On The Internalism Thought Of Chisholm

Roderick M.Chisholm is an important analytical philosopher in the west in the 20th century,his philosophical thought originated in Brentano,and in the process of inheriting and promoting Brentano’s intentionality theory,and put the theory of intentionality from spiritual field expanding to field of epistemology,ontology,theory of behavior,gradually formed and build up his own philosophical system.Internalism is the basic feature of his philosophy.Starting from the main line of"intentionality theory" in Chisholm thought,This paper expounds and analyzes the characteristics of internalism in various fields of his thought,demonstrates the distinctive characteristics of his thought,demonstrates the important value of his thought,and points out the limitations of some theories.Chisholm’s epistemology has internal feature.First of all,he believed that the intentionality activities and sensory activities generated by thinking and feeling experience have the characteristics of "self-presentation",which are directly demonstrated.It is the basis of our cognition and a source of knowledge.At the same time,he also used a subjective concept-"reasonable" to construct his internal discrimination system.He used a series of concepts of cognitive evaluation to express the degree of rationality,and constructed a cognitive evaluation rating system.This system reflects the complex belief states of the cognitive subject from all aspects and angles.But it only reflects the degree of rationality of cognition from inner belief.Chisholm’s behavior theory is a kind of "non-determinism" theory of free will.He proposed that our every behavior has an "endeavoring" caused by himself,and it is this motivation of "endea-voring" that directly causes the occurrence of his behavior.Chisholm’s behavior theory is not all "non-determinism",he proposed the"theory of behavior of causal contribution" and argues that the external environment will affect actor free will within the scope of his ability,that is,when the actor is trying to endeavoring project freely,an event can be affected to some extent and eventually cause and effect bringing about one of his freedom.Ontologically,Chisholm’s theory is a kind of Platonic realism,and the concept of"being" that he presuppose is related to the concept of "hconceivability",that is,it is an existence conceived,or at least it can be conceived,including state of affairs,characteristics,propositions,etc.He believed that a state of affairs could arise only when the characteristics of some conceived state of affairs could be exemplified.Therefore he understands properties not in terms of those concrete things but in turn understands those concrete things as exemplified properties or states of affairs.His concept of "conceiving" fully embodies his ontologically characteristics of internalism.In the process of expounding Brentano’s theory of intentionality,Chisholm applied the theory of intentionality from the realm of mind to the realm of language,creatively put forward the referential theory of intentionality,and pointed out that the meaning of language should be explained according to the intentionality of the speaker,Intentionality of mind is the fundamental factor determining the meaning of language.In his opinion,the referential problem of language is fundamentally the problem of intentionality,and it is the mental state of language users that is the source of meaning and reference.