, and both inner and outer representations, Ruth Millikan argues that the intentionality of language can be described without reference to speaker intentions and that an understanding of the intentionality of thought can and should be divorced from the problem of understanding consciousness. The results support a realist theory of truth and of universals, and open the way for a nonfoundationalist and nonholistic approach to epistemology. A Bradford Book
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(Many different things are said to have meaning: people me...)
Many different things are said to have meaning: people mean to do various things; tools and other artifacts are meant for various things; people mean various things by using words and sentences; natural signs mean things; representations in people's minds also presumably mean things. In Varieties of Meaning, Ruth Garrett Millikan argues that these different kinds of meaning can be understood only in relation to each other. What does meaning in the sense of purpose (when something is said to be meant for something) have to do with meaning in the sense of representing or signifying? Millikan argues that the explicit human purposes, explicit human intentions, are represented purposes. They do not merely represent purposes; they possess the purposes that they represent. She argues further that things that signify, intentional signs such as sentences, are distinguished from natural signs by having purpose essentially; therefore, unlike natural signs, intentional signs can misrepresent or be false. Part I discusses "Purposes and Cross-Purposes"—what purposes are, the purposes of people, of their behaviors, of their body parts, of their artifacts, and of the signs they use. Part II then describes a previously unrecognized kind of natural sign, "locally recurrent" natural signs, and several varieties of intentional signs, and discusses the ways in which representations themselves are represented. Part III offers a novel interpretation of the way language is understood and of the relation between semantics and pragmatics. Part IV discusses perception and thought, exploring stages in the development of inner representations, from the simplest organisms whose behavior is governed by perception-action cycles to the perceptions and intentional attitudes of humans.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262134446/?tag=2022091-20
Millikan, Ruth Garrett was born on December 19, 1933 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Daughter of Milan Wayne and Eunice (Peterson) Garrett.
Bachelor, Oberlin College, 1955. Doctor of Philosophy, Yale University, 1969.
Instructor University Connecticut, Storrs, 1962-1964, associate professor philosophy, 1983-1989, professor philosophy, 1989-2001, Board Trustees Distinguished professor, since 2001. Assistant professor Berea (Kentucky) College, 1969-1971, University We. Michigan, Kalamazoo, 1971-1972.
Professor philosophy University Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1994-1996. Lecturer in numerous countries.
( Beginning with a general theory of function applied to ...)
(Many different things are said to have meaning: people me...)
(Written by one of today's most creative and innovative ph...)
(Ruth Millikan's extended argument for a biological view o...)
(Reprint)
Married James D. Millikan, December 28, 1961 (divorced July 1969). Children: Aino, Natasha. Married Donald P. Shankweiler, June 27, 1972.