Mental files, concepts, and modes of presentation

Francois Recanati (Institut Jean Nicod)

The first meeting of the Sign-Language-Reality seminar in the academic year 2025/26 will take place:  

Thursday, the 9th of October 2025, 17.00, Central European Time  

François Recanati
(Collège de France)  

will deliver a talk:  

Mental files, concepts, and modes of presentation  

Abstract: Many philosophers have emphasized the need to distinguish between concepts and conceptions. The distinction can be formulated by appealing to the mental file idea: concepts are mental files, while conceptions correspond to the contents of mental files (the information, or misinformation, stored in the file). Mental files persist through changes in conception. They are continuants, and, like other continuants, should be individuated by their origin (Sainsbury and Tye 2012) rather than by the contents they carry at a given time.
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in so-called Frege cases, one and the same entity is said to be represented under two distinct ‘modes of presentation’ (Frege 1892). Thus a rational subject may accept that Hesperus is F while not accepting that Phosphorus is F. In such a case, the relevant concepts (e.g. the Hesperus and Phosphorus concepts) must be distinct because, if they were the same, the thoughts towards which the subject holds conflicting attitudes would be the same, and that would impugn the subject’s rationality. So we need to posit two distinct mental files in the subject’s mind. On the other hand, if the files in question were associated with exactly the same conception and differed only numerically, no Frege case could arise (the subject would have no reason to hold different attitudes towards ‘Hesperus’ and towards ‘Phosphorus’). This suggests that modes of presentation should be equated with mental files qua carrier of certain contents – ‘thick files’ rather than ‘thin files’. A thick file is a file-stage, a file-at-a-time, together with the contents (the conception) it carries at that time. Conceptions are thus integral to modes of presentation, while concepts (‘thin files’) are independent of conceptions.  

The seminar will be held online, to join the meeting, please use the information below:
Join Zoom Meeting https://uw-edu-pl.zoom.us/j/92716044372...
Meeting ID: 927 1604 4372 Passcode: 697648   The meeting opens at 4:45 pm, the talk starts at 5 pm. https://www.pts.edu.pl/seminarium