There is a social or collective sense of ‘knowledge’, as used, for example, in the phrase ‘the growth of scientific knowledge’. In this paper I show that social knowledge does not supervene on facts about what individuals know, nor even what they believe or intend, or any combination of these or other mental states. Instead I develop the idea that social knowing is an analogue to individual knowing, where the analogy focuses on the functional role of social and individual knowing.

When is a belief or judgment justified? One might be forgiven for thinking the search for single answer to this question to be hopeless. The concept of justification is required to fulfil several tasks: to evaluate beliefs epistemically, to fill in the gap between truth and knowledge, to describe the virtuous organization of one’s beliefs, to describe the relationship between evidence and theory (and thus relate to confirmation and probabilification). While some of these may be held to overlap, the prospects (...) for fulfilling all may well seem poor. Furthermore the internalist requires that justification be an introspectible property of beliefs and a fundamental epistemic concept, while the externalist is often happy to ignore the concept altogether or at best regard it as an embarrassing add-on to their epistemology. In the light of this one might reasonably give up on justification altogether or adopt pluralist approach, denying that justification is any single property of beliefs of judgments. (shrink)

Powers have in recent years become a central component of many philosophers’ ontology of properties. While I have argued that powers exist at the fundamental level of properties, many other theorists of powers hold that there are also non-fundamental powers. In this paper I articulate my reasons for being sceptical about the existing reasons for holding that there are non-fundamental powers. However, I also want to promote a different argument for the existence of a certain class of non-fundamental powers: properties (...) which have natural selection to thank for their existence and nature. Such properties will include functional properties of organisms, and so may also include their mental properties. (shrink)

Altruistic deception (or the telling of “white lies”) is common in humans. Does it also exist in non-human animals? On some definitions of deception, altruistic deception is impossible by definition, whereas others make it too easy by counting useful-but-ambiguous information as deceptive. I argue for a definition that makes altruistic deception possible in principle without trivializing it. On my proposal, deception requires the strategic exploitation of a receiver by a sender, where “exploitation” implies that the sender elicits a behaviour in (...) the receiver that is beneficial in a different type of situation and is expressed only because the signal raises the probability, from the receiver’s standpoint, of that type of situation. I then offer an example of a real signal that is deceptive in this sense, and yet potentially altruistic (and certainly cooperative): the purr call of the pied babbler. Fledglings associate purr calls with food, and adults exploit this learned association, in the absence of food, to lead fledglings away from predators following an alarm call. I conclude by considering why altruistic deception is apparently so rare in non-human animals. (shrink)

Ideology is commonly defined along functional, epistemic, and genetic dimensions. This article advances a reasonably unified account that specifies how they connect and locates the mechanisms at work. I frame the account along a recent distinction between anchoring and grounding, endorse an etiological reading of functional explanations, and draw on current work about the epistemology of delusion, looping effects, and structuring causes to explain how ideologies originate, reproduce, and possibly collapse. This eventually allows articulating how the legitimating function of ideologies (...) relates to the constitutive and causal role they play when embedded into the facts they are originally designed to anchor. (shrink)

The teleosemantic indeterminacy problem has generated much discussion but no consensus. One possible solution is to accept indeterminacy as a real feature of some representations. I call this view “indeterminacy realism.” In this paper, I argue that indeterminacy realism should be treated as a serious option. By drawing an analogy with vagueness, I try to show that accepting the reality of indeterminacy would not be catastrophic for teleosemantics. I further argue that there are positive reasons to endorse indeterminacy realism. I (...) end the paper by arguing that indeterminacy realism need not generalize viciously to the case of propositional attitudes. (shrink)

The survival enhancing propensity (SEP) account has a crucial role to play in the analysis of proper function. However, a central feature of the account, its specification of the proper environment to which functions are relativized, is seriously underdeveloped. In this paper, I argue that existent accounts of proper environment fail because they either allow too many or too few characters to count as proper functions. While SEP accounts retain their promise, they are unworkable because of their inability to specify (...) this important feature. However, I suggest that this problem can be overcome by the application of a new strategy for specifying proper environment that is grounded in the operation of natural selection and I conclude by offering a first approximation of such an account. (shrink)

