Philosophy: On Topic

Brain in a Vat

(shirley) — Sat, 31 May 2008 10:37:39 GMT

Hi anyone got any information about Stephen Law ( page 29 ) brain in a Vat

Wilfred Sellars

(Boswell) — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 06:27:15 GMT

Aidan's Essay

(thejester314) — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:09:39 GMT

On Government
Aidan Gardiner

In 2003 the identity of an undercover CIA operative, Mrs. Wilson, was leaked to and published in Time magazine. It soon came to light that the leak came from within the White House. The President pledged to fire the source of the leak. Press secretary Scott McLelan made a point of letting the press know that the source of the leak was not the President’s chief strategist and deputy chief of staff Karl Rove. Two years later, however, Mr. Rove’s own lawyer released the statement that it was, in fact, Mr. Rove who unmasked the field agent. The press jumped on the news and began questioning the White House, asking if Mr. McLelan had said two years prior. The press continued on this line of questioning until the question was asked, “Does the White House have a credibility problem? … I’m not talking about just this investigation but also, say, WMD’s.”
Upon hearing this story, I myself began to question the White House. Not only did I question the White House but also the nature of government and the role of those being governed. Why was I angered by the lack of truth coming from my government? Is it even the government’s responsibility to give truth? Why would Mr. Rove leak the identity of a CIA undercover agent in the first place? All of these questions lead me to one conclusion:
All men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principals, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

It is and should be the goal of a government to perpetuate itself, but this in the end should not be it’s ultimate goal because this in the end would lead to the abandonment of the people depriving them of their rights. Mr. Rove leaked Mrs. Wilson’s identity after her husband wrote an article criticizing the administrations claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear armament, which at the time was a key driving force in the push for the war in Iraq. Mr. Rove sought to silence Mr. Wilson and therefore perpetuate the White House’s cause.
Relating to the previous statement, it is equally my belief that order is necessary, but in order for order to exist there must be the threat of disorder, which in run also makes for a more perfect order. Dissent against a government forces the government to mold to the needs of the dissenting. If it then alienates others the government should mold to both groups. Dissent makes a more perfect government and thus to say your government is doing ill is in the end not unsupportive and unpatriotic but rather patriotic to the highest degree. This is partly why terrorism has a 100% failure rate. The attacks of September eleventh did not dishearten or defeat the United States but in the end made us more unified. When groups such as terrorists have such goals as abolishing a government, there is no way for the government to then adhere to their needs and therefore there is no need to. The United States is founded on the principal of dissent. When we are dissatisfied with whom we are being governed we reserve the right to expunge them from office. I read a quote in the Examiner from a senator or congressman that said, “Anyone who disagrees with their government is by definition a terrorist.” This infuriated me. If this man’s quote were true, that would mean anyone running against the current party in an election would be a terrorist creating a fascist dictatorship.

If a man is lying on the street looking at death with no money social darwanism will not pick him up. To ensure the welfare of it’s people the government should be there, a safety net of sorts for it’s people, regardless of whether they help their government or not, should the people want it. Homeless are not homeless because they’ve chosen a lifestyle. If they had, they would not beg for money to survive. To walk by and say, “get a job” places impossibility on someone who is not able to even face an impossible deed. When someone is locked in their house, laying on their bed in a cold sweat for days without food, looking for help he should be able to find it without having to rely on a dream. The “American dream” is only that, a dream. Some may, but not all are able to climb the rungs to prosperity and often those who are unable need help, and anyone who is unwilling to pay taxes for such a cause is selfish and greedy. Healthcare is not a privilege of the wealthy but a right of the people in order to ensure their lives, the liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

Marriage is a sacred bond of love between two people. On that, anyone who wishes to wed should be allowed to do so with whomever they wish. Nobody has any say as to whether or not the union should be prohibited or not. The marriage is between two consenting people (who believe themselves to be in love with the other). Gay marriage does not destroy the sanctity of marriage. It does not open the door to bizarre marriages between small boys and old men. It does not provide an open door for the marriage of people to inanimate objects or other animals. Not allowing someone to marry is to infringe on ones right to pursue happiness.

