The Nature of Narrow Content

Author(s): David J. Chalmers

Source: Nos, Vol. 37, Supplement: Philosophical Issues, 13, Philosophy of Mind (2003), pp. 46-66
Published by: Wiley
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Philosophical Issues, 13, Philosophy of Mind, 2003

THE NATURE OF NARROW CONTENT

David J. Chalmers
University of Arizona

1. Introduction'

A content of a subject's mental state is narrow when it is determined

by the subject's intrinsic properties: that is, when any possible intrinsic
duplicate of the subject has a corresponding mental state with the same
content. A content of a subject's mental state is wide when it depends in
part on the subject's extrinsic properties: that is, when there is a possible
intrinsic duplicate of the subject whose corresponding mental state lacks this
content.
It is commonly accepted that many mental states have wide content.
For example, where Oscar on Earth believes that water is wet, his intrinsic
duplicate Twin Oscar on Twin Earth (just like Earth, except that H20 is
replaced by the superficially identical XYZ) does not: he believes that twin
water is wet.2 Further, it appears that Oscar and Twin Oscar have corres-
ponding beliefs with different truth-conditions: Oscar's belief is true of
worlds where H20 is wet, while Twin Oscar's belief is true of worlds
where XYZ is wet. So insofar as these belief ascriptions and truth-
conditions reflect the beliefs' contents, those contents are wide.
The existence of wide content is compatible in principle with the
hypothesis that every mental state has narrow content: that is, that there
is a (different) sort of content such that for every mental state of a subject,
corresponding mental states of intrinsic duplicates have the same content
of this sort. This hypothesis has intuitive appeal, but it has proven difficult
to explicate an acceptable notion of narrow content. On my view, to
understand narrow content, one must ground the notion in epistemic
terms. In this paper I develop an account of this sort.

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 TheNatureof NarrowContent 47

2. Epistemic space

I will be centrally concerned with propositional attitudes with a mind-

to-world direction of fit: believing that P, expecting that P, hypothesizing
that P, and so on. Let us call the most general propositional attitude in this
class thought: so when one believes or expects or hypothesizes that P, one
thinks that P. Let us say that a thought is an occurrent propositional
attitude token of this type: roughly, an entertaining of a given content.
Then a thought aims to represent the world, and can be assessed for truth or
falsity. Note that understood this way, thoughts are tokens rather than types.
The account I will give will be grounded in a basic notion of the
epistemic necessity of thoughts. This notion can be understood in various
ways, but on the account I prefer, epistemic necessity is understood in terms
of apriority. We can say that a thought is epistemically necessary when it
can be justified independently of experience, yielding a priori knowledge.
We can then say that a thought is epistemically possible when the negation
of the thought is not epistemically necessary.3 Epistemic possibility corre-
sponds to rational coherence, on idealized a priori reflection.
It is a common intuitive idea that when a thought is epistemically
possible, there are specific epistemically possible scenarios that the thought
endorses. In effect, any thought divides the space of scenarios into a class of
scenarios that the thought endorses, and the class of scenarios that the
thought excludes. When both a thought and its negation are epistemically
possible, there will be scenarios in both classes. The basic idea I will pursue
is that the narrow content of a thought is given by the way that the thought
divides epistemic space: the space of epistemically possible scenarios.
We can start by thinking about Earth and Twin Earth. Imagine that
Oscar does not know the chemical structure of the liquids in their world, but
is speculating about it. He expresses a thought by saying 'water is XYZ'.
Then Oscar's thought is false, but it is nevertheless epistemically possible: no
amount of a priori reasoning can reveal the thought's falsity. Intuitively, the
epistemic possibility of this thought reflects the epistemic possibility of
various scenarios, in which (for example) the environment contains XYZ
in the oceans and lakes. We can say, intuitively, that Oscar's thought
endorses this sort of scenario, and that a scenario of this sort verifies Oscar's
thought. We can equally say that Oscar's thought excludes other scenarios,
in which the oceans and lakes contain H20, and that a scenario of this sort
falsifies Oscar's thought. So Oscar's thought seems to impose a division in
epistemic space.
One can bring out this idea as follows. Consider a thought that the
XYZ-scenario is actual: that is, that the environment contains XYZ with a
specific appearance and distribution in the oceans and lakes. Then this
thought is epistemically compatible with Oscar's thought that water is

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48 David J. Chalmers

XYZ: there is no rational inconsistency in his accepting both. On the other

hand, a thought that the H20-scenario is actual is epistemically incompatible
with Oscar's thought that water is XYZ: if Oscar accepts that an H20-
scenario is actual, he should rationally reject the thought that water is XYZ.
Note that nothing here contradicts the claims of Kripke (1980) and
Putnam (1975) that water is necessarily H20. Kripke allows that even if it is
metaphysically impossible that water is not H20, it is epistemically possible
that water is not H20: for all we know a priori, we could discover that water
is XYZ. If we discover that the XYZ-scenario is actual-that the liquids in
the oceans and lakes is XYZ, and so on-we will then be in a position to
conclude that water is XYZ. This is quite compatible with Putnam's claim
that in a counterfactual situation in which the oceans contain XYZ, XYZ is
merely watery stuff and not water. In thinking about epistemic space, it is
always epistemic possibility that is relevant.
What applies to Oscar applies also to Twin Oscar. Imagine that Twin
Oscar is in a similar position, and also expresses a thought by saying 'water
is XYZ'. Then his thought, unlike Oscar's, is true. But more importantly
here, his thought is also epistemically possible: it endorses various epistem-
ically possible scenarios in which the environment contains XYZ in the
oceans and lakes, and excludes others in which the environment contains
H20. Twin Oscar's thought is epistemically compatible with the thought
that an XYZ-scenario is actual, and it is epistemically incompatible with the
thought that an H20-scenario is actual: if he accepts that the H20-scenario
is actual, he should rationally reject his thought that water is XYZ. This is
the same pattern that was present for Oscar. So it seems that Oscar's and
Twin Oscar's beliefs divide epistemic space in very similar ways.
This holds out the promise that if we can make sense of the intuitive
idea of a thought's dividing epistemic space, it may yield a notion of narrow
content. To make this intuitive idea more precise, we need to say more
about the space of scenarios, and about what it is for a scenario to be
endorsed by a thought.