It has been suggested that a functionalist understanding of the metaphysics of psychological typing eliminates the prospect for psychological laws. Kim, Millikan, and Shapiro have each separately argued that, if psychological types as functional types are multiply realized, then the diversity of realizing mechanisms demonstrates that there can be no laws of psychology. Additionally, Millikan has argued that the role of functional attribution in the explanation of historical kinds limits the formulation of psychological principles to particular taxa; hence, psychological laws (...) applicable to any cognitive being are not possible. Both arguments against the possibility of psychological laws, I want to suggest, only succeed at showing that certain types of empirical principles will not be laws. I will suggest that a further type of empirical principle, grounded in the general constraints on the sustainability of population types, remains in the running as a candidate law. Importantly, the formulation of these principles presupposes a functionalist understanding of psychological typing. (shrink)

To ascribe a telos is to ascribe a norm or standard of performance. That fact underwrites the plausibility of, say, teleological theories of mind. Teleosemantics, for example, relies on the normative character of teleology to solve the problem of “intentional inexistence”: a misrepresentation is just a malfunction. If the teleological ascriptions of such theories to natural systems, e.g., the neurological structures of the brain, are to be literally true, then it must be literally true that norms can exist independent of (...) intentional and psychological agency. Davies, for one, has argued that such norms are impossible within a naturalistic worldview. Consequently, teleological theories of mind, for example, cannot be literally true. I will show, however, that the truth conditions on normative statements do not presuppose intentional and psychological agency and, further, that a selectional regime is one naturalistic mechanism that satisfies those truth conditions. Norms, then, exist in the world independent of intentional and psychological agency. (shrink)

Synthetic organisms are at the same time organisms and artifacts. In this paper we aim to determine whether such entities have a good of their own, and so are candidates for being directly morally considerable. We argue that the good of non-sentient organisms is grounded in an etiological account of teleology, on which non-sentient organisms can come to be teleologically organized on the basis of their natural selection etiology. After defending this account of teleology, we argue that there are no (...) grounds for excluding synthetic organisms from having a good also grounded in their teleological organization. However, this comes at a cost; traditional artifacts will also be seen as having a good of their own. We defend this as the best solution to the puzzle about what to say about the good of synthetic organisms. (shrink)

In order to determine whether current (or future) machines have a welfare that we as agents ought to take into account in our moral deliberations, we must determine which capacities give rise to interests and whether current machines have those capacities. After developing an account of moral patiency, I argue that current machines should be treated as mere machines. That is, current machines should be treated as if they lack those capacities that would give rise to psychological interests. Therefore, they (...) are moral patients only if they have non-psychological interests. I then provide an account of what I call teleo interests that constitute the most plausible type of non-psychological interest that a being might have. I then argue that even if current machines have teleo interests, they are such that agents need not concern themselves with these interests. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, current machines are not moral patients. (shrink)

This paper addresses the foundations of Teleological Individualism, the view that organisms, even non-sentient organisms, are goal-oriented systems while biological collectives, such as ecosystems or conspecific groups, are mere assemblages of organisms. Typical defenses of Teleological Individualism ground the teleological organization of organisms in the workings of natural selection. This paper shows that grounding teleological organization in natural selection is antithetical to Teleological Individualism because such views assume a view about the units of selection on which it is only individual (...) organisms that are units of selection. However, none of the Conventionalist, Reductionist, or Multi-Level Realist theories serve to justify such an assumption. Thus, Teleological Individualism cannot be grounded in natural selection. (shrink)

Is there a notion of domain specificity which affords genuine insight in the context of the highly modular mind, i.e. a mind which has not only input modules, but also central ‘conceptual’ modules? Our answer to this question is no. The main argument is simple enough: we lay out some constraints that a theoretically useful notion of domain specificity, in the context of the highly modular mind, would need to meet. We then survey a host of accounts of what domain (...) specificity is, based on the intuitive idea that a domain specific mechanism is restricted in the kind of information that it processes, and show that each fails at least one of those constraints. (shrink)

Reductionist forms of moral realism, such as naturalist realism, are often thought immune to epistemological objections that have been raised against nonnaturalist realism in the form of reliability worries or evolutionary debunking arguments. This article establishes that reductionist realist views can only explain the reliability of our moral beliefs at the cost of incurring repugnant first-order conclusions.