The option for abortion should be available for all who need it. It is not a decision to be made by politicians who will never give birth themselves but rather a woman faced with a life changing decision. In the case of abortion it’s necessary to utilize the utilitarian philosophy. If a child is born to two people who are not ready to have it, the parents and the child’s lives are at risk. There is even the grave possibility of the child’s death due to gross negligence on the parents’ part. This is not to advocate the killing of every child that is to be born, nor is it to promote sexual activity among irresponsible adolescents, it is to provide the option because pro-choice analogous to pro-life.

Kill all terrorists. When someone straps a bomb to their chest in order to kill hundreds of people his cause is lost in the mayhem. He becomes evil. He is not a martyr but rather a fanatic with complete disregard for human life. However, I believe that they are to be treated as any other citizen prior to their acts, with the same rights. Until they break the threshold they have every right to privacy as we have ourselves. In that split instant before the pressing of a button they may reconsider.
Every citizen has the right to privacy. Until it can be proven that they are a criminal without invading their privacy they are to be treated as anyone else would be treated.

To be a citizen it is required that you not be docile and complaisant but rather active and educate oneself. To be active in government is to ensure the well being of yourself and others around you. To be docile and complaisant is to provide fertile ground for the government to prevent you from life, liberty, and your pursuit of happiness.

Essays!

(Croato) — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 23:38:30 GMT

Ok guys, here's how we're gonna do this. I've created an email address to which we can send all our essays. I'll post the address and the password right here so that anytime anyone wants to read anyone's essay, they can do so as they please.

Address: philessays@mail.com
Password: abc123

Just send your essay in an attachment to that address, then just go to mail.com to log in and read other people's. Mine's there, already, hope you enjoy it.

McDowell's Paradox

(seanan) — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 01:07:48 GMT

I can't understand what McDowell's solution to the paradox is. From what I have gleaned from the two articles that were provided in class, it seems that he tries to show that impressions can in fact justify beliefs/concepts because the logical space of reasons is actually in the natural world.

But I'm not really sure, and I think I might have it really wrong. Does anyone know what McDowell's solution is? I'm really confused.

The Prince, political philosophy

(Croato) — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 05:57:43 GMT

So I finished Machiavelli's The Prince over the last couple days. That book was pretty sic. Useful stuff if you ever happen to go back in time 500 years and have to secure your principality.

No but seriously, it was really pretty cool stuff. We should discuss a little political philosophy, just as a sampler dish I think.

Tell us about your Paper Topic

(ajames) — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 20:28:44 GMT

Dear Students,

Please tell us what you will be writing about for your final paper. But don't just name the topic, try to go into some detail about your position: What claim will you be making? How will you try to establish it? What questions are you currently trying to figure out? etc. After you have finished explaining your idea, read the other posts to see what your fellow students are thinking about. It might be the beginning of an interesting conversation.

Yours,

Alex

(Seven Paradoxes) Paradox 1: The Man who Spoke the Truth but Didn't

(PegasusHoplite28) — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 20:02:32 GMT

A traveller was walking one day when he met an old man sitting beside the road smoking a pipe.
'The first thing said to you by the first person you meet today will not be true,' said the old man. 'Trust me - don't believe what he says!'
'OK,' said the traveller. 'But hang on a minute: you're the first person I've met today.'
'Exactly!' said the old man.

You may have spotted something funny going on here. If the old man speaks the truth, then the first thing he says is not true. But if the first thing he says is not true, then the first thing he says is true.
This is a version of the famous liar paradox, a paradox first formulated in ancient Greece over 2,000 years ago.
The traveller thought he saw a way out of the paradox: claim that what the old man first said is neither true nor not true. After all, why does every such sentence have to be either true or not true?

'Old man, you're trying to trick me,' said the traveller. 'It's obvious that what you said is neither true nor not true.'
'Aha,' said the old man. 'You're suggesting that it is not true that what I said is true, and also not true that what I said is not true?'
'That's exactly right,' said the traveller.
'Well, then, if it's not true that what I said is true, then what I said is not true!'
The traveller was starting to get a headache. The old man continued: 'And if it's not true that what I said is not true, then what I said is true! For what I said is precisely that what I said is not true!'
The traveller was starting to feel like ramming the old man's pipe down his throat.
'So you see,' said the old man, 'your suggestion is wrong: it's not true that what I said is neither true nor not true. In fact, it's both true and not true!'