3. Scenarios

What is a scenario? Intuitively, a scenario corresponds to a maximally

specific epistemically possible hypothesis, such that every epistemically pos-
sible belief is verified by at least one scenario. One could simply postulate a
space of scenarios satisfying this and other principles; but to make the case
that the notion is coherent, and to see how scenarios behave in specific
cases, it is useful to try to construct scenarios directly from materials that
are at hand. There are two sorts of construction strategies one can appeal to
here. I have examined these at length elsewhere (Chalmers forthcoming b),
but I will say a little about them here.

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 TheNatureof NarrowContent 49

The first strategy constructs scenarios using possible worlds. Intuitively,

any possible world corresponds to a highly specific hypothesis. For any
given world W, we can entertain the hypothesis that W is actual: that is, that
our own world is qualitatively just like W. For example, given a specific
H20-world (where the oceans contain H20), we can entertain the hypothesis
that the H20-world is actual: that is, that our world is qualitatively just like
the H20-world. The same goes for an XYZ-world. So possible worlds seem
to behave at least something like scenarios.
Possible worlds are not quite as fine-grained as scenarios, however: an
objectively specified possible world does not correspond to a maximally
specific hypothesis. The reason is that no amount of objective information
can tell me my location within a world. Say that a world W contains XYZ in
the oceans and lakes on one planet, and H20 in the oceans and lakes on
another. Then if I know merely that W is actual, I do not know whether my
environment contains H20 or XYZ, and I do not know whether today is
Tuesday. To know these things, my location in the world must be specified.
For this reason, scenarios are better modeled by centered worlds: worlds
marked with an individual and a time as the world's center.4 When I
consider the hypothesis that a centered world W is actual, I consider that
the world is qualitatively just like W, that I am the individual marked at the
center of W, and that now is the time at the center. The added information
given by the center will be enough to settle the indexical claims mentioned
above.
One might worry about the Kripke/Putnam point mentioned earlier. If
water is H20 in all possible worlds, how can we use possible worlds to verify
a thought that water is XYZ? But again, this worry goes away if we think of
things in terms of epistemic possibility. Consider an XYZ-world, in which
the liquid in the oceans and lakes around the center is XYZ. Considered as a
counterfactual metaphysical possibility, one might describe this as a world
in which XYZ is not water but merely watery stuff. But considered as an
epistemic possibility, the world functions differently. Here, we consider the
hypothesis that the XYZ-world is our world: that is, the hypothesis that our
world is qualitatively just like the XYZ-world, with XYZ in the oceans and
lakes around us. When we consider this hypothesis, as before, it verifies the
thought that water is XYZ: if I accept that the XYZ-world is my world, I
should rationally accept that water is XYZ. So the world behaves just as we
wish.
This raises an issue: in considering the hypothesis that a world W is
actual, it matters how the world is described. In effect, one considers the
hypothesis that D is the case, where D is a canonical descriptionof W. What
is contained in the description matters: if our description D of the XYZ-
world contains 'XYZ is not water', then the hypothesis that D is the case is
epistemically incompatible with the thought that water is XYZ. To avoid
this sort of thing, we can require that canonical descriptions be restricted to

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50 David J. Chalmers

a semantically neutral vocabulary. To a first approximation, a semantically

neutral expression is one that is not susceptible to Twin Earth thought-
experiments: if corresponding semantically neutral expressions are used by
intrinsic duplicates in different environments, they will have the same mean-
ing.5 Names, natural kind terms, and demonstratives are not semantically
neutral, so no such expressions should be used in a canonical description of
a world for our purposes. What remains is a neutral vocabulary for char-
acterizing a world's qualitative structure. To this we can adjoin pure index-
icals such as 'I' and 'now', in order to specify the location of a world's
center. In this restricted vocabulary, problems of the above sort will not
arise.
The second way to deal with scenarios is to characterize them in wholly
epistemic terms, so that non-epistemic notions of possibility are inessential
to their definition. One natural way to do this is to construct the class using
sentences in an idealized language with no expressive limitations. Here we
can presuppose an epistemic necessity operator over sentences: on the
current account, S will be epistemically necessary when it is a priori. Let
us say that S and T are epistemically equivalent when the biconditional
S-T is epistemically necessary. Let us say that a sentence S leaves a
sentence T open when the conjunctions S&T and S&-T are both epistemi-
cally possible. And let us say that a sentence is epistemically complete when
it leaves no sentence open. Then intuitively, an epistemically complete
sentence in an idealized language corresponds to a maximal epistemic
possibility. Two epistemically equivalent such sentences may correspond
to the same maximal epistemic possibility. So we can naturally identify
scenarios with equivalence classes of epistemically complete sentences
(under the epistemic equivalence relation), in the idealized language.
What is the nature of the idealized language? In order that the idealized
language have a sentence for every intuitive maximal epistemic possibility,
we can assume that it has the capacity for infinitary conjunctions, as well as
an arbitrarily large lexicon (subject to the following constraint). Because the
construction ascribes epistemic possibility and necessity to sentence types
rather than tokens, the vocabulary of the language must be restricted to
epistemically invariantexpressions: roughly, a vocabulary such that for any
expression type in that vocabulary, all tokens of that type have the same
epistemic properties when used by fully competent speakers. In particular, if
a token of a sentence using such a vocabulary is epistemically necessary for
a fully competent user (i.e., it expresses an epistemically necessary thought),
then any token of that sentence type is epistemically necessary. (See
Chalmers forthcoming a for more details here.)
On the epistemic construction, scenarios are tailor-made to serve as
maximal epistemic possibilities. To consider the hypothesis that a scenario
W is actual, one considers the hypothesis that D is the case, where D is a
canonical description of W. Here, a canonical description of W is simply

