Unarticulated Tension

The idea of unarticulated constituents is used in several different ways in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. My purpose here is to clarify these uses and thereby illustrate that there is considerable tension between them. More specifically, I will argue that if one endorses the original arguments in support of unarticulated constituents of the contents of thoughts and utterances (Perry 1986), then one should reject the later invocation of unarticulated constituents to solve the familiar puzzles of belief reports (Crimmins and Perry 1989; Crimmins 1993). Since it is John Perry who introduced the notion of unarticulated constituents, my remarks will focus on his uses of the notion. But the conclusions drawn here will be of interest to any philosopher whose views about content, cognitive significance, or belief reports have been influenced by Perry’s views. Indeed, in the fifth section I will explore the consequences of these conclusions for semantic relativism, a position that bears at least very strong resemblance toward the views advanced in Perry (1986).