But that's impossible. Isn't it?

Comments, opinions?

Killing Mary to Save Jodie (Utilitarian)

(PegasusHoplite28) — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 21:44:56 GMT

Transcript from Stephen Law's The Philosophy Gym:

Killing Mary to Save Jodie

One of the Ten Commandments handed down to Moses was 'Thou shall not kill'. But is it always wrong to kill? Most of us believe that there are exceptions to the rule. We believe, for example, that it would be morally acceptable to shoot dead a maniac about to embark on an orgy of killing in a school playground if that was the only way to stop him. Here I discuss another possible exception - that of killing one innocent person in order to save another. Is that ever morally acceptable?

The Case of Jodie and Mary
Not ver long ago, two girls were born connected at the lower abdomen. The parents, from the island of Gozo in the Mediterranean, travelled to Britain so that their daughters could receive specialist medical treatment. British doctours found that one of the two girls - Mary - had only a rudimentary brain. She also depended on her blood supply on the heart and lungs of jodie, her twin sister, who, according to evidence given in court, was a 'bright and alert baby, sparkling and sicking on her dummy'. The prognosis was bad. Leave the girls attached and both would die within months. Separate them and Jodie had a good chance of surviving, if with some physical handicaps. The immediate result of such an operation, however, would be the death of Mary. The doctors wanted to operate. The parents, devout Catholics, objected, insisting that, as it is wrong to kill, and as the operation would clearly result in the killing of Mary, 'God's will' must be that the doctors allow both girls to die. The parents took the case to court. The doctors won the case, and the operation went ahead. Mary died. But Jodie has survived.

A Utilitarian Approach
Should the operation that saved jodie by killing Mary have taken place? Is this the kind of situation in which we ought to kill to save a life? The Manchester doctors involved in caring for Jodie and Mary judged that it is. Interestingly, these doctors have been accused of adopting a well-known philosophical position: that of the utilitarian. Utilitarianism has been developed and refined in various ways. Two early practitioners were Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), but it continues to have many followers. In its simplest form, utilitarianism is the fiew that the right thing to do when faced with a moral decision is always to maximise happiness.
For example, ought I to steal that small child's sweets? That may give me the pleasure of eating the sweets, but it will deny that same pleasure to the child and cause her considerable unhappiness to boot. Therefore, according to the utilitarian, I ought not to steal the sweets.
In the case of Jodie and Mary, performance of the utilitarian calculation might seem a fiarly straightforward matter. We are presented with two courses of action. We can operate and save Jodie by killing Mary, or we can refuse to operate, with the inevitable result that both children will die. From a utilitarian perspective, it might seem clear that we should operate, for that will at least produce one happy individual rather than none.
How plausible is such a utilitarian justification for kiing Mary to save Jodie?

The Transplant Case
Notoriously, utilitarianism faces a very powerful sort of counterexample. Here's one example.
You are the doctor in charge of two seriously ill patients. One has terminal cancer, and will die shortly. The other has a heart condition that will soon become fatal if a replacement heart is not found quickly. You discover that the heart of the cancer patient would actually make a perfect donor organ for the heart patient. So you can save one of these two lives by killing one patient by giving his heart to the other. Or you can do nothing, with the result that both lives will soon come to an end. What should you do?
From a utilitarian perspective, the morally proper course of action seemse clear. If you operate, one happy individual will return to his family, where he can live out a long and contented life. Fail to operate, and both lives are lost, resulting in not one but two sets of grieving relatives. The right thing to do, therefore, must be to kill the cancer patient to save the hear patient.
Of course, most of us are aghast at the suggestion that the right thing to do in this situation would be to kill one patient in order to save the other. We feel stringly that the cancer patient would be the civtim of a grave injustice were he to be killed so that his heart might be taken. To take this life, even if the result would be another life saved, would surely be morally very wrong indeed.
It seems to follow, then, that the utilitarian view that what is morally right is equivalent to whatever produces the most happiness cannot be correct. And if we reject utilitarianism, then we can't use it to justify the killing of Mary to save Jodie.

