Blackwell Reference Online

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P hilosophy of mind A term introduced by Putnam in 1975 in relation to his claim that there are two types of mental state , wide and narrow. Narrow mental states, such as pain , do not presuppose the existence of any individual other than the subject to whom that state is ascribed. Wide mental states, such as being jealous of somebody, carry reference to the world outside the subject. Narrow mental content is intrinsic, while wide content refers to one's physical or social environment. Methodological solipsism is the doctrine that psychology ought to be concerned exclusively with narrow mental or psychological states and that mental states should be individuated by reference to items internal to the individual whose mental states they are. We should explain the content of a propositional attitude solely by identifying it with events occurring inside the mind. There is no need to investigate the environmental causes or behavioral effects of the mental states or processes. The doctrine likens a mental process to the computing of a machine that is fully determined by its physical elements. In a sense, both physicalism and functionalism carry the restriction of methodological solipsism forward to their physical account of the mental. Fodor takes it as a research strategy in cognitive psychology that psychological states are individuated without respect to their semantic ... log in or subscribe to read full text