Modalités et états mentaux

Abstract

The present paper, in spite of the difficulties to be foreseen, intends to lead a comparative discussion on some theoretical propositions, in particular typological ones, that have been developed according to distinct methods around two different objects: on the one hand, the mental states (intentions, desires, emotions...) that philosophy, now backed by psychology, labels and discerns; on the other hand, the modalities (alethic, epistemic, deontic...) described by linguistics. It seems plausible indeed that the association of the notion of will and the verb to want, or of the notion of belief and the verb to believe, to mention only the most obvious cases, leads to overlapping interests between the philosophical approach of mental states and the linguistic and semiotic approach of modalities. Three authors will guide this discussion: linguist Laurent Gosselin, phenomenological philosopher Uriah Kriegel and semiotician Jacques Fontanille. The presentation of their respective models will reveal two common grounds: first, the way in which each of these theoretical models integrates as a typological differentiator that very thing from which its object differs, namely, a “world” contained or represented in mental states as in modalities; second, the appeal to a certain “presence”, which, however equivocal or problematic the notion may be, seems essential when it comes to accounting for differences between the types of object considered.

Keywords

• categories
• cognition
• mental spaces
• intentionality
• phenomenology
• modality