Conclusions One Might Draw
To sum up: the transplant case provides a powerful counterexample to thos forms of utilitarianism that might be used to justify the killing of Mary to save Jodie. But there are at least two further conclusions some might wish to draw.
First, some may conclude that what the transplant case shows is that we ought to abide by God's commandment 'Thou shall not kill' even in those situations where by killing we can save a life. This appears to be the position of the priest at the village from where Jodie and Mary came. In fact, the priest appealed to such a similar transplant case to back up his position.
"It is the same principle as organ donation. Transplants are valid and moral when the donor is dead, but Mary is not dead. She is alive, she is a human being. It is wrong to kill her, no matter how good the intention." - Guardian, 22 September 2000
In the priest's view, killing is wrong, period. It remains wrong even in a situation where the outcome is an innocent life saved. Keith Male, spokesperson for the prolife charity Life, takes a similar view. About the decision to allow the operation on Jodie and Mary to take place, he said:
"This decision is deplorable. It transgresses a fundamental principle of our law that it is never permissible to kill, or commit a deliberate lethal assault on an innocent person, whatever good may come of the action." - Daily Express, 23 September 2000
Secondly, one may argue that what the transplant case reminds us of - or ought to remind us of - is that human beings have moral rights, the most fundamental of which is the right to life. In the transplant case the utilitarian calculation requires that the cancer patient's right to life should be infringed. But that would clearly be wrong. It was similarly wrong to kill Mary to save Jodie, for by so doing we infringed Mary's right to life. As Dr Richard Nicholson, editor of the Royal Society of Medicine's Bulletin of Medical Ethics, argues:
"The issue of what rights accrue to each part of Siamese twins has never been addressed in law. Given the existence of two recognisably human beings, one cnnot argue coherently that they do not both have rights. If both have rights, the two most fundamental rights - to life and to justice - must be respected. So both Jodie and Mary have a right to life and a right to justice, or in other words to be treated equitably. Surgical separation would deny Mary both rights." - Richard Nicholson, Independent on Sunday, 10 September 2000
At this point you might be forgiven for supposing that an overwhelming case has been made for the immorality of killing Mary to save Jodie. But I don't believe that is the right conclusion to draw. Like both the priest and Dr Nicholson, I reject utilitarianism - certainly those varieties that require that we murder the cancer patient in order to save the heart patient. I am also sympathetic to the view that human beings have moral rights, rights that - generally speaking - ought not to be infringed. However, I am not convinced that the right thing to do in Jodie's And Mary's case was to allow both children to die.

The Astronaut Case
Think about the following case.
You haven been sent into space on a rescue mission. Two astronauts are trapped in different secionts of a spaceship, their air running out. You reach the shop with minutes to spare, but the oxygen supplies to to the two parts of the ship are connected in such a way that it is possible to rescue only one of the astronauts by shutting off the air supply to - and thereby killing - the other. Do you allow both astronauts to die? Or do you save one of the two astronauts?
Surely the right thing to do is to save one of the two astronauts, even though you can do so only by killing the other. Here is a case in which it seems very clear to most of us that the right course of action is to kill an innocent person so that a life might be saved.

The Submarine Case
We saw above that Dr Nicholson argues that we ought not to save Jodie by killing Mary because this would involve denying Mary her right to life. While I'm happy to acknowledge that human beings have moral rights, including the right to life, there are clearly circumstances in which such rights should be infringed. Rights ought, generally, to be respected. But not at any cost.
Consider, for example, the following situation.
You're the President of the United States of America. You know that a US submarine crew is, due to an equipment malfunction, unwittingly about to launch a nuclear strike that will result in the deaths of millions of innocent people. The only way of averting disaster is to send a missile to annihilate the submarine and its crew. What should you do?
Surely the right thing to do in this situation is to destroy the submarine, despite, the fact that this would involved denying those on board their right to life.
That the right to life can in some circumstances justifiably be overridden also seems clear in the astronaut case. Would Dr Nicholson insist that, because we should respect these astronauts' right to life, we should stand back and watch both of them suffocate?

