Mental Filing Systems: A User's Guide

How seriously should we take the idea that mind employs mental files? Goodman and Gray (2022) argue filing—a thinker rationally treating her cognitive states as being about same thing—can be explained without files. Instead, they standard commitments of file theory, represented by Recanati’s indexical model, are better seen in terms a relational representational feature object representations, which turn is based on epistemic links bears to objects. This paper argues this revision misguided. Neither property nor any basic role for needed an adequate explanatory theory makes use image filing system. A alternative model does posit files, albeit causal-functional entities. additional features redundant, shows play secondary role.