Element contents
Series: Elements in Philosophy of Mind
Mental Content
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 August 2023
Summary
This Element provides a comprehensive introduction to contemporary theories of mental content. After clarifying central concepts and identifying the questions that dominate the current debate, it presents and discusses the principal accounts of the nature of mental content (or mental representation), which include causal, informational, teleological and structuralist approaches, alongside the phenomenal intentionality approach and the intentional stance theory. Additionally, it examines anti-representationalist accounts which question either the existence or the explanatory relevance of mental content. Finally, the Element concludes by considering some recent developments in the debate about mental content, specifically the “explanatory turn” and its implications for questions about representations in basic cognitive systems and the representational character of current empirical theories of cognition.
Keywords
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Series: Elements in Philosophy of MindOnline ISBN: 9781009217286Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 31 August 2023
References
Adams, Fred. 2021. “Causal Theories of Mental Content.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 ed.), edited by Edward Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/content-causal/.Google Scholar
Adams, Fred, and Aizawa, Kenneth. 1994. “Fodorian Semantics.” In Mental Representations, edited by Stich, Stephen and Warfield, Ted, 223–242. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Arnellos, Argyris, and Moreno, Alvaro. 2021. “Visual Perception and the Emergence of Minimal Representation.” Frontiers in Psychology 12: 660807.Google Scholar
Artiga, Marc. 2016. “Liberal Representationalism: A Deflationist Defense.” dialectica 70 (3): 407–430.Google Scholar
Artiga, Marc. 2021. “Beyond Black Dots and Nutritious Things: A Solution to the Indeterminacy Problem.” Mind and Language 36 (3): 471–490.Google Scholar
Artiga, Marc, and Ángel Sebastián, Miguel. 2020. “Informational Theories of Content and Mental Representation.” Review of Philosophy and Psychology 11: 613–627.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Lynne Rudder. 1991. “Has Content Been Naturalized?” In Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics, edited by Loewer, Barry and Rey, Georges, 17–32. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bauer, Mark. 2017. “Ahistorical Teleosemantics: An Alternative to Nanay.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 55 (2): 158–176.Google Scholar
Beckermann, Ansgar. 1988. “Why Tropistic Systems Are Not Genuine Intentional Systems.” Erkenntnis 29: 125–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergman, Karl. 2019. “Communities of Judgement: Towards a Teleosemantic Theory of Moral Thought and Discourse.” Doctoral dissertation, Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Bergman, Karl. 2023. “Should the Teleosemanticist Be Afraid of Semantic Indeterminacy?” Mind and Language 38(1): 296–314.Google Scholar
Bermúdez, José. 2007. “What Is at Stake in the Debate on Nonconceptual Content?” Philosophical Perspectives 21: 55–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bermúdez, José, and Cahen, Arnon. 2020. “Nonconceptual Mental Content.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2020 ed.), edited by Zalta, Edward. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/content-nonconceptual/.Google Scholar
Block, Ned. 1978. “Troubles with Functionalism.” In Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, edited by Block, Ned, 268–305. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Block, Ned. 1981. “Psychologism and Behaviorism.” The Philosophical Review 90 (1): 5–43.Google Scholar
Block, Ned. 1986. “Advertisement for a Semantics of Psychology.” In Studies in the Philosophy of Mind (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 10), edited by French, Peter A., Uehling, Theodore E. and Wettstein, Howard K., 615–678. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Boghossian, Paul. 1990. “The Status of Content.” The Philosophical Review 99 (2): 157–184.Google Scholar
Boghossian, Paul. 1991. “Naturalizing Content.” In Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics, edited by Loewer, Barry and Rey, Georges, 65–86. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bourget, David, and Mendelovici, Angela. 2019. “Phenomenal Intentionality.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 ed.), edited by Edward Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/phenomenal-intentionality/.Google Scholar