Exceptions to 'Though Shall Not Kill'
The village priest argued that it is always wrong to kill, no matter what good may come of it. He also used a transplant case to back up his position.
But what would the priest say about the astronaut and the submarine cases? Would he insist that we ought to allow millions to die rather than destroy the submarine? Would he say that the two astronauts should be left to suffocate? For these are the only courses of action left open to one who insists on following God's commandment 'Thou shall not kill' without exception.
Yet to take this extreme view is perverse, isn't it? Is it really 'God's will' that we should stand back and let both astronauts die?
Of course, if it's allowed that the astronaut case is one in which it's morally acceptable to kill to save a life, then its no longer clear why Jodie's and Mary's case should be considered any different. Indeed, to my moral eye, the case of the conjoined twins looks essentially similar to that of the astronauts.
Those who believe that we should follow God's commandment without exception may bite the bullet and insist that it is wrong to kill even in a situation in which the result would be millins of lives saved. They might try to make their position appear more palatable by maintaining that death is not the end. The same biew has been expressed by some commentators on the twins' case. They have suggested that it only seems heartless to follow God's commandment and allow both girls to die while we forget that both children can look forward to eternal life with God.
This defence of the judgment that both girls ought to be left to die may appeal to some. But in order for it to be a rational defense, we need to provide good grounds for supposing that such an afterlike really does await us. It won't do simply to assert that it awaits. It is, to say the least, unclear whether any such grounds exist.

Why the Manchester Doctors Need Not Be Utlitarians
We have seen that it is sometimes wrong to kill the innocent to save life. But we have also seen that the astrounaut and submarine cases appear to show that it's sometimes wrong not to kill the innocent to save life. To accept that there are situations in which ti's right to kill the innocent to save life does not require that one embrace utilitarianism. Dr Nicholson suggests otherwise. He supposes that the Manchester doctors who thought it right to operate must be utilitarians.
"What has so far held sway among the professionals...is a crude utilitarian approach. Any life is better than no life, goes the arugment, so separation must be the right answer." - Ibid
But as should now be clear, the doctors who believed it was right to save Jodie by killing Mary need not be utilitarians. Indeed, they may reject utilitarianism precisely because they recognise that, as the priest points out, it is obviously and intuitively wrong to murder a cancer patient to save a heart patient.

Respecting Both Sets of Moral Intuitions
The priest introduces a live transplant case in order to appeal to a certain moral intuition. We feel, intuitively, that it would be wrong to murder, say, a cancer patient in order to save a heart patient.
Our intuition about this sort of case is then used to justify the conclusion that it's always wrong to take an innocent life, no matter how good the intention. It then follows that it was wrong to take Mary's life to save Jodie's.
But the intuition to which the priest appeals - that it's wrong to kill in the transplant case - does not entail that it's always wrong to take an innocent life. And, in fact, there are equally strong intuitions that the priest overlooks. There is the intuition that it is right to take an innocent life in both the submarine and astronaut cases.
Once one starts appealing to such moral intuitions, one cannot arbitrarily pick and choose among them. If we are expected to respect the intuition regarding the transplant case, then surely we ought also to respect the intuition concerning the submarine and astronaut case. But then the priest's justification for not killing Mary to save Jodie collapses.
In fact, as I say, the Jodie and Mary case seems, intuitively, to be morally much more like the astronaut case than it does the transplant case (or, at least, that's how it strikes me). So this sort of appeal to intuition seems in the end actually to support the killing of Mary to save Jodie.

A Difficult Challenge
The challenge facing those who, like me, wish to respect both sets of moral intuitions lies in explaing why it is acceptable to kill one astronaut to save the other, but not acceptable to kill the cancer patient to save the heart patient. We recognise intuitively that it is sometimes right to take an innocent life in order that life might be saved, and sometimes not. What's not so easy is to justify drawing the line where we do. What's the essential difference between the astrunaut and the transplant cases? I'm not sure I can answer that question adequately. You may have ideas of your own.

-- Agree or disagree with the author's thesis? Comments, opinions?