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 The Nature of Narrow Content 51

any of the epistemically complete sentences in W's equivalence class. An

epistemically complete claim of this form will leave no questions open, so it
will be maximally specific, and it will be perfectly suited to model a specific
location in epistemic space.
Which of these two constructions of scenarios is to be preferred?On my
view, the two are near-equivalent: for every scenario on the first construc-
tion, there is a corresponding scenario on the second construction, and vice
versa. However, this claim is nontrivial, and some philosophical views will
deny it. For example, consider a theist view on which it is necessary that a
god exists, but it is not a priori that a god exists. On such a view, 'No god
exists' will be epistemically possible, and there should be maximal epistemic
possibilities involving no gods. On the epistemic construction of scenarios,
this will hold straightforwardly. But on the metaphysical construction, there
will be no such scenario: every centered world will contain a god, so that no
centered world corresponds to the maximal epistemic possibility in question.
Something similar applies to certain philosophical views on which the laws
of nature hold necessarily: there will be epistemically possible hypotheses
involving different laws, but no centered worlds in the vicinity. And some-
thing similar applies to certain views on which zombies and other creatures
are epistemically possible but metaphysically impossible: there will be epi-
stemically possible hypotheses involving zombies, but no centered world to
verify these hypotheses.
Elsewhere, I have argued that all these views involve "strong neces-
sities" of a sort much stronger than the ordinary a posteriori necessities made
familiar by Kripke, and I have argued that we have no reason to believe in
them. Nevertheless, this is a substantive philosophical claim about meta-
physical possibility and necessity with which some will disagree. For this
reason, the metaphysical construction involves more philosophical commit-
ments than the epistemic construction, and the latter construction is argu-
ably more neutral. The epistemic construction has the advantage of defining
the space of scenarios in wholly epistemic terms from the start, so that it is
guaranteed to give the right sort of epistemic results. It avoids entanglement
with issues about metaphysical possibility and necessity, and also avoids the
tricky issues about the descriptions of worlds discussed above.
For these and other reasons, I think that the epistemic construction of
scenarios is more fundamental. All the same, the notion of a possible world
is much more familiar to most philosophers, so I will often use centered
worlds to represent maximal epistemic possibilities in what follows. When
relevant issues arise, I will indicate how the two approaches handle them
differently.
On either approach to scenarios, there will be one scenario that is
distinguished for a given subject at a given time as the subject's actualized
scenario. On the metaphysical approach, this will be the centered world that
consists of the subject's own world, centered on the subject at the time in

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52 David J. Chalmers

question. On the epistemic approach, this will correspond to a sentence that

expresses the complete truth about the world, from the point of view of the
subject. The subject's actualized scenario is in effect the point in a subject's
epistemic space that corresponds to reality.
On either approach to scenarios, one can also distinguish a special class
of thoughts: the thought that a given scenario is actual. For a given scenario
W, a thought that W is actual is a thought that D is the case (or a thought
that could be expressed by uttering D), where D is a canonical description of
W. Such a thought will usually be extraordinarily specific, and beyond the
capacity of any human thinker to think. Nevertheless, these thoughts play a
useful role as a sort of idealization in understanding the present framework.
How much information is required to specify a scenario? That is, what
is the minimal information required for a canonical description of a scen-
ario? This is one of the deepest questions in philosophy, and we do not need
to take a position on it here. But it is useful to flesh out the picture a little by
considering what sort of information might be required to specify an actua-
lized scenario in our world, corresponding to the complete truth about the
actual world from an individual's perspective.
First, a full description of the actual world must include or imply the
complete microphysical truth about the world, specifying the microphysical
laws and the distribution and properties of particles, fields, and waves in
space and time. It must also include or imply the complete mental truth
about the world, specifying the conscious experiences of all individuals at all
times. On some views (e.g. some analytic functionalist views), the mental
information will itself be derivable from the physical information, and on
other views (e.g. some idealist or phenomenalist views) the physical infor-
mation will itself be derivable from the mental information. If these views
are correct, physical or mental information alone will suffice; but if these
views are incorrect (as I think is plausible), then both sorts of information is
required to specify a maximal epistemic possibility.
The information given so far leaves open further claims about additional
material in the world: it is compatible with the hypothesis that there is
additional nonphysical, nonmental ectoplasm in the world, for example.
So assuming that no such further material exists, the information needs to
be supplemented with information about the limits of the world: a "that's-
all" clause that says that the world contains no more than what follows
from what is already specified. Finally, all this objective information leaves
open indexical claims about the subject's own location in the world, so it
needs to be supplemented by indexical information (of the form 'I am X'
and 'now is Y') specifying which individual within the world is the subject,
and what is the current time.
Elsewhere (Chalmers and Jackson 2001; Chalmers 2002a) I have called
this conjunction of physical, mental, "that's-all", and indexical information
PQTI, and have argued that it is not implausible that PQTI epistemically

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 The Nature of Narrow Content 53

necessitates all truths about the world. If this is correct, then PQTI itself
specifies a maximal epistemic possibility, and so is all one needs to specify
one's actualized scenario. If this is incorrect, then PQTI needs to be supple-
mented by further information in order to specify a maximal epistemic
possibility. We do not need to settle this matter here, but this at least
gives an illustration.
Strictly speaking, a canonical description of a scenario is restricted to
epistemically invariant terms (on the epistemic construction) and semantic-
ally neutral terms plus indexicals (on the metaphysical construction). It is
plausible that the terms in Q, T, and I are of the right form here. But one
can argue that the microphysical terms in P are neither epistemically invari-
ant, nor semantically neutral, as they are natural kind terms that involve
rigid designation and that allow epistemic differences between individuals.
So while PQTI specifies a scenario, it may not do so in canonical form. To
handle this matter, one can replace P by a complete Ramsey-sentence
formulation of its content, ultimately cashed out in terms of causal and
other lawful relations between a class of basic elements, and causal relations
to experiences. It is plausible, although nontrivial, that one can give such a
formulation in epistemically invariant and semantically neutral terms.
More generally, the current framework requires that one can specify
any maximal epistemic possibility using epistemically invariant terms (on
the epistemic construction) or semantically neutral terms plus indexicals (on
the metaphysical construction). This claim is again plausible but nontrivial:
one can argue for this by arguing that epistemic variance and semantic non-
neutrality in themselves give no extra power in the specification of epistemic
possibilities: at most, they give variation between users (in the first case) and
additional power in specifying counterfactual metaphysical possibilities (in
the second case).