Braddon-Mitchell, David, and Jackson, Frank. 2007. Philosophy of Mind and Cognition (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Brentano, Franz. 1874/2009. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brown, Curtis. 2022. “Narrow Mental Content.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022 ed.), edited by Zalta, Edward. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/content-narrow/.Google Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 1979. “Individualism and the Mental.” In Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 2), edited by French, Peter A., Uehling, Theodore E. and Wettstein, Howard K., 73–121. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Butlin, Patrick. 2020. “Representation and the Active Consumer.” Synthese 197: 4533–4550.Google Scholar
Cao, Rosa. 2020. “New Labels for Old Ideas: Predictive Processing and the Interpretation of Neural Signals.” Review of Philosophy and Psychology 11: 517–546.Google Scholar
Chalmers, David. 2009. “Ontological Anti-realism.” In Metametaphysics, edited by Chalmers, David, Manley, David, and Wasserman, Ryan, 77–129. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Churchland, Patricia S., and Churchland, Paul M.. 1983. “Stalking the Wild Epistemic Engine.” Noûs 17 (1): 5–18.Google Scholar
Churchland, Paul. 2001/2007. “Neurosemantics: Of the Mapping of Minds and the Portrayal of Worlds.” In Neurophilosophy at Work, edited by Churchland, Paul, 126–160. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coelho Mollo, Dimitri. 2022. “Deflationary Realism: Representation and Idealisation in Cognitive Science.” Mind and Language 37: 1048–1066.Google Scholar
Crane, Tim. 1998. “Intentionality As the Mark of the Mental.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 43: 229–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowther, T. M. 2006. “Two Conceptions of Conceptualism and Nonconceptualism.” Erkenntnis 65: 245–276.Google Scholar
Cummins, Robert. 1996. Representations, Targets, and Attitudes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Donald. 1984. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald. 1987. “Knowing One’s Own Mind.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 60 (3): 441–458.Google Scholar
Dennett, Daniel. 1981/1987. “True Believers.” In The Intentional Stance, 14–42. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dennett, Daniel. 1988/1997. “Quining Qualia.” In The Nature of Consciousness, edited by Block, Ned, Flanagan, Owen and Güzeldere, Güven, 619–642. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
de Souza Filho, Sergio. 2022. “A Dual Proposal of Minimal Conditions for Intentionality.” Synthese 200: 115.Google Scholar
de Souza Filho, Sergio. 1991/1998. “Real Patterns.” In Brainchildren, 95–120. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
de Souza Filho, Sergio. 2009. “Intentional Systems Theory.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind, edited by McLaughlin, Brian, Beckermann, Ansgar and Walter, Sven, 339–350. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dretske, Fred. 1983. “Author’s Response: Why Information?” The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6: 82–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dretske, Fred. 1986. “Misrepresentation.” In Belief, edited by Bogdan, Radu J., 17–36. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Egan, Frances. 2014. “How to Think about Mental Content.” Philosophical Studies 170: 115–135.Google Scholar
Egan, Frances. 2022. “The Elusive Role of Normal-Proper Function in Cognitive Science.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (2): 468–475.Google Scholar
Eliasmith, Chris. 2005. “Neurosemantics and Categories.” In Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Science, edited by Cohen, Henri and Lefebvre, Claire, 1035–1054. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Facchin, Marco. 2021a. “Predictive Processing and Anti-representationalism.” Synthese 199: 11609–11642.Google Scholar
Facchin, Marco. 2021b. “Structural Representations Do Not Meet the Job Description Challenge.” Synthese 199: 5479–5508.Google Scholar
