Files are mental particulars: a rejoinder to the relationist challenge

Abstract

AbstractThe paper is a rejoinder to a challenge against the particularist version of the mental files framework (MFF) posed by the relationist approach based on the notion of content coordination [such as recent attempt by Rachel Goodman and Aidan Gray in (Noûs https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12354 (2020)]. Relationists argue that important explanatory goals of MFF: (1) could be achieved without positing files as mental particulars, as there is a relationist notion of content coordination at hand that can be aptly used for “filing without files”; and (2) should be so achieved, as there are difficulties that afflict the particularist approach to MFF and the relationist account is simply better. However, both claims should be rejected. The particularist approach to MFF, properly interpreted, would not get into the troubles it is accused of generating. Indeed, it is the relationist approach that gets in trouble. Specifically, it lacks resources for explanation of nuances, which can be easily accounted for in terms of particularist interpretation, and, furthermore, it lowers the interdisciplinary standing of the whole framework. The particularist version is therefore better.