A Slim Book about Narrow Content (Contemporary Philosophical Monographs)

the long version

"Gabriel Segal's concern is whether certain psychological properties - specifically, those that make up what might be called the "cognitive content" of psychological states - are relational or intrinsic. He claims that content supervenes on microstructure, that is, if two beings are identical with respect to their microstructural properties, then they must be identical with respect to their cognitive contents." "Segal's thesis, a version of internalism, is that being in a state with a specific cognitive content does not essentially involve standing in any real relation to anything external. He uses the fact that content locally supervenes on microstructure to argue for the intrinsicness of content. Cognitive content is fully determined by intrinsic, microstructural properties: duplicate a subject in respect to those properties and you duplicate their cognitive contents."--Jacket.