The Meaning Mystery

(PegasusHoplite28) — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 18:50:00 GMT

Transcript from Stephen Law's The Philosophy Gym:

The Meaning Mystery

Language is an extraordinarily powerful tool - the most important tool we possess. How do our sounds, squiggles, and other signs come by their astnoishing power to mean something? Indeed, what is meaning exactly? This chapter intruduces some of the key ideas of two philosophers: John Locke (1632-1704) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951).

Where Does Meaning Originate?
Take a look at the folowwing sequence of straight and curved lines.
I AM HAPPY
In English these lines mean I am happy. But there could be other languages in which this same combination of lines conveys quite a different thought. There might be an alien civilisation for which they mean my trousers are in tatters (I don't say this is likely, of course, but it's possible). the lines are in themselves devoid of any particular meaning.
The same is true of other forms of representation, including diagrams, illustrations and samples. They don't have any intrinsic representational power or meaning.
You might wonder about this. Here's a well-known example from the philosopher Wittgenstein.
You might think that this simmple combination of lines just has to represent a person climbing a hill. But as Wittgenstein points out, this same image could also be used to represent a man sliding down a hill backwards.
Indeed, we can imagine one-eyed aliens for whom this combination of lines is used to represent a face or a map-maker for whom this image represents where the treasure is burried ('O' marks the spot).
There's nothing intrinsic to the lines themselves that makes them mean one of these things rather than another.
What of a simple patch of red? Surely that can mean only one thing: red.
Not so. A red patch might have all sorts of meanings. If the patch is square, for example, then it might mean red square. Or it might simply mean square (the sample just happens to be red). If the patch is scarlet, then it might be used to represent just that shade of red. Or it could also be used to represent a much wider section of the colour spectrum, such as red, purple, and blue. A red patch might be used to symbolise blood or to warn of danger. I could use a red blob to record in my diary those days on which I ate a chocolate biscuit. In fact, a red match might be used to mean pretty much anything.
The moral is that nothing is intrinsically meaningful. Anything can be used to represent or mean more or less anything under the right conditions.

Meaning as an 'Inner' Process
But if nothing intrinsically means or represents anything, then how do our words and other symbols come by their representational powers? What gives them meaning? The answer, of course, is that we do. But how?
Here's one traditionally popular suggestion.
Suppose that a parrot starts to mimic the expression 'I am happy'. Of course, the parrot doesn't mean anything by these words. It's proabably unaware even that the words have a meaning. On the other hand, when I say 'I am happy', I don't just say something: I mean something.
So, although we say the same words, only one of us means something by them. Why is this? Why do I mean something but the parrot doesn't? After all, both the parrot and I engage in the same outward, observable process. We both say, 'I am happy'.
It seems, then, that the essential difference between us must be hidden. In meaning something, I must be engaged in an additional process, a process that accompanies the outward process of saying the words, a process that the parrot doesn't engage in. When I say 'I am happy', the outward physcial process of saying is accompanied by an inner mental process of meaning. It is the inner mental process that breathes life into our words and transforms them from mere sounds into significant utterances.

Locke's Theory of Meaning
An example of the view that meaning is essentially 'inner' is provided by the seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke.
In Locke's view, the mind is like a container. At birth, the container is empty. Gradually, our senses begin to furnisg this inner space with objects. Locke calls these mental objects 'Ideas'. We have simple Ideas, such as the Idea of the colour red. Locke seems to think of the Idea of red as being a mental image of some sort. We also have complex Ideas that are built out of simple Ideas. For sxample, my Idea of a snowball fight is made up of simplier Ideas, including those of white, cold, hard and round.
In Locke's view, Ideas form the building blocks of thought. Our thoughts are made up of sequences of Ideas. And words obtain their meaning by standing for these Ideas:
"Words in their primary or immediate Signification, stand for nothing, but the Idea in the Mind of him that uses them..." - John Locke, An essay Concerning Human Understanding
The difference between me and the parrot, in Locke's view - the difference that explains why I mean something by and understand what I say and the parrot doesn't - is that, unlike the parrot, I have correlated the outward string of words 'I am happy' with the sequence of mental objects. The outward process of saying the words is accompanied by an inner parade of Ideas. No such mental parade takes place inside the mind of the parrot.
This is called the Ideational theory of meaning.

