Czy myśl jest wytworem?
Is a Thought a Product?

Some Philological Remarks as a Side Note to Kazimierz Twardowski’s Treatise

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents linguistic comments on semantic and syntactic features of some key expressions mentioned by Kazimierz Twardowski in his O czynnościach i wytworach (On Actions and Products, 1911). In the first part, I enumerate and explain main functional properties of the Polish word myśl, że (a thought that). By means of collocation experiments I show that the expression myśl, że refers to the entity which is countable as well as independent from the subject. A thought is identified by the accompanying proposition, which must not be a nonsense. Next, I point out the differences between other Polish names of inner speech phenomena like spostrzeżenie (a notice, an observation), przekonanie (a belief), sąd (a judgement, a proposition), wyobrażenie, pojęcie (a notion). Finally, I argue that within natural (Polish) language there is no reason to treat thoughts as products of mental actions.

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