4. Epistemic intensions

If I had no empirical beliefs, then the whole of epistemic space would be

open to me. With each of my empirical beliefs, the portion of epistemic
space open to me is narrowed down. Each belief endorses some scenarios,
and excludes others. When I come to believe that the earth is round, having
had no previous beliefs about the matter, I exclude a number of scenarios
that were previously open to me: scenarios involving a flat earth or a cubical
earth, for example. As more beliefs accumulate, more scenarios are
excluded. I never narrow down the class of scenarios open to me to just
one, but I may narrow down the class to a small fraction of the original
space.
This way of thinking yields a natural conception of the content of a
thought. For any thought, there is a class of scenarios that it endorses, or

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54 David J. Chalmers

equivalently a class of scenarios that verify the thought. At the same time,
there is a class of scenarios that the thought excludes, or equivalently a class
of scenarios that falsify the thought. There may also be a class of scenarios
that the thought neither endorses nor excludes, perhaps because they con-
stitute borderline cases. We can think of this division of scenarios as con-
stituting the epistemic content of the thought.
Let us say that two thoughts of a subject are epistemically compatible if
their conjunction is epistemically possible, and epistemically incompatible
otherwise. One thought epistemically necessitates (or implies) another when
the first is epistemically incompatible with the negation of the second.
What is it for a scenario to verify a thought? Using the notions above,
one can say that a scenario W verifies a thought T when a thought that W is
actual implies T: that is, when a thought that W is actual is epistemically
incompatible with the negation of T. When this is the case, the hypothetical
assumption that W is actual will rationally lead to the acceptance of T. One
can similarly say that W falsifies T when a thought that W is actual implies
the negation of T, or when a thought that W is actual is epistemically
incompatible with T. In all these cases, the thought that W is actual is in
effect a thought that D is the case, where D is a canonical description of W.
We can then associate every thought with an epistemic intension. An
intension is a function from a space of possibilities of some sort to truth-
values, or to some other sort of extension. A beliefs epistemic intension is a
function from scenarios to truth-values. For a given thought T and scenario
W, the epistemic intension of T is true at W if W verifies T; the epistemic
intension of T is false at W is W falsifies T; and the epistemic intension of T
is indeterminate at W if W neither verifies nor falsifies T. I will say more
about this shortly, but first, it is useful to look at some examples. For the
purposes of these examples, I will use the understanding of scenarios as
centered worlds.
Let B1 be my belief that I am a philosopher. Let W1 be the actual world,
centered on David Chalmers, practicing philosophy, at a certain moment in
September 2001. Let W2 be a world centered on David Chalmers at a certain
time, in which he is a mathematician, not a philosopher. Let W3 be a world
centered on Bertrand Russell in 1900, practicing philosophy. Let W4 be a
world centered on Isaac Newton in 1600, practicing mathematics but no
philosophy. All four of these correspond to epistemic possibilities, in the
broad sense: the hypothesis that W1 is actual (that is, the hypothesis that the
world is objectively like W1, and that I am the being marked at the center,
and that now is the time marked at the center) is not ruled out a priori, and
the same goes for hypotheses concerning W2, W3, and W4.
My belief that I am a philosopher is verified by W1 and W3. The
thought that W1 is actual is epistemically incompatible with the belief that
I am not a philosopher: the conjunction of the two can be ruled out a priori.
The same goes for W3. I can know a priori that ifW1 is actual, then I am a

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 The Nature of Narrow Content 55

philosopher; and I can know a priori that if W3 is actual, then I am a

philosopher. On the other side, W2 and W4 falsify my belief that I am a
philosopher. My belief is epistemically incompatible with the thought that
W2 is actual, and with the thought that W4 is actual. I can know a priori
that ifW2 is actual, then I am not a philosopher, and I can know a priori
that ifW4 is actual, then I am not a philosopher. So the epistemic intension
of my belief is true at W1 and W3, and false at W2 and W4.
To generalize: the epistemic intension of my belief that I am a philoso-
pher will be true at all centered worlds where the being at the center is a
philosopher, and it will be false at all centered worlds where the being at the
center is not a philosopher. This seems to capture something about how my
belief that I am a philosopher puts epistemic constraints on how the world
might be.
Let B2 be my belief that there is water in my pool. Let W1 be the actual
world, centered on me now, with H20 in the oceans and H20 in my pool.
Let W2 be a "Twin Earth" world, centered on my Twin Earth counterpart,
where XYZ is the watery liquid in the oceans and lakes surrounding my
counterpart, and where there is XYZ in my counterpart's pool. Let W3 be a
modified Twin Earth world, with XYZ as the watery liquid in the oceans
and lakes, but where my counterpart's pool contains no XYZ, just a small
residue of H20.
The hypothesis that W1 is actual clearly verifies B2. So does the
hypothesis that W2 is actual. The thought that W2 is actual is epistemically
incompatible with a belief that there is no water in my pool. I can know a
priori that ifW2 is actual, then there is water in my pool. On the other side,
the hypothesis that W3 is actual falsifies B2. If I accept that W3 is actual, I
must rationally accept that water is XYZ, and that there is no water in my
pool. So the epistemic intension of B2 is true at W1 and W2, but false at W3.
To generalize: the epistemic intension of my belief that there is water in
the pool is true in a centered world, very roughly, when the dominant
watery stuff in the environment of the being at the center is present in
that being's pool; and it is false, very roughly, when the dominant watery
stuff in the environment of the being at the center is not present in that
being's pool. Again, the epistemic intensions seem to capture something
about how my beliefs put epistemic constraints on how the world might be.
Let B3 be my belief that water is H20, and let W1, W2, and W3 be as
above. Then the thought that WI is actual verifies B3, but the thought that
W2 is actual falsifies B3, as does the thought that W3 is actual. I cannot
rationally accept both that W2 is actual and that water is H20. Indeed, if I
accept that W2 is actual, I should accept that water is XYZ. The same goes
for W3. So the epistemic intension of B3 is true at W1, but false at W2 and
W3. To generalize, the epistemic intension of my belief that water is H20 is
true in a centered world, very roughly, when the dominant watery stuff in
the environment has a certain sort of chemical structure.

