According to the language of thought (LOT) approach and the related computational theory of mind (CTM), thinking is the processing of symbols in an inner mental language that is distinct from any public language. Herein, I explore a deep problem at the heart of the LOT/CTM program—it has yet to provide a plausible conception of a mental symbol.

Naturalistically minded philosophers hope to identify a privileged nonsemantic relation that holds between a mental representation m and that which m represents, a relation whose privileged status underwrites the assignment of reference to m. The naturalist can accomplish this task only if she has in hand a nonsemantic criterion for individuating mental representations: it would be question-begging for the naturalist to characterize m, for the purpose of assigning content, as 'the representation with such and such content'. If we individuate mental (...) representations using the tools of dynamical systems theory, we find that a given mental representation, characterized nonsemantically, emerges in the cognitive system as the result of causal interactions between the subject and her environment. At least for the most basic of our mental representations, I argue that the dynamical systems-based approach to individuation increases the plausibility of a theory that assigns reference as a function of the subject's causal history. (shrink)

Holistic views of content claim that we each speak and think in distinct and idiosyncratic idiolects: although we may often entertain thoughts with similar contents, the content of our thoughts can...

My goal in this paper is to discuss the 'Fregean' account of inferences proposed by Recanati in his 'Mental Files' (Oxford University Press, 2012). I raise the following dilemma for the mental files theory. (a) If the premises of certain inferences involve 'the same file' in a strict sense of the expression, then files cannot play the role of modes of presentation. (b) If, on the other hand, the files involved in the premises are 'the same' only in a loose (...) sense, then the notion of file sameness plays no role in accounting for rational inferences, contra Recanati's Fregean account. (shrink)

In The Mind Doesn’t Work that Way, Jerry Fodor argues that mental representations have context sensitive features relevant to cognition, and that, therefore, the Classical Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) is mistaken. We call this the Globality Argument. This is an in principle argument against CTM. We argue that it is self-defeating. We consider an alternative argument constructed from materials in the discussion, which avoids the pitfalls of the official argument. We argue that it is also unsound and that, while (...) it is an empirical issue whether context sensitive features of mental representations are relevant to cognition, it is empirically implausible. (shrink)

The teleosemantic theory of representational content is held by some philosophers to imply that genes carry semantic information about whole-organism phenotypes. In this paper, I argue that this position is not supported by empirical findings. I focus on one of the most elaborate defenses of this position: Shea’s view that genes represent whole-organism phenotypes. I distinguish between two ways of individuating genes in contemporary biological science as possible vehicles of representational content—as molecular genes and as difference-maker genes. I show that (...) given either of these ways of individuating genes, genes fail to meet conditions which the teleosemantic theory requires an entity to meet if that entity is to qualify as a representational vehicle that represents a whole-organism phenotype. The considerations I present against Shea’s view generalize to other attempts to use the teleosemantic theory in support of the claim that genes represent whole-organism phenotypes. (shrink)