What was I thinking?: an essay on the nature of propositional attitudes

The thesis I defend in this paper is that the truth—or lack thereof—of our ascriptions of propositional attitudes need not carry ontological weight onto our theories about the nature of mental states. This claim would not be surprising if it weren’t for the fact that both Fodorian realists and eliminative materialists about propositional attitudes take it as a premise in their arguments. They do so, I argue, because both assume a realist stance regarding scientific theories. I claim that we would be better off if we reject this underlying assumption. At the end I suggest an alternative strategy for interpreting our ascriptions of propositional attitudes inspired by an anti-realist view on scientific theories. This view, I hope, may relieve the philosopher of mind from awkward ontological concerns regarding the nature of propositional attitudes