# Aboutness



## T.A.G. (Mar 24, 2010)

Can some one help clear the definition or meaning of aboutness. I have read a book talk about this and using it as an argument against materialism...


Also does anyone know how the materialist would respond to the Christian argument on aboutness?


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## Montanablue (Mar 24, 2010)

I wandered in thinking this was a librarian discussion about catalouging. Apparently not....


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## jwright82 (Mar 24, 2010)

I must say that I have not really come across this word at all. After a quick Google search I think in this context, I could be wrong, it refers to intentionality. What I think this all means in a materialistic context is the idea of freedom. If all we are is material things and proccesses and everything is apparently is a slave of cause and effect than how do you have freedom or intentionality? I know that the atheistic philosopher Danial Dennet wrote a book on this entitled Freedom Evolves. I have never read it but I believe he argues along the lines of a computer model of our brains. We examine the possible decisions analyze which one has the greatest benefit for the decision under consideration and we "choose" in some way to do that. This evolutionary understanding of freedom doesn't take into account decisions that are made arbitraraly or irrationally. At the end of the day the materialist reduces us down to something less than human.


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## MarieP (Mar 24, 2010)

Montanablue said:


> I wandered in thinking this was a librarian discussion about catalouging. Apparently not....


 
We could talk about that, if you want...


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## py3ak (Mar 24, 2010)

Isn't the point simply that material things can't have an object? In other words, the chair is not _about_ the table: it doesn't _refer_ to the table. But we can all experience thinking or worrying _about_ someone or something else: thoughts and feelings have _reference_, and reference is not a material quality.


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## jwright82 (Mar 24, 2010)

py3ak said:


> Isn't the point simply that material things can't have an object? In other words, the chair is not _about_ the table: it doesn't _refer_ to the table. But we can all experience thinking or worrying _about_ someone or something else: thoughts and feelings have _reference_, and reference is not a material quality.


 You raise a good point, one that I am inclined to agree with but there is no shortadge of people trying to argue in the oppossite direction. Daniel Dennet, one of the four atheist horseman of the apocalypse, argues along a functionalist line of thought. Basically a functionalist argues that we may not be able to pinpoint what exactlly is pain on a physiological level but whatever it is can function in a sense as pain. The example I always read used is this, if I accidentally step on my dog and she yelps I can safley guess she experienced pain. But if my brain, or any other creature not her breed of dog, has pain but in a different brain type the different synapses or whatever still function in the same way as pain across the board. So basically pain is pain regardless of the different shapes and sizes between animals or people. So for my dog synapse X may control pain and for me synapse Z may control pain but despite the different synapses they are still both pain.

They use this theory on two grounds. One they try to say that although they cannot explain exactlly a fullblown materialistic theorly of mind they can explain how our material brains function like we experiance it, generally appealls to computers are made at this point. But to make an analogy to computers is to put the burden of proof on themselves, they must prove that we are like computers not appeal to computers to prove anything at all (that would be a fallacy of a false analogy).

Two they use words about the brain in a late Wittgenstienian fashion. The late Wittgenstien said that a meaning of a word depends on its usage, like cool (I can use it to refer to tempeture or how populer something is). This works fine for words but they try to apply this logic to mental/physical proccesses to justify their own ends. They claim that physical phenomenon can function in the same way as we used our concepts before. In the end it still simply begs the question for an exact explination. To apply a reality about words (their use determines their meaning) to brain functions is to make a category mistake, what is true about brain functions might not be true about words.


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## T.A.G. (Mar 26, 2010)

py3ak said:


> Isn't the point simply that material things can't have an object? In other words, the chair is not _about_ the table: it doesn't _refer_ to the table. But we can all experience thinking or worrying _about_ someone or something else: thoughts and feelings have _reference_, and reference is not a material quality.


 
yes this is what I was talking about, how do you think a materialist would respond to it?


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## py3ak (Mar 26, 2010)

I don't know; I've never been very interested in materialist thought - since "thought" is immaterial, there seems very little point in pursuing the question with them.


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## T.A.G. (Mar 26, 2010)

haha true, 

Laws of Logic
Aboutness
Plantingas Critique
The Mind
personality/personable

Are all great critiques of materialism and such but aboutness, personableness and the mind, I am trying to understand better and use them more effectively when I am witnessing to students on other campuses.


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## jwright82 (Mar 26, 2010)

Materialists would probally use one of their theories of mind to try to explain away the problem, that is why I have invested more time in studying/critiquing their arguments over formulating arguments as to why thoughts must be immaterial. In that department I am not so good, in the critical department I am much better.


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## Matthew1034 (Apr 19, 2010)

Not sure if this is on point, but the OP's question reminds me of arriving at an ought from an is. If this is relevant, I will elaborate.


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## Skyler (Apr 19, 2010)

Matthew1034 said:


> Not sure if this is on point, but the OP's question reminds me of arriving at an ought from an is. If this is relevant, I will elaborate.


 
The way you said that threw me for a loop. I thought you were talking about moving from an ought to an is. 

But no, that's a different issue. "Aboutness" doesn't have to do with ethics (directly).


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