There’s a general assumption that teleology and function do not exist in inanimate nature. Throughout biology, it is generally taken as granted that teleology (or teleonomy) and functions are not only unique to life, but perhaps even a defining quality of life. For many, it’s obvious that rocks, water, and the like, are not teleological, nor could they possibly have stand-alone functions. This idea - that teleology and function are unique to life - is the target of this paper. I (...) begin with an overview of McShea’s field theoretic account of teleology. I start with the field theoretic account because it presents a promising analysis of teleological systems. It is promising because, in not making any assumptions about life’s special status in teleological systems, it avoids counterexamples that have problematized other accounts. I then consider some of the prominent efforts that have been made to attempt to avoid ascribing functions or teleology to some form of inanimate nature. In my assessment, none of the efforts are successful. I conclude by offering mineral evolution as a case study to show how inanimate nature can be both teleological and functional. The evolution of mineral species reveals that teleology and function extend to inanimate nature, and that teleology and function come in degrees. (shrink)

Teleology has a complicated history in the biological sciences. Some have argued that Darwin’s theory has allowed biology to purge itself of teleological explanations. Others have been content to retain teleology and to treat it as metaphorical, or have sought to replace it with less problematic notions like teleonomy. And still others have tried to naturalize it in a way that distances it from the vitalism of the nineteenth century, focusing on the role that function plays in teleological explanation. No (...) consensus has seemed possible in this debate. This paper takes a different approach. It argues that teleology is a perfectly acceptable scientific notion, but that the debate took an unfortunate misstep some 2300 years ago, one that has confused things ever since. The misstep comes in the beginning of Aristotle’s Physics when a distinction is made between two types of teleological explanation. One type pertains to artifacts while the other pertains to entities in nature. For Aristotle, artifacts are guided by something external to themselves, human intentions, while natural entities are guided by an internal nature. We aim to show that there is, in fact, only one type of legitimate teleological explanation, what Aristotle would have considered a variant of an artifact model, where entities are guided by external fields. We begin with an analysis of the differences between the two types of explanation. We then examine some evidence in Aristotle’s biological works suggesting that on account of his natural-artifactual distinction, he encountered difficulties in trying to provide teleological accounts of spontaneous generation. And we show that it is possible to resolve these difficulties with a more robust version of an artifact model of teleology, in other words, with an externalist teleology. This is McShea’s model, in which goal-directed entities are guided by a nested series of upper-level fields. To explain teleological behavior, this account invokes only external physical forces rather than mysterious internal natures. We then consider how field theory differs from other efforts to naturalize teleology in biology. And finally, we show how the account enables us to grapple with certain difficult cases – genes and intentions – where, even in biology today, the temptation to posit internal natures remains strong. (shrink)

Biologists explain organisms’ behavior not only as having been programmed by genes and shaped by natural selection, but also as the result of an organism’s agency: the capacity to react to environmental changes in goal-driven ways. The use of such ‘agential explanations’ reopens old questions about how justified it is to ascribe agency to entities like bacteria or plants that obviously lack rationality and even a nervous system. Is organismic agency genuinely ‘real’ or is it just a useful fiction? In (...) this paper we focus on two questions: whether agential explanations are to be interpreted ontically, and whether they can be reduced to non-agential explanations (thereby dispensing with agency). The Kantian approach we identify interprets agential explanations non-ontically, yet holds agency to be indispensable. Attributing agency to organisms is not to be taken literally in the way we attribute physical properties such as mass or acceleration, but nor is it a mere heuristic or predictive tool. Rather, it is an inevitable consequence of our own rational capacity: as long as we are rational agents ourselves, we cannot avoid seeing agency in organisms. (shrink)

In a series of papers, Bence Nanay has recently put forward and defended a new theory of function, which he calls the ‘Modal Theory of Function’. In this article, I critically address this theory and argue that it fails to fulfill some key desiderata that a satisfactory theory of function must comply with. As a result, I conclude that, whatever property Nanay’s notion of function refers to, it is not the property having the function that is standardly attributed in science.