How to Pick Out a 'Red' Object
The Ideational theory provides an explanation of how we are able to understand and aplly a word correctly. For example, suppose I ask you to pick out something red from your environment. No doubt you did so effortlessly. Yet all I gave you were some squiggly lines: 'red'. How did you know what to do with them?
It seems that in the Ideational theory, something like the following must have happened. You engaged in a sort of internal 'looking-up' process. On receiving the word 'red', you looked up in your memory - which functions, in effect, as a storehouse of Ideas - the Idea with which you have previously learned to correlate that word. This Idea, a sort of memory image of the colour red, provides you with a template or sample with which other things can be compared. You then compared this Idewa with the objects around you until you got a match. You then picked the object.
You may not be conscious of having engaged in such an inner 'looking-up' process. But perhaps that is because, for a mature language user like yourself, the process is so quick and habitual that you no longer need to pay it any attention.

A Popular Picture
Down through the centuries, many thinkers have been drawn to the 'inner process' model of meaning and understanding sketched out above. Indeed, the inner process model might well strike you as being 'just obviously' true. How else, you might wonder, are we to think of meaning and understanding, if not in terms of such processes taking place in the mind? Almost everyone finds themselves drawn to the inner process model when first they start to think about meaning and understanding.
It may surprise you then, to discover that the inner process model is now rejected by the bast majority of philosophers. One of the main reasons for this is the influence of the later work of Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein constructed powerful arguments that show that the inner process model doesn't explain what it's supposed to. Here are two of Wittgenstein's best-known criticisms of the inner process model.

Argument 1: How to Pick the Right Inner Object?
Let's return to the suggestion that to understand a word is to engage in an inner looking-up process. Think about the following scenario:
Pedro runs a paint shop. Pedro receives lots of orders for paint written in English. Unfortunately, Pedro cannot read English. So John, who can, set up a little filing cabinet in Pedro's office. In the cabinet are cards. On each card is a blob of paint. The cards also have labels taped to them. On each label is printed the English word for the colour that appears on the cards. When Pedro gets an order, he simply checks the English colour on the order form against the labels in his file. When he finds the right card, he pulls it out and compares the colour on the card with the tins of paint in his shop. Pedro then dispatches a tin of that colour.
It was suggested a moment ago that a similar looking-up process must explain your ability to apply the term 'red' correctly. Only we supposed that the looking-up process must take place in your mind. You have a mental filing cabinet, if you like - a storehouse of Ideas - in which you have previously filed memory images of colours correlated with their English names. When you receive the word 'red', you went to your mental filing cabinet and pulled out the right sample. You then compared the pbjects around you with the memory image until you found the match.
But does this inner looking-up process really explain your ability to pick out those things to which the word 'red' applies? Not according to Wittgenstein, who points out that the process actually presupposes what it's supposed to explain. To see why, ask yourself the following question: how did you pick out the right memory image?
'I don't see the problem,' you might say. 'Why can't I just go to my mental filing cabinet and look up the right mental image, the one I previously correlated with the word "red"?'
The difficulty is that a mental image is not objective. It's not the sort of thing you might attach a label to and put in a drawer for future reference. Once you're no longer aware of a mental image, it's gone. So when next you want to conjure up a mental image of 'red', how do you know what sort of image you are supposed to be imagining? You need already to know what 'red' means in order to know that. Yet it was your knowledge of what 'red' means that the mental image was supposed to explain.
So the 'inner process' explanation of how you are able to apply 'red' correctly is circular. It's suggested that you are able to pick out the right external object by comparing it with an inner object. But this takes for granted your ability to pick out the right inner object. We've taken for granted precisely the ability we're supposed to be explaining. The situation is quite different when it comes to an objective sample, like a piece of coloured card. Pedro doesn't need to know what 'red' means, in order to find the right coloured sample in his filing cabinet. This is because the word 'red' is physically, objectively taped to the right piece of card.

