Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T06:25:08.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does Representational Content Arise from Biological Function?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Richard J. Hall
Richard J. Hall*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Let us assume that some organisms, humans at least and the other higher animals, have internal states and behavioral states that represent things external to themselves. One of the questions that everyone would like answered about these states is: In virtue of what does such a representational state get the specific content that it has? An answer to this question that’s popular just now is: In virtue of its biological function. I believe there is a deep reason why such an answer can’t work. I shall present that reason in this paper.

First, we need to be clear about the notion of biological function that’s being appealed to here. In particular, we need to distinguish two fairly different ways of thinking about function. We could think of something’s function as what it contributes to the present functioning or output of some complex system of which it is a part. Roughly, this is Cummins’ view in (Cummins 1984).

Type
Part III. Biology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 193 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1990

Footnotes

1

I would like to thank Karen Neander for helpful discussions on this topic.

References

Cummins, R. (1984), Psychological Explanation. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. (unpublished), “A Theory of Content”, unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Griffiths, P. (1989), “A Defence of Etiological Theories of Biological Function”, paper read at the 1989 annual Australasian Association of Philosophy meetings, Canberra, Australia.Google Scholar
Millikan, R.G. (1984), Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millikan, R.G. (1989), “Biosemantics”, Journal of Philosophy LXXXVI: 281–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millikan, R.G. (1986), “Thoughts Without Laws; Cognitive Science With Content”, Philosophical Review XCV: 47–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGinn, C. (1989), Mental Content. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Neander, K. (forthcoming), “Functions as Selected Effects”, Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
Neander, K. (unpublished), “The Teleological Notion of ‘Function’”, unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Papineau, D. (1987), Reality and Representation. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1984), The Nature of Selection. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar