The structure of mental content

The lecture will discuss a number of distinctions for analyzing the content of a representation (mental or linguistic). Some of these distinctions contrast the dimension of content with other dimensions of representation (such as its " mode " or its " force "), while others reveal the internal structure of content by contrasting reference and predication, theme and purpose, theistic judgment and categorical judgment. The ideas of Aristotle, Descartes, Brentano, Frege and Strawson will be brought into play. In particular, we will discuss the Aristotelian idea that all judgments possess the subject/predicate structure, and its critique by Brentano, whose ideas will be compared with those of Strawson on feature placing and reinterpreted in the light of the perspectives offered by more recent theories such as information structure theory and situation theory. Also addressed will be the problem of propositional unity and the idea (attributed to Spinoza) that mental contents are intrinsically assertoric.