The thesis I shall defend is this. Many philosophical arguments which involve an appeal to ordinary linguistic usage turn out themselves to use key terms in a non-ordinary way, and to have no point unless they do so. They therefore use terms in a way which, if their appeal is justified, is unjustified. I shall first illustrate this thesis with some examples. Then I shall try to show why in general the situation exists.

The thesis I shall defend is this. Many philosophical arguments which involve an appeal to ordinary linguistic usage turn out themselves to use key terms in a non-ordinary way, and to have no point unless they do so. They therefore use terms in a way which, if their appeal is justified, is unjustified. I shall first illustrate this thesis with some examples. Then I shall try to show why in general the situation exists.

Professor sellars has written a paper in which he holds that the statement (1) "karl's mind believes it is raining" is logically equivalent to a statement of the form (2) "karl's body is in state 'p'." in thomas' analysis of these two statements he argues that the plausibility of this position depends upon whether the facts expressed by (1) and (2) possess the same sort of "intentionality" and "aboutness." he offers various formulations of these statements which he argues show that (...) what is expressed in (1) is "intentional" and has "aboutness", But is not just a fact about karl's body. Thus, (1) and (2) do not possess the same sort of "intentionality" or "aboutness." (staff). (shrink)