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In Defence of Narrow Mindedness
Author(s) -
Egan Frances
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0017.00108
Subject(s) - externalism , appeal , argument (complex analysis) , epistemology , internalism and externalism , psychology , physicalism , cognitive science , philosophy , cognitive psychology , metaphysics , law , biochemistry , chemistry , political science
Externalism about the mind holds that the explanation of our representational capacities requires appeal to mental states that are individuated by reference to features of the environment. Externalists claim that ‘narrow’ taxonomies cannot account for important features of psychological explanation. I argue that this claim is false, and offer a general argument for preferring narrow taxonomies in psychology.