Field, Hartry. 1977. “Logic, Meaning and Conceptual Role.” Journal of Philosophy 69 (7): 379–409.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry. 1984/1990. “Semantics, Wisconsin Style.” In A Theory of Content and Other Essays, 31–49. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry. 1985/1990. “Fodor’s Guide to Mental Representation: The Intelligent Auntie’s Vade-Mecum.” In Mental Content and Other Essays, 3–29. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry. 1990a. “A Theory of Content, I: The Problem.” In A Theory of Content and Other Essays, 51–87. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry. 1990b. “A Theory of Content, II: The Theory.” In A Theory of Content and Other Essays, 89–136. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry. 1991. “Replies.” In Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics, edited by Loewer, Barry and Rey, Georges, 255–319. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry, and Pylyshyn, Zenon. 2015. Mind without Meanings. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Frankish, Keith. 2016. “Illusionism As a Theory of Consciousness.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 23 (11–12): 11–39.Google Scholar
Frege, Gottlob. 1892/1994a. “Über Sinn und Bedeutung.” In Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung, 40–65. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Frege, Gottlob. 1892/1994b. “Über Begriff und Gegenstand.” In Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung, 66–80. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Fresco, Nir. 2021. “Information, Cognition, and Objectivity.” American Philosophical Quarterly 58 (3): 251–267.Google Scholar
Fresco, Nir, Ginsburg, Simona and Jablonka, Eva. 2020. “Functional Information: A Graded Taxonomy of Difference Makers.” Review of Philosophy and Psychology 11: 547–567.Google Scholar
Gallistel, C. R., and Philip King, Adam. 2010. Memory and the Computational Brain. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ganson, Todd. 2020. “A Role for Representations in Inflexible Behavior.” Biology and Philosophy 35: 1–18.Google Scholar
Ganson, Todd. 2021. “An Alternative to the Causal Theory of Perception.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (4): 683–695.Google Scholar
Garson, Justin. 2017. “A Generalized Selected Effects Theory of Function.” 84: 523–543.Google Scholar
Garson, Justin. 2019a. What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Garson, Justin. 2019b. “Do Constancy Mechanisms Save Distal Contents?” The Philosophical Quarterly 69 (275): 409–417.Google Scholar
Garson, Justin. 2022. “Response to Neander’s Critics.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (2): 490–503.Google Scholar
Gladziejewski, Pawel. 2016. “Predictive Coding and Representationalism.” Synthese 193: 559–582.Google Scholar
Gladziejewski, Pawel, and Milkowski, Marcin. 2017. “Structural Representations: Causally Relevant and Different from Detectors.” Biology and Philosophy 32: 337–355.Google Scholar
Glock, Hans-Johann. 2015. “Propositional Attitudes, Intentional Content and Other Representationalist Myths.” In Mind, Language and Action, edited by Moyal-Sharrock, Danièle, Munz, Volker and Coliva, Annalisa, 512–537. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 1989. “Misinformation.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (4): 533–550.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 1994. “A Modern History Theory of Functions.” Noûs 28 (3): 344–362.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 2006. “Mental Representation, Naturalism and Teleosemantics.” In Teleosemantics, edited by Macdonald, Graham and Papineau, David, 42–68. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Graham, George, Terence, Horgan and John, Tienson. 2017. “Consciousness and Intentionality.” In The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness (2nd ed.), edited by Schneider, Susan and Velmans, Max, 519–535. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, E. J. 2017. “Psychosemantics and the Rich/Thin Debate.” Philosophical Perspectives 31: 153–186.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Mark. 2006. Setting Asymmetric Dependence Straight. UCLA Public Law & Legal Theory Series. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/92z5q0sd.Google Scholar
Harman, Gilbert. 1982. “Conceptual Role Semantics.” Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 23 (2): 242–256.Google Scholar
Heck, Richard. 2000. “Nonconceptual Content and the ‘Space of Reasons’.” Philosophical Review 109 (4): 483–523.Google Scholar
Hill, Christopher S. 2022. “Neander on a Mark of the Mental.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (2): 484–489.Google Scholar