Argument 2: How Does the Inner Object Come by Its Meaning?
Even if you can somehow manage to call up the right memory image without already knowing what 'red' means, there remains a problem. The suggestion that words and other signs ultimately come by their meaning by being correlated with inner objects - Ideas - seems satisfactory only while one forgets to ask: and how in turn do these inner objects come by their meaning?
Suppose that you correlate the word 'red' with a mental image of a red square. Do you thereby give 'red' a meaning?
No. We have already seen the public samples - a red square painted on a piece of card, for example - can be interpreted in innumerable ways. But exactly the same difficulty arises with respect to mental samples. They are no more intrinsically meaningful than are public samples.
Let's suppose, for example, that your mental image is of a scarlet square. Should you then apply 'red' only to scarlet objects? Or would an orange object do? Or perhaps your sample just happens to be red, and it really represents squareness. So should you pick out only square objects? And so on. Your mental image fails to provide the answers to any of these questions.
It's clear that we have again gone round in a circle. This time, we have explained how words and other signs come by their meaning only br presupposing that certain signs - the mental ones - already have a meaning. So the mystery of how meaning ultimately originates remains.

Round and Round in Circles...
Wittgenstein points out that the explanations provided by the inner process model are circular. The model tries to explain how public words and signs have meaning by appealing to private, inner objects, but then takes the meaning of these inner objects for granted. It also tries to explain how you are able to identify which external objects are 'red', but only by presupposing that you already possess the ability to identify which internal objects are 'red'. Here are two more examples of circular explanations. We once tried to explain how the earth is held up by suppsing that it sits on the back of a great animal: an elephant. Of course, this explanation didn't really remove the mystery with which we were grappling, for we then needed to explain what help the elephant up. So we introduced another animal - a turtle - for the elepgant to sit on.
But then what did the turtle sit on? Should we have introduced yet another animal to support the turtle, and another animal to support that animal, and so on without end?
The problem is that our explanation really just took for granted what it was supposed to explain: why anything at all gets held up.
A similar circularity plagues the suggestion that the behaviour of a person can be explained as the result of the behaviour of lots of little people running around inside controlling the full-size person much as if they were controlling a ship.
The explanation is circular because we now need to explain the behaviour of these little people. Do we suppose that they have still smaller people running around inside their heads? If so, do these still smaller people have people running round in their heads?
Of course, to point out that these explanations are circular is not to prove that there is no elephant or that there are no little people running around inside our heads. But if the only reason for introducing the elephant and those little people in the first place was to explain certain things which, it turns out, they don't explain but just take for granted, then whatever justification we thought we had for introducing them is entirely demolished.
The same, of course, goes for the inner, mental 'looking-up' machinery introduced by the inner process model. By showing that this machinery takes for granted what it's supposed to explain, Wittgenstein demolishes the justification we thought we had for introducing it.

Meaning and Use
The temptation against which Wittgenstein warns us is that of thinking of the meaning and understanding as mysterious inner activities or processes.
"We are tempted to think that the action of langauge consists of two parts: an inorganic part - the handling of signs - and an organic part, which we may call understanding these signs, meaning them, interpreting them, thinking them. These latter activities seem to take place in a queer kind of medium, the mind. And the mechanism of the mind - the nature of which, it seems, we don't quite understand - can bring about effects that no material mechanism could." - Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books
So in what does the difference between myself and the parrot essentially consist, in Wittgenstein's view, if not in something inner? Broadly speaking, it consists in what we are able to do. I possess a whole range of abilities that manifest my grasp of what is meant by 'I am happy'. For example, if asked, I can explain what the expression 'happy' means. I can point to examples. I can use the expression appropriately. I can also use these words to construct many other different sentences. Parrots, on the other hand, can do noe of these things.
The revolution in thinking about meanings brought about by Wittgenstein's later work likes in this shift in focus from what goes on 'inside' to our publicly observable abilities. Meaning isn't 'hidden'. It lies on the surface, in the use to which we put our words and other signs. In Wittgenstein's view, to grasp the meaning of a word is not to have correlated it with some mysterious inner object, but, roughly speaking, to know how it's used.

-- The author believes that you might be short-changed because Wittgenstein's view that "we don't need a theory" prevents him from explaining further. Comments, opinions?