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56 David J. Chalmers

Let B4 be my belief that two plus two is four. This belief is plausibly a
priori. If so, then any scenario W verifies B4, as B4's negation is epistem-
ically impossible. So B4's epistemic intension is true at all scenarios. If B5 is
a belief that two plus two is five, on the other hand, then B5 can be ruled out
a priori, so B5 is falsified by all scenarios. So the epistemic intension of B5 is
false at all scenarios. More generally: any a priori belief has an epistemic
intension that is true at all scenarios, and any contradictory belief has an
epistemic intension that is false at all scenarios.
Apart from the official definition, various heuristics can be useful in
evaluating the epistemic intension of a belief B at a scenario W. One such is
the indicative conditional heuristic suggested above by cases such as "if W2 is
actual, then there is water in my pool". This sort of heuristic can be used by
a subject to evaluate the epistemic intensions of his or her beliefs. The
heuristic is most easily applied when a belief B is expressible by a sentence
S. To evaluate the epistemic intension of B in W, the subject can ask: if W is
actual, is S the case? This is an indicative conditional, and so should be
interpreted epistemically. (To stress the epistemic character, one can also
ask: if W turns out to be actual, will it turn out that S?) Like other
indicatives, a subject evaluates it by the Ramsey test: one adopts the
hypothesis that W is actual, and considers whether this hypothesis rationally
leads to the conclusion that S is the case.
For example, when I adopt the hypothesis that the Twin Earth scenario
is my actual scenario-that is, that the watery stuff in my environment is
and has always been XYZ, and so on-this rationally leads to the conclu-
sion that water is XYZ. I can reasonably say that if the Twin Earth scenario
is actual, then water is XYZ. Similarly, when I adopt the hypothesis that the
scenario centered on Isaac Newton is my actual scenario, this rationally
leads to the conclusion that I am a mathematician. I can reasonably say that
if the Newton scenario is my actual scenario, than I am a mathematician.
It should be noted that a belief's epistemic intension involves a rational
idealization. What matters is not whether a subject would actually judge
that a belief is true, given the information that a scenario W is actual; rather,
what matters is whether a priori reasoning would allow the subject to do in
principle. Here, we idealize away from contingent limitations on a subject's
actual cognitive capacity (mistakes, memory limitations, processing limita-
tions, and so on), and assume the same sort of ideal rational reflection that
is invoked by the notion of whether a claim is knowable a priori.
This idealization entails that certain intuitive distinctions in content
are lost. For example, any a priori truth will have a necessary epistemic
intension: so assuming all mathematical truths are a priori, then they all
have the same epistemic intension. Likewise, two empirical truths that are
equivalent to each other by highly nontrivial a priori reasoning will have the
same epistemic intension. We can think of a beliefs epistemic intension as
representing its ideal epistemic content: this captures the way it constrains

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 TheNatureof NarrowContent 57

epistemic possibilities when ideal reasoning is assumed. It is possible to relax

this idealization, yielding a more fine-grained notion of epistemic content,
by starting with a more demanding notion of epistemic necessity (some
details are given in Chalmers forthcoming b).
I note also that skeptics about the a priori can define epistemic inten-
sions without appealing to that notion, for example by appealing to the
Ramsey-test heuristic instead, or by appealing to another notion of epistem-
ic necessity. On my view, the notion defined in terms of apriority is the most
fundamental here; but the general framework is not entirely dependent on
the notion of apriority, in that one can reconstruct many of its properties
without that notion.
An important note: to evaluate the epistemic intension of a thought at a
scenario W, it is not required that the thought itself be present within W. To
evaluate whether a thought is epistemically compatible with the hypothesis
that W is actual, only the original thought is relevant; the presence or
absence of thoughts in W is usually irrelevant. For example, my belief
that I am a philosopher endorses a world centered on Nietzsche
philosophizing, whether or not he thinks that he is a philosopher. As an
extreme case, it is arguably knowable only a posteriori (through introspect-
ion and observation) that thoughts exist, in which case a thought that there
are no thoughts is epistemically possible. Such a thought will be verified by
a scenario in which no thoughts are present. So to evaluate a thought's
epistemic intension in a scenario W, one should not in general use the
heuristic: Is the thought true, as thought in W? Instead, the evaluation is
grounded in the epistemic domain.6
It should be noted that epistemic content is a truth-conditional variety
of content. A thought's epistemic intension can be true in some scenarios
and false in others, and in effect, it tells us what is required for the thought
to be true, depending on which scenario turns out to be actual. We might
think of this as providing the epistemic truth-conditionsof the thought.

5. Epistemic intensions for concepts

Thoughts are often (perhaps always) composed from concepts. My

thought that water is H20, for example, is plausibly composed by my
concept water, my concept H20, and perhaps my concept of identity. As
with thoughts, we can think of a concept here as a mental token, tied to a
specific thinker. Where thoughts can be expressed by sentences, concepts
can be expressed by words and other subsentential expressions. Just as one
defines epistemic intensions for thoughts, one can also define epistemic
intensions for concepts.
Where beliefs have a truth-value, concepts have an extension. Different
sorts of concepts have different sorts of extensions: singular concepts (such

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58 David J. Chalmers

as my concept Bill Clinton) have individuals as extensions; general concepts

(such as my concept doctor) plausibly have classes as extensions; predicative
concepts (such as hot) might have either properties or classes as extensions,
depending on how one does things, and so on. A concept's epistemic
intension will then be a function from scenarios to extensions of the relevant
type.
Formally defining a concept's epistemic intension requires some fine
details, which I will summarize briefly here (see Chalmers forthcoming a for
more). First, one has to ensure that scenarios contain entities that can serve
as extensions. On the metaphysical construction this is automatic; on the
epistemic construction, this requires some work. We can say that two
singular terms C1 and C2 are coextensive under a scenario if a canonical
description of the scenario implies 'C = C2', and that two singular concepts
are coextensive under a scenario when a canonical description of the scen-
ario implies an analogous thought. Then one can identify an individual in a
scenario with an equivalence class of epistemically invariant singular terms
under that scenario. One can analogously construct classes, properties, and
the like in a scenario, by invoking analogous notions of the coextensiveness
of general concepts, predicates, and proceeding from there. Second, one has
to identify a concept's C's extension at a scenario W. Here we rely on
concepts with which C is coextensive under W. On the epistemic construc-
tion, C will be coextensive under W with a concept expressible as an
epistemically invariant expression B. On the metaphysical construction, C
will be coextensive under W with a concept expressible as an expression B
using only semantically neutral terms and indexicals. Either way, B will
straightforwardly pick out an extension in W. We can then say that the
epistemic intension of C in W returns that extension.
This definition above is somewhat technical, but the underlying notion
of a concept's epistemic intension is quite intuitive. One can get the general
idea by evaluating the epistemic intensions of one's own concepts using an
indicative-conditional heuristic. If a concept C is expressible by a term C',
we can ask: if W is actual, what is C'? (Here C' is used rather than
mentioned.)
For example, to evaluate the epistemic intension of my concept water at
the Twin Earth scenario W, I ask: if W is actual, then what is water? The
answer seems clear: if W is actual, then water is XYZ, as before. (Or: if W
turns out to be actual, it will turn out that water is XYZ.) So at the Twin
Earth scenario, the epistemic intension of my concept water refers to XYZ.
Similarly, to evaluate the epistemic intension of my concept I at the world
W1 centered on Isaac Newton, I ask: if W1 is actual, who am I? The answer
seems clear: if W1 is actual (i.e. is my actual world), then I am Isaac Newton.
So in the Newton world, the epistemic intension of my concept I picks out
Isaac Newton.