Horgan, Terence, and George, Graham. 2012. “Phenomenal Intentionality and Content Determinacy.” In Prospects for Meaning, edited by Schantz, Richard, 321–344. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Horgan, Terence, and John, Tienson. 2002. “The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality.” In Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Chalmers, David, 520–533. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hundertmark, Fabian. 2018. “Mind and Function: Teleosemantics beyond Selected Effects.” PhD dissertation, Bielefeld University.Google Scholar
Hundertmark, Fabian. 2021. “Explaining How to Perceive the New: Causal-Informational Teleosemantics and Productive Response Functions.” Synthese 198: 5335–5350.Google Scholar
Hutto, Daniel, and Myin, Erik. 2013. Radicalizing Enactivism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hutto, Daniel, and Satne, Glenda. 2015. “The Natural Origins of Content.” Philosophia 43: 521–536.Google Scholar
Kelly, S. D. 2001. “Demonstrative Concepts and Experience.” The Philosophical Review 110 (3): 397–420.Google Scholar
Kiefer, Alex, and Hohwy, Jakob. 2018. “Content and Misrepresentation in Hierarchical Generative Models.” Synthese 195: 2387–2415.Google Scholar
King, Jeffrey C. 2007. The Nature and Structure of Content. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirchhoff, Michael, and Robertson, Ian. 2018. “Enactivism and Predictive Processing: A Non-Representational View.” Philosophical Explorations 21 (2): 264–281.Google Scholar
Kriegel, Uriah. 2018. Brentano’s Philosophical System. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Jonny. 2019. “Structural Representations and Two Problems of Content.” Mind and Language 34 (5): 606–626.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1972. “General Semantics.” In Semantics in Natural Language, edited by Davidson, Donald and Harman, Gilbert, 169–218. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Loar, Brian. 2003. “Phenomenal Intentionality As the Basis of Mental Content.” In Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge, edited by Hahn, Martin and Ramberg, B., 229–258. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Loewer, Barry. 1983. “Information and Belief.” The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6: 75–76.Google Scholar
Loewer, Barry. 2017. “A Guide to Naturalizing Semantics.” In A Companion to the Philosophy of Language (2nd ed.), edited by Hale, Bob, Miller, Alexander and Wright, Crispin, 174–190. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mann, Stephen, and Pain, Ross. 2022a. “Teleosemantics and the Free Energy Principle.” Biology and Philosophy 37: 34.Google Scholar
Mann, Stephen, and Pain, Ross. 2022b. “Teleosemantics and the Hard Problem of Content.” Philosophical Psychology 35 (1): 22–46.Google Scholar
Martínez, Manolo. 2011. “Imperative Content and the Painfulness of Pain.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 10: 67–90.Google Scholar
Martínez, Manolo. 2013. “Teleosemantics and Indeterminacy.” dialectica 67 (4): 427–453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martínez, Manolo. 2019. “Representations Are Rate-Distortion Sweet Spots.” Philosophy of Science 86: 1214–1226.Google Scholar
Matthen, Mohan. 1988. “Biological Functions and Perceptual Content.” The Journal of Philosophy 85 (1): 5–27.Google Scholar
McGinn, Colin. 1996. The Character of Mind (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McGrath, Matthew, and Frank, Devin. 2020. “Propositions.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 ed.), edited by Edward Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/propositions/.Google Scholar
Mendelovici, Angela. 2018. The Phenomal Basis of Intentionality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Milkowski, Marcin. 2015. “The Hard Problem of Content: Solved (Long Ago).” Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 41 (54): 73–88.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth. 1984. Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth. 1991. “Speaking Up for Darwin.” In Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics, edited by Loewer, Barry and Rey, Georges, 151–165. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth. 2013. “Reply to Neander.” In Millikan and Her Critics, edited by Ryder, Dan, Kingsbury, Justine and Williford, Ken, 37–40. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth. 2021. “Neuroscience and Teleosemantics.” Synthese 199: 2457–2465.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nanay, Bence. 2014. “Teleosemantics without Etiology.” Philosophy of Science 81 (5): 798–810.Google Scholar
Neander, Karen. 1991. “Functions As Selected Effects.” Philosophy of Science 58 (2): 168–184.Google Scholar
Neander, Karen. 1995. “Malfunctioning and Misrepresenting.” Philosophical Studies 79: 109–141.Google Scholar
