Cannot understand this definition

I recently got a book about epistemology and I cannot make heads or tails of what this definition means:

CAUSAL: <cat> denotes cats = cats, cause, under appropriate conditions, mental tokenings of <cat>.

Can anyone please translate this to simpler English?

Solution 1:

It just means that cat, the word & the meaning is created by prior experience of cat.

CAUSAL: <cat> denotes cats = cats, cause, under appropriate conditions, mental tokenings of <cat>.

CAUSAL(Explanation): The mental experience encapsulated by the term 'cat' is informed by our prior experience of 'cat.'

We use different methods to explain the truth of different things. Causal logic is one such tool.

From: https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/truth-as-one-and-many/

REPRESENT: The belief that α is F is true if and only if the object denoted by α has the property denoted by F.

(see: Cat & Cats, Sun & Sunny)

The overall picture of truth given here is abstract. But of course, that is part of the point. This book has been about truth itself -- and truth itself, the functionalist theory claims, is a rather abstract property. But it is also a property that comes in more than one form. If that is right, then philosophical progress lies in investigating those forms, in discovering how truth manifests itself across the spectrum of our thought.

Lynch is exploring how people describe and relate to their world(and the virtues and flaws of those methods).

I'm not sure whether Lynch begins with that example, it might be worth reading on to discover how he defines other cognitive/descriptive/philosophical methodologies such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology (and then compare and contrast)