Affordance‐Based Singularity

ABSTRACT Of the two main views on singular thought, the significance view has been favored over the acquaintance view due to its ability to accommodate a broader range of intuitively singular thoughts. However, a recurring type of counterexample in the literature, due mainly to Goodman, Davies, and King, describes scenarios in which a subject perceives an object and goes on to form a thought about it without that object ever becoming significant to her. Because all parties agree that such perception‐based thoughts are paradigmatic cases of singular thought, this line of counterexample may initially appear decisive. In this paper, I defend the significance view against it. By integrating recent work in cognitive science and affordance‐based theories of perception, I develop a more nuanced account of significance and its connection to action and perception. I show that this account, while preserving the original motivation of the significance view, renders it immune to the counterexample.