Richa asked:

I have just started my research on philosophy of language. My basic query will be how words refer,
mental content is in the social circle or in the head. I'm reading Kripke, Putnam, Tyler Burge,
Wittgenstein and Schiffer etc. I want to argue that mental content lies also in the social circle and we
are not aware of our mental content. Please help me in making my questions sharp. How should I
proceed and what should I look for as my research topic?

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A good way to focus the question about content is to look at proper names. John McDowell's seminal
paper on the sense and reference of proper names is one you should read. Gareth Evans' book on
Reference is also a must.

Let's say you have met someone introduced to you as 'Foster'. It's Greg Foster, a second year PhD.
Unknown to you, Greg has a twin brother Charles, who also happens to be doing a PhD. According to
the view that mental content is 'outside the head', when you use the name 'Foster' you succeed in
referring to Greg. The content of your thoughts consists in thoughts about Greg, not Charles. Yet so
far as your capacity to identify Greg Foster is concerned, you could not tell Greg and Charles apart.

How can that be?

Wittgenstein puts the point graphically when he says that if God could look into your mind, He would
not see whom you were referring to.

This idea should strike you as deeply paradoxical. Too often, I have heard students talk as if it is the
plainest common sense. If you are going to tackle this topic successfully, you need to be aware of the
power of the temptation think that meaning must be in the head, that God must be able to read the
content of my thoughts by looking into my mind.

Geoffrey Klempner