Qwen2.5-Max
Based on the content provided, I will attempt to axiomatize Sellars’ key ideas about mental events and representational systems:
- Axiom of Representational Events: Every basic mental event is a representational event that has two fundamental characteristics: a) It represents an object in its environment (or itself) b) It represents that object as being of a certain character
- Axiom of Functional Duality: All representational systems (RS), whether pre-linguistic or linguistic, share the dual functions of: a) Referring to objects b) Characterizing those objects
- Axiom of Propositional Form: A basic representational state has propositional form if it: a) Represents an object b) Represents that object as having a certain character
- Axiom of Inferential Patterns: Representational systems operate through inferential patterns that are uniformities in the occurrence of representational states, where certain states tend to be followed by others.
- Axiom of System Integration: To be a representational state, a state must be part of a system of dispositions and propensities that allows an organism to: a) Construct maps of itself in its environment b) Locate itself and its behavior on that map
- Axiom of Logical Systems: Representational systems can be categorized into: a) Pre-logical RS: Operate without logical vocabulary but can still perform basic inferential operations b) Logical RS: Contain logical connectives and quantifiers in their “vocabulary” and can perform syllogistic reasoning
- Axiom of Functional Classification: Semantical concepts like meaning and reference are not relations but rather techniques for classifying events by reference to paradigms in our background language.
- Axiom of Primitive Awareness: Awareness of an item as having a certain characteristic requires more than just responding to it as such; it requires integration into a system of dispositions and inferences.
These axioms capture the core of Sellars’ framework for understanding mental events and representational systems across both linguistic and pre-linguistic domains.