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The Excesses of Teleosemantics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Paul Sheldon Davies
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Extract

Teleosemantics asserts that mental content is determined by natural selection. The thesis is that content is fixed by the historical conditions under which certain cognitive mechanisms – those that produce and those that interpret (respond to) representational states – were selectively successful. Content is fixed by conditions of selective success. The thesis of this paper is that teleosemantics is mistaken, that content cannot be fixed by conditions of selective success, because those conditions typically outnumber the intentional objects within a given representational state. To defend against this excess, advocates of teleosemantics must attempt to privilege some conditions of success while ignoring others. This results in selective explanations that are ad hoc, thereby depriving teleosemantics of the virtues it hoped to inherit from the theory of evolution by natural selection, including its alleged naturalistic credentials.

Type
II. Teleosemantics
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 27: Naturalism, Evolution & Intentionality , 2001 , pp. 117 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2001

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