A Mark of the Mental: A Defence of Informational Teleosemantics
Cambridge, USA: MIT Press (2017)
Abstract
Drawing on insights from causal theories of reference, teleosemantics, and state space semantics, a theory of naturalized mental representation. In A Mark of the Mental, Karen Neander considers the representational power of mental states—described by the cognitive scientist Zenon Pylyshyn as the “second hardest puzzle” of philosophy of mind. The puzzle at the heart of the book is sometimes called “the problem of mental content,” “Brentano's problem,” or “the problem of intentionality.” Its motivating mystery is how neurobiological states can have semantic properties such as meaning or reference. Neander proposes a naturalistic account for sensory-perceptual representations. Neander draws on insights from state-space semantics, causal theories of reference, and teleosemantic theories. She proposes and defends an intuitive, theoretically well-motivated but highly controversial thesis: sensory-perceptual systems have the function to produce inner state changes that are the analogs of as well as caused by their referents. Neander shows that the three main elements—functions, causal-information relations, and relations of second-order similarity—complement rather than conflict with each other. After developing an argument for teleosemantics by examining the nature of explanation in the mind and brain sciences, she develops a theory of mental content and defends it against six main content-determinacy challenges to a naturalized semantics.Author's Profile
Call number
B105.I56.N43 2017
ISBN(s)
9780262339872 0262339870 9780262036146
My notes
Similar books and articles
Perceiving the World Outside: How to Solve the Distality Problem for Informational Teleosemantics.Peter Schulte - 2018 - Philosophical Quarterly 68 (271):349-369.
Toward an Informational Teleosemantics.Karen Neander - 2013 - In Dan Ryder, Justine Kingsbury & Kenneth Williford (eds.), Millikan and Her Critics. Wiley. pp. 21--40.
Introduction: Prospects and problems for teleosemantics.Graham Macdonald & David Papineau - 2006 - In Graham Macdonald & David Papineau (eds.), Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays. Oxford University Press. pp. 1--22.
Why mental content is not like water: reconsidering the reductive claims of teleosemantics.Peter Schulte - 2020 - Synthese 197 (5):2271-2290.
Teleosemantics: New Philo-sophical Essays.Graham Macdonald & David Papineau (eds.) - 2006 - Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Why Tracking Theories Should Allow for Clean Cases of Reliable Misrepresentation.Angela Mendelovici - 2016 - Disputatio 8 (42):57-92.
Teleosemantics, Swampman, and Strong Representationalism.Uwe Peters - 2014 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 90 (1):273–288.
Mental representation, naturalism, and teleosemantics.Peter Godfrey-Smith - 2004 - In David Papineau & Graham MacDonald (eds.), Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays. Oxford University Press.
Teleosemantics without natural selection.Marshall Abrams - 2005 - Biology and Philosophy 20 (1):97-116.
. Content for Cognitive Science.Karen Neander - 2006 - In Graham Macdonald & David Papineau (eds.), Teleosemantics. Oxford University Press.
Metaethics, teleosemantics and the function of moral judgements.Neil Sinclair - 2012 - Biology and Philosophy 27 (5):639-662.
SINBaD neurosemantics: A theory of mental representation.Dan Ryder - 2004 - Mind and Language 19 (2):211-240.
Analytics
Added to PP
2018-07-23
Downloads
28 (#418,835)
6 months
8 (#105,488)
2018-07-23
Downloads
28 (#418,835)
6 months
8 (#105,488)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
The Practical Origins of Ideas: Genealogy as Conceptual Reverse-Engineering (Open Access).Matthieu Queloz - 2021 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Function-Based Conceptual Engineering and the Authority Problem.Matthieu Queloz - 2022 - Mind 131 (524):1247-1278.
The number sense represents (rational) numbers.Sam Clarke & Jacob Beck - 2021 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 44:1-57.