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 TheNatureof NarrowContent 59

The epistemic intension of a self-concept I across centered worlds is

particularly straightforward: it picks out the individual at the center of a
world. The epistemic intension of a concept now picks out the time indicated
at the center, and the epistemic intension of a concept here picks out the
location of the individual at the time in question. As for a concept such as
my concept water: we can see that it picks out H20 in the actual centered
world, XYZ in the Twin Earth centered world, and so on. Roughly speak-
ing, one might say that it picks out the clear, drinkable liquid in common
use near the center of a world.
This suggests that the epistemic intension of a concept such as my
concept water can often be roughly encapsulated in a description. But
this sort of description is not a substitute for the intension itself. The
intension of my concept water can be evaluated at any scenario W, by
hypothetically accepting that W is actual, and reaching rational conclusions
about the nature of water under that hypothesis. In examining cases, one
can note that a given substance seems to qualify as the extension of 'water'
in a scenario in virtue of that substance's appearance, behavior, and con-
nection to the center of the world; and one might try to summarize this
pattern by giving a description such as the above. But it is likely that any
such description will be at best an approximation, and in any case, a
description will only be useful insofar as it mirrors the character of the
intension. So it is the epistemic intension, not any associated description,
that has priority.
It should be noted that in some cases, the epistemic intension of a
concept expressed by a term may vary between competent users of a term.
For example, it may happen that given complete information about a
scenario, different subjects may make different rational judgments involving
the term 'water' under that scenario. In such a case, it is plausible that the
associated concepts have different epistemic intensions. It is for this reason
that epistemic intensions are associated in the first instances with tokens
rather than types. For some expressions, epistemic intensions might not
vary between competent users in this way: examples might include pure
indexicals such as 'I', and perhaps certain descriptive terms such as 'circu-
lar'. These expressions are precisely the epistemically invariant expressions
discussed earlier.
Any concept of the sort that has an extension also has an epistemic
intension. This applies equally to concepts that can be expressed as names
(e.g. Godel), as descriptions (e.g. the largest planet in the solar system), as
predicates (e.g. hot), and so on. For any such concept, a subject who is given
a full description of a scenario is in a position to determine its extension
under that scenario. This pattern of determination corresponds to the con-
cept's epistemic intension.
When a concept's epistemic intension is evaluated at a subject's actual
scenario, it will return the concept's actual extension. This provides a clear

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60 David J. Chalmers

sense in which a concept's epistemic intension can be said to determine its

extension, in conjunction with facts about the subject's world. The epistemic
intension of a thought can be said to determine its truth-value in the same
way, in conjunction with facts about the subject's world.
When a thought is composed of concepts, the truth-value of the belief is
usually some function of the extensions of the concepts. For example, given
a belief of the form B is C, the belief will be true if the extensions of B and C
coincide. In such a case, the epistemic intension of the belief will be a
function of the epistemic intensions of the concepts. At a given world, the
truth-value of the belief will depend on the extensions of the concepts by the
same function according to which the actual truth-value depends on the
actual extensions. So the epistemic intension of B is C will be true at a world
if the epistemic intensions of B and C coincide there, and so on.
As a consequence, it is easy to see that when B is C is epistemically
necessary, B and C have the same epistemic intension. So if we think of
Hesperus as a concept whose reference is fixed to the evening star, Hesperus
is the evening star is a priori, so Hesperus and the evening star have the same
epistemic intension. Similarly, equiangular triangle and equilateral triangle
plausibly have the same epistemic intension (abstracting away from issues
about non-Euclidean space). In effect, a concept's epistemic intension indi-
viduates that concept up to a priori equivalence.

6. Epistemic content is narrow

As promised, epistemic content is a sort of narrow content. This is best

illustrated by familiar examples. Consider Oscar on Earth, and Twin Oscar
on Twin Earth. Setting aside the inessential fact that Oscar's body contains
H20 and Twin Oscar's body contains XYZ, Oscar and Twin Oscar are
physical and phenomenal duplicates. Oscar and Twin Oscar both have
beliefs that they express by saying 'clouds contain water'.
Consider the epistemic intensions of Oscar's belief B1 and Twin Oscar's
belief B2. Let W1 be Oscar's actual scenario, centered on Oscar with H20
around him, filling the oceans and lakes and present in the clouds. Let W2
be Twin Oscar's actual scenario, centered on Twin Oscar with XYZ around
him, in oceans, lakes, and clouds. Clearly, as B1 and B2 are both true, the
epistemic intension of B1 is true at W1, and the epistemic intension of B2 is
true at W2. Further, the epistemic intension of B1 is true at W2: if Oscar
accepts that W2 is actual, he should rationally accept B1. Symmetrically, the
epistemic intension of B2 is true at W1: if Twin Oscar accepts that W1 is
actual, he should rationally accept B2. So the epistemic intension of B1 is
true at both W1 and W2, and so is the epistemic intension of B2.
Something similar applies to other scenarios. Let W3 be a scenario in
which XYZ fills the oceans and lakes around the center, but is not present in

