But Is It Interpretivism?
Keywords:
interpretivism, metaphysics, mental states, coherence, holism, Davidson, DennettAbstract
In this critical notice I raise a couple of questions concerning Mölder’s ambitious metaphysics, aimed at underpinning his Ascription Theory. I argue that some of the points he takes to depend on this metaphysics are in fact independent of it. I further question whether the relation between the mental and the physical is quite so unlike relations between special science entities and physics as Mölder suggests. Finally I relate Mölder’s Ascription Theory in very compressed form and suggest that although its loosening of the strictures on what evidence an ascriber of mental attitudes may avail herself of, it is not clear that the theory can really do without rationality considerations of the sort emphasised by Davidson and Dennett—at least if it is to count as a species of interpretivism.
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