Neander, Karen. 2006. “Content for Cognitive Science.” In Teleosemantics, edited by Macdonald, Graham and Papineau, David, 167–194. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Neander, Karen. 2013. “Toward an Informational Teleosemantics.” In Millikan and Her Critics, edited by Kingsbury, Justine, Ryder, Dan and Williford, Kenneth, 21–36. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Nimtz, Christian. 2017. “Two-Dimensional Semantics.” In The Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Language, edited by Hale, Bob, Wright, Crispin and Miller, Alex, 948–970. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Nirshberg, Gregory, and Shapiro, Lawrence. 2021. “Structural and Indicator Representations: A Difference in Degree, not Kind.” Synthese 198: 7647–7664.Google Scholar
O’Brien, Gerard. 2015. “How Does Mind Matter? Solving the Content Causation Problem.” In Open MIND, edited by Metzinger, Thomas and Windt, Jennifer M., 1–14. Frankfurt: MIND Group.Google Scholar
O’Brien, Gerard, and Jon, Opie. 2004. “Notes Toward a Structuralist Theory of Mental Representation.” In Representation in Mind, edited by Clapin, H., Staines, P. and Slezak, P., 1–20. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Orlandi, Nico. 2020. “Representing As Coordinating with Absence.” In What Are Mental Representations?, edited by Smortchkova, Joulia, Dolega, Krzysztof and Schlicht, Tobias, 101–134. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papineau, David. 1984. “Representation and Explanations.” Philosophy of Science 51 (4): 550–572.Google Scholar
Papineau, David. 1998. “Teleosemantics and Indeterminacy.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (1): 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papineau, David. 2001. “The Status of Teleosemantics, or How to Stop Worrying About Swampman.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (2): 279–289.Google Scholar
Papineau, David. 2021. The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papineau, David. 2022. “Swampman, Teleosemantics and Kind Essences.” Synthese 200: 509. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03966-7.Google Scholar
Pavese, Carlotta. 2017. “A Theory of Practical Meaning.” Philosophical Topics 45 (2): 65–96.Google Scholar
Piccinini, Gualtiero. 2020. Neurocognitive Mechanisms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Piccinini, Gualtiero. 2022. “Situated Neural Representations: Solving the Problems of Content.” Frontiers in Neurobiotics 16: 1–13.Google Scholar
Pietroski, Paul. 1992. “Intentional and Teleological Error.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 73: 267–281.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. 1975. “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’.” In Language, Mind and Knowledge, edited by Gunderson, Keith, 131–193. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Ramsey, William. 2007. Representation Reconsidered. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rescorla, Michael. 2013. “Millikan on Honeybee Navigation and Communication.” In Millikan and Her Critics, edited by Kingsbury, Justine, Ryder, Dan and Williford, Kenneth, 87–102. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Roche, William, and Sober, Elliott. 2021. “Disjunction and Distality: The Hard Problem for Pure Probabilistic Causal Theories of Mental Content.” Synthese 198: 7197–7230.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Alexander. 2014. “Disenchanted Naturalism.” In Contemporary Philosophical Naturalism and Its Implications, edited by Bashour, Bana and Muller, Hans D., 17–36. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rupert, Robert. 1999. “The Best Test Theory of Extension: First Principle(s).” Mind and Language 14 (3): 321–355.Google Scholar
Rupert, Robert. 2008. “Causal Theories of Mental Content.” Philosophy Compass 3 (2): 353–380.Google Scholar
Rupert, Robert. 2018. “Representation and Mental Representation.” Philosophical Explorations 21 (2): 204–225.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. 1918/1985. The Philosophy of Logical Atomism. Chicago, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Ryder, Dan. 2004. “SINBAD Neurosemantics: A Theory of Mental Representation.” Mind and Language 19 (2): 211–240.Google Scholar
Scarantino, Andrea. 2015. “Information As a Probabilistic Difference Maker.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (3): 419–443.Google Scholar
Schulte, Peter. 2012. “How Frogs See the World: Putting Millikan’s Teleosemantics to the Test.” Philosophia 40 (3): 483–496.Google Scholar