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 The Nature of Narrow Content 61

clouds (perhaps clouds merely trigger rainfall from other invisible bodies of
XYZ). If Oscar accepts that W3 is actual, he should rationally reject his
belief Bi: the hypothesis that W3 is actual is epistemically incompatible with
his belief that clouds contain water. So W3 falsifies B1. The same goes for
Twin Oscar: the hypothesis that W3 is actual falsifies his belief B2. So B1
and B2 are both false at W3.
More generally: if any scenario W verifies Oscar's belief BI, it verifies
Twin Oscar's belief B2. If W falsifies B1, it falsifies B2. So B1 and B2 have the
same epistemic intension. At a first approximation, we can say that both of
these endorse those centered worlds in which the clear, drinkable liquid
around the center of the world is present in some form in the cloudlike
objects around the center of the world. This is a first approximation to the
way that this belief divides epistemic space, and it is shared between both
beliefs.
Something similar applies to any twin of Oscar. For any such twin with
corresponding belief B3, if a thought that W is actual implies B1 for Oscar, it
will imply B3 for the twin. So B3 will have the same epistemic intension as B1
and B2. So it seems that the epistemic content of these beliefs is a sort of
narrow content.
One can generalize this pattern to concepts. Take Oscar's and Twin
Oscar's water concepts. At W1, the epistemic intension of both concepts
picks out H20. At W2, it picks out XYZ. At W3, it picks out XYZ. At W4, a
scenario in which both H20 and XYZ are equally distributed near the
center, it might pick out both. So both concepts have the same epistemic
intension. Roughly speaking, it seems to be an epistemic intension that picks
out in any given scenario a substance in the environment of the center of the
scenario, on the basis of the substance's role and its superficial properties.
Something similar applies to any natural kind concept: there is nothing
special about water here. The same applies also to indexical concepts. For
example, both Oscar's and Twin Oscar's I concepts pick out the individual
at the center of any given scenario, so both have the same epistemic inten-
sion. For all these concepts, their epistemic intension is a sort of narrow
content.
One can give a related analysis of the cases that Burge (1979) uses to
argue for the external nature of content. Bert, who lives in our community,
has a belief that he expresses by saying 'arthritis sometimes occurs in the
thighs'. In fact, arthritis is a disease of the joints and cannot occur in the
thigh, so it seems that Bert has a false belief about arthritis. Twin Bert, a
physical and phenomenal duplicate of Bert, also has a belief that he
expresses by saying 'arthritis sometimes occurs in the thighs'. But Twin
Bert lives in a community in which the word 'arthritis' is used for a different
disease, one that affects the muscles as well as the joints: we might call it
'twarthritis'. It seems that Twin Bert has a true belief about twarthritis.
Where Bert believes (falsely) that he has arthritis in his thigh, Twin Bert

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62 David J. Chalmers

does not: Twin Bert believes (truly) that he has twarthritis in his thigh.
Burge concludes that in this sort of case, belief content is not in the head.
Here, the crucial factor is that Bert uses the term 'arthritis' with seman-
tic deference, intending (at least tacitly) to use the word for the same
phenomenon for which others in the community use it. If Bert decided on
his own to use the term 'arthritis' for a sort of headache, without caring how
others use the term, then his term 'arthritis' would refer to a sort of head-
ache, not to arthritis. With nondeferential uses like this, one cannot con-
struct a twin scenario of the above sort. But with a deferential use, the
content of a concept seems to depend on practices within a subject's
linguistic community, which are themselves external to the subject.
Let B1 and B2 be the beliefs that Bert and Twin Bert express by saying
'arthritis sometimes occurs in the thighs'. Let W1 be Bert's actual scenario,
with a surrounding community that uses the term 'arthritis' to refer to a
disease that occurs only in joints. Let W2 be Twin Bert's actual scenario,
with a surrounding community that uses the term 'arthritis' to refer to a
disease that sometimes occurs in the muscles. The epistemic intension of B1
is clearly false at W1. What about W2?Bert can entertain the hypothesis that
W2 is actual: that is, he can entertain the hypothesis that in his community,
the term 'arthritis' is used to refer to a disease of the muscles and joints. If
Bert adopts this hypothesis, then given that he uses the term 'arthritis' with
semantic deference, he will rationally be led to the conclusion that arthritis
can occur in the muscles: that is, he will be led to accept B1. In fact, for Bert,
the hypothesis that W2 is actual is epistemically incompatible with B1. So
the epistemic intension of B1 is true at W2. In a similar way, the epistemic
intension of B2 is false at W1.
So the epistemic intensions of both B1 and B2 are false at W1 and true at
W2. Something similar applies to any other scenario: when Bert and Twin
Bert rationally evaluate their beliefs under the hypothesis that a given
scenario is actual, they will obtain the same truth-value. And something
similar applies to any other duplicate of Bert or Twin Bert. For any scenario
W, any such duplicate can entertain the thought that W is actual. If such a
thought implies Bert's belief B1, such a thought will also imply the dupli-
cate's belief B3. So B1 and B3 have the same epistemic intension, and once
again, the beliefs epistemic intension is a sort of narrow content.
The same goes for Bert's and Twin Bert's concepts. The epistemic
intension of Bert's concept arthritis picks out a disease of the joints in W1,
and a disease of the muscles and joints in W2. The epistemic intension of
Twin Bert's concept does the same. If one wanted to characterize the
common epistemic intension in descriptive terms, one might say very
roughly that in a given scenario, it picks out the disease referred to as
'arthritis' by speakers in the linguistic community of the individual at the
center of the scenario. This seems to roughly capture the dependence of
referent on community that semantic deference involves, and it seems to

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 The Nature of Narrow Content 63

mirror the way that Bert's and Twin Bert's beliefs will be rationally evalu-
ated at various epistemic possibilities.
(Of course this sort of epistemic intension will attach only to deferential
concepts: that is, concepts expressible by terms used with semantic defer-
ence. If an expert uses 'arthritis' nondeferentially to refer to a certain disease
of the joints, then even if he were to accept that others use the term
'arthritis' differently, this would not rationally lead him to reject the belief
B1 that he expresses as 'arthritis is a disease of the joints'. The epistemic
intension of his concept arthritis would pick out (roughly) a disease of the
joints in any scenario, regardless of the way the word 'arthritis' is used
there.)
We can treat Putnam's case of 'elm' and 'beech' similarly. I may know
almost nothing to distinguish elms and beeches, but my terms nevertheless
refer to different entities, through "the division of linguistic labor". In a
scenario in which the community around me refers to X-trees by 'elm', the
epistemic intension of my concept elm picks out X-trees; in a scenario where
the community refers to Y-trees by 'elm', the epistemic intension picks out
Y-trees. To characterize the epistemic intension of my concept, we might say
roughly that it picks out the object referred to as 'elm' by the community of
the individual at the center of a given scenario. So my concepts elm and
beech will have different epistemic intensions, both narrowly determined. As
always, a concept's extension depends epistemically on the character of the
actual world; it is just that in these cases, some of the relevant facts about
the actual world are linguistic.
So far we have seen that epistemic content is narrow by looking at the
cases used to argue for wide content, and by noting that in these cases the
corresponding thoughts of intrinsic duplicates have the same epistemic
content, so that the factors responsible for the width of some content do
not affect epistemic content. To complete the case, it would be useful to give
a positive argument that epistemic content is narrow. Such an argument
requires an extended treatment, but here I will briefly sketch how such an
argument might go.
Such an argument can proceed from two plausible theses. The first is
the thesis that epistemic necessity is narrow: that is, if a belief of a subject is
epistemically necessary, the corresponding belief of a duplicate subject will
also be epistemically necessary. Where epistemic necessity is understood as
apriority, this claim is grounded in turn in the claim that when a subject's
belief is a priori justifiable, a duplicate's corresponding belief is also a priori
justifiable. This plausible claim is entirely unaffected by the arguments of
Putnam, Burge, and the like. If a subject's thought can be justified by an a
priori reasoning process, a corresponding thought in a duplicate can be
justified by a corresponding a priori reasoning process.7
The second is the thesis that considering a scenario is narrow: that is, if
a subject thinks a thought that a scenario V is actual, any intrinsic duplicate

