Circle of Acquaintance

This book studies the problem of acquaintance against the background of a more general theory of intentionality. Much of the relevant background is laid out in the book I wrote with Ronald McIntyre, Husserl and Intentionality (1982). However, since this book is not focussed on HusserI, I shall not assume the reader's familiarity with the prior book or with HusserI's philosophy. (I have sometimes referred to this book-in- progress as Acquaintance; I've rounded out the title a bit. ) of The initial inspiration for this work, in the 1970's, was a confluence ideas from the logic of perception and the logic of demonstratives, ideas in which I found phenomenological inspiration. These included Jaakko Hintikka's notion of perceptual individuation, Romane Clark's account of a demonstrative element in perception, David Kaplan's analysis of the meaning (character and content) of demonstratives, and Hector-Neri Castaneda's notion of quasi-indicators. I would later add to the list John Perry's appraisal of belief reports involving indexicals (extending Castaneda's ideas) and Hilary Putnam's Twin Earth thought-experiments (complementing Clark's and Kaplan's ideas of the same vintage).I want to thank Chuck Dement and Ronald McIntyre for their responses to the first draft. For many discussions of issues addressed in the book I thank David Blinder, Hubert Dreyfus, Dagfinn F~llesdal, Jaakko Hintikka, David Kaplan, Ronald McIntyre, Izchak Miller, Esa Saarinen, John Searle, and Peter Woodruff. I have benefited also from colleagues and students too numerous to name but deserving my thanks nonetheless. Philosophy is a surprisingly communal affair.