Schulte, Peter. 2015. “Perceptual Representations: A Teleosemantic Answer to the Breadth-of-Application Problem.” Biology and Philosophy 30 (1): 119–136.Google Scholar
Schulte, Peter. 2018. “Perceiving the World Outside: How to Solve the Distality Problem for Informational Teleosemantics.” Philosophical Quarterly 68 (271): 349–369.Google Scholar
Schulte, Peter. 2019a. “Challenging Liberal Representationalism: A Reply to Artiga.” dialectica 73 (3): 331–348.Google Scholar
Schulte, Peter. 2019b. “Naturalizing the Content of Desire.” Philosophical Studies 176 (1): 161–174.Google Scholar
Schulte, Peter. 2020. “Why Mental Content Is Not Like Water: Reconsidering the Reductive Claims of Teleosemantics.” Synthese 197: 2271–2290.Google Scholar
Schulte, Peter. 2021. “The Nature of Perceptual Constancies.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (1): 3–20.Google Scholar
Schulte, Peter. 2022. “Constancy Mechanisms and Distal Content: A Reply to Garson.” Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1): 229–237.Google Scholar
Schulte, Peter, and Neander, Karen. 2022. “Teleological Theories of Mental Content.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022 ed.), edited by Edward Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/content-teleological/.Google Scholar
Shannon, Claude E. 1948. “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.” The Bell System Technical Journal 27 (3): 379–423.Google Scholar
Shea, Nicholas. 2007. “Consumers Need Information: Supplementing Teleosemantics with an Input Condition.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (2): 404–435.Google Scholar
Shea, Nicholas. 2013. “Millikan’s Isomorphism Requirement.” In Millikan and Her Critics, edited by Ryder, Dan, Kingsbury, Justine and Williford, Kenneth, 63–80. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Shea, Nicholas. 2018. Representation in Cognitive Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Soames, Scott. 1987. “Direct Reference, Propositional Attitudes and Semantic Content.” Philosophical Topics 15 (1): 47–87.Google Scholar
Sosa, Ernest. 1983. “One the ‘Content’ and ‘Relevance’ of Information-Theoretic Epistemology.” The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6: 79–81.Google Scholar
Sprevak, Mark. 2013. “Fictionalism about Neural Representation.” The Monist 96 (4): 539–560.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert. 1976. “Propositions.” In Issues in the Philosophy of Language, edited by MacKay, Alfred F. and Merrill, Daniel D., 79–91. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Stampe, Dennis. 1977. “Toward a Causal Theory of Linguistic Representation.” In Studies in the Philosophy of Language. Midwest Studies in Philosophy: Vol. 2, edited by French, Peter A., Uehling, Theodore E. and Wettstein, Howard K., 81–102. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Stich, Stephen. 1983. From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Strawson, Galen. 2008. “Real Intentionality 3: Why Intentionality Entails Consciousness.” In Real Materialism and Other Essays, 53–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Swoyer, Chris. 1991. “Structural Representation and Surrogative Reasoning.” Synthese 87: 449–508.Google Scholar
Tye, Michael. 2006. “Nonconceptual Content, Richness, and Fineness of Grain.” In Perceptual Experience, edited by Szabo, Tamar Gendler and Hawthorne, John, 504–530. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Usher, Marius. 2001. “A Statistical Referential Theory of Content: Using Information Theory to Account for Misrepresentation.” Mind and Language 16 (3): 311–334.Google Scholar
van Gelder, Tim. 1995. “What Might Cognition Be, If Not Computation?” Journal of Philosophy 92 (7): 345–381.Google Scholar
Vos, I. A., Pieterse, C. M. J., and van Wees, S. C. M.. 2013. “Costs and Benefits of Hormone-Regulated Plant Defenses.” Plant Pathology 1: 43–55.Google Scholar
Whiting, Daniel. 2022. “Conceptual Role Semantics.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/conceptual-role-semantics/.Google Scholar
Wiese, Wanja. 2017. “What Are the Contents of Representations in Predictive Processing?” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16 (4): 715–736.Google Scholar
Wiese, Wanja, and Thomas, Metzinger. 2017. “Vanilla PP for Philosophers: A Primer on Predictive Processing.” In Philosophy and Predictive Processing, edited by Metzinger, Thomas and Wiese, Wanja, 1–18. Frankfurt: MIND Group.Google Scholar
Yli-Vakkuri, Juhani, and Hawthorne, John. 2018. Narrow Content. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- 8
- Cited by