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64 David J. Chalmers

of the subject will think a corresponding thought that W is actual. Where

scenarios are understood using worlds, this follows from the fact that the
thought that W is actual is equivalent to the (nondeferential) thought that D
is the case, where D is a semantically neutral claim that is not vulnerable to
Twin-Earth-style shifts in meaning. Where scenarios are understood using
the epistemic construction, this follows from the fact that scenarios are
themselves grounded in the narrow notions of epistemic possibility and
necessity.
Given these two theses, it is not hard to see that if one subject's thought
that W is actual epistemically necessitates a thought T, any intrinsic dupli-
cate has a corresponding thought that W is actual that epistemically neces-
sitates a corresponding thought T'. From here, it can be seen that for any
scenario W and any corresponding thoughts T1 and T2 of intrinsic dupli-
cates, W verifies T1 iff W verifies T2. And from this, it follows that any two
corresponding thoughts of intrinsic duplicates have the same epistemic
intension. So epistemic content is narrow.
Ultimately, the narrowness of epistemic content is grounded in the
narrowness of certain epistemic properties of thoughts. A priori justifiability
is one such property. There are others: for example, it is plausible that if two
thoughts stand in the "Ramsey test" relation (if the first is accepted, it is
rational to accept the second), then the corresponding thoughts of any
intrinsic duplicate stand in that relation. This suggests that even without
appealing to the notion of apriority, one could use a framework of this
general sort to explicate a notion of narrow content.

7. Conclusion

How does this notion of narrow content relate to more familiar notions
of wide content? Very briefly (details are in Chalmers 2002b): where one can
define epistemic intensions in terms of epistemic possibility and necessity,
one can also define subjunctiveintensions in terms of subjunctive(or "meta-
physical") possibility and necessity. (Roughly: P is subjunctively possible
when it might have been the case that P.) Where epistemic necessity is
narrow, subjunctive necessity is often wide; as a result, subjunctive inten-
sions yield a sort of wide content. This corresponds to the more familiar
variety of truth-conditional content in contemporary philosophy of lan-
guage and mind.
Any given thought has both epistemic and subjunctive content, and
these two sorts of content can be seen to co-exist naturally in a two-
dimensional approach to the content of thought and language. One can
argue that because it is constitutively tied to the epistemic and rational

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 The Nature of Narrow Content 65

domains, epistemic content has an especially crucial role to play in the expla-
nation of cognition and of behavior. But that is a story to be told elsewhere.

Notes

1. The material here overlaps to some extent with the earlier sections of "The
Components of Content" (Chalmers 2002b), the later sections of which provide
further details on the application of this notion of narrow content to issues
concerning psychological explanation and belief ascription, and relate it to other
accounts of narrow content that have been proposed. Also relevant are "The
Nature of Epistemic Space" (Chalmers forthcoming b), which develops the
foundational ideas about epistemic possibility and the space of scenarios, and
"The Foundations of Two-Dimensional Semantics" (Chalmers forthcoming a),
which situates this approach as a variety of two-dimensional semantics and fills
in many further details that are passed over here.
2. Putnam 1975, as adapted by McGinn 1977 and Burge 1982.
3. To handle cases of a priori indeterminacy, it is arguably better to say that a
thought T is epistemically possible when -det(T) is not epistemically necessary,
where det(T) is a thought that is true when T is determinately true and false
when T is false or indeterminate; and ~det(T) is its negation. I will abstract away
from concerns about indeterminacy in what follows.
4. See Quine 1968 and Lewis 1979. The account I give here is very much compatible
with Lewis's suggestion that belief content should be modeled using centered
worlds, although Lewis does not ground his account in the epistemic domain.
5. This first approximation to semantic neutrality is a version of what Bealer (1996)
calls "semantic stability". For reasons discussed in Chalmers (forthcoming a),
semantic stability is not a perfect explication of the required notion of semantic
neutrality, but it is good enough for present purposes. It should also be stipu-
lated that to consider W as actual is to nondeferentiallyconsider the hypothesis
that D is the case (with a full grasp of the concepts involved in D); deferential
consideration (with an incomplete grasp) does not qualify here.
6. For much more on this, see Chalmers (forthcoming a) on the distinction between
"contextual" and "epistemic" understandings of two-dimensional semantics.
The current approach is of the broadly epistemic type, which differs fundamen-
tally from the broadly contextual approach put forward by Stalnaker (1978) and
others. As a result, the approach here is not subject to the problems noted by
Stalnaker (1990) in using his two-dimensional approach to yield an account of
narrow content.
7. What about Burge-like cases where a subject with incomplete competence with
the term 'bachelor' deferentially believes that bachelors are unmarried, and a
duplicate in a different linguistic community deferentially believes that all lawyers
are unmarried? One might be tempted to say that the first belief is epistemically
necessary but the second is not. But as defined here, neither belief is epistemi-
cally necessary: even the first subject's belief cannot be justified independently
of experience. At most, other (nondeferential) beliefs in the same proposition
might be epistemically necessary. Here it is important to recall that epistemic
necessity is attributed to tokens rather than types.

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66 David J. Chalmers

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