Abstract

The present dissertation deals with the issue of the individuation of beliefs. This is an issue that falls into philosophy of psychology as well as philosophy of language. There are two major schools of thought that are involved in the debate. Individualism claims that the individuation does not need to take intentional, semantic properties of beliefs into account, while Anti-Individualism claims that it does. The former is represented by Jerry Fodor and the latter is represented by Tyler Burge. ;This dissertation is divided into three parts. In Part I, I review Tyler Burge's several attempts to refute Individualism. My conclusion is that Burge does not give us a viable alternative theory of content. In Part II, I examine Jerry Fodor's arguments for a new form of Individualism, one that proposes to individuate beliefs with respect to their causal powers. My conclusion is that Fodor runs into a problem in arguing that the individuation of mental states should be based on causal powers alone, since he would have to sacrifice the causal relevance of intentional mental properties. Finally in Part III, I formulate my arguments against Fodor's Individualism. I first present a holistic view of beliefs according to which, beliefs cannot be considered in isolation from the individual's system of beliefs. My view is that the individuation of beliefs not only needs to consider the semantic properties of the belief in question, it also needs to consider the semantic properties of relevant beliefs. I then argue for the causal relevance of intentional mental properties. My conclusion is that since the individuation of beliefs has to be based on groupings of their intentional, semantic properties, Individualism cannot be accepted