The debate on the notion of function has been historically dominated by dispositional and etiological accounts, but recently a third contender has gained prominence: the organizational account. This original theory of function is intended to offer an alternative account based on the notion of self-maintaining system. However, there is a set of cases where organizational accounts seem to generate counterintuitive results. These cases involve cross-generational traits, that is, traits that do not contribute in any relevant way to the self-maintenance of (...) the organism carrying them, but instead have very important effects on organisms that belong to the next generation. We argue that any plausible solution to the problem of cross-generational traits shows that the organizational account just is a version of the etiological theory and, furthermore, that it does not provide any substantive advantage over standard etiological theories of function. (shrink)

Ethological theories usually attribute semantic content to animal signals. To account for this fact, many biologists and philosophers appeal to some version of teleosemantics. However, this picture has recently came under attack: while mainstream teleosemantics assumes that representational systems must cooperate, some biologists and philosophers argue that in certain cases signaling can evolve within systems lacking common interest. In this paper I defend the standard view from this objection.

One of the main tenets of current teleosemantic theories is that simple representations are Pushmi-Pullyu states, i.e. they carry descriptive and imperative content at the same time. In the paper I present an argument that shows that if we add this claim to the core tenets of teleosemantics, then (1) it entails that, necessarily, all representations are Pushmi-Pullyu states and (2) it undermines one of the main motivations for the Pushmi-Pullyu account.

In this paper I discuss a recent theory on functions called Organizational Account. This theory seeks to provide a new definition of function that overcomes the distinction between etiological and dispositional accounts and that could be used in biology as well as in technology. I present a definition of function that I think captures the intuitions of Organizational Accounts and consider several objections.

Teleological Theories of mental representation are probably the most promising naturalistic accounts of intentionality. However, it is widely known that these theories suffer from a major objection: the Indeterminacy Problem. The most common reply to this problem employs the Target of Selection Argument, which is based on Sober’s distinction between selection for and selection of . Unfortunately, some years ago the Target of Selection Argument came into serious attack in a famous paper by Goode and Griffiths. Since then, the question (...) of the validity of the Target of Selection Argument in the context of the Indeterminacy Problem has remained largely untouched. In this essay, I argue that both the Target of Selection Argument and Goode and Griffiths’ criticisms to it misuse Sober’s analysis in important respects. (shrink)

In this essay I introduce the question of artifactual functions in the context of the recent debate on the notion of function. I discuss some of the desiderata a satisfactory account should fulfill and compare them to the desiderata for a theory of biological functions. Finally, within this general framework, I briefly present the three papers included in this volume.

In this paper I defend a teleological explanation of normativity, i. e., I argue that what an organism is supposed to do is determined by its etiological function. In particular, I present a teleological account of the normativity that arises in learning processes, and I defend it from some objections.

The goal of this essay is to assess the Selected-Effects Etiological Theory of biological function, according to which a trait has a function F if and only if it has been selected for F. First, I argue that this approach should be understood as describing the paradigm case of functions, rather than as establishing necessary and sufficient conditions for function possession. I contend that, interpreted in this way, the selected-effects approach can explain two central properties of functions and can satisfactorily (...) address some recent counterexamples. This reading, however, shows that there is only a partial overlap between biological functions and selected effects, so the former cannot be reduced to the latter. Finally, I maintain that this result is still compatible with a naturalistic theory of function that appeals to some evolutionary process. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is to put forward an original theory of artifact function, which takes on board the results of the debate on the notion of biological function and also accommodates the distinctive aspects of artifacts. More precisely, the paper develops and defends the Dual-Aspect Theory, which is a monist account according to which an artifact’s function depends on intentional and reproductive aspects. It is argued that this approach meets a set of theoretical and meta-theoretical desiderata and is (...) superior to alternative views. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is to put forward an original theory of artifact function, which takes on board the results of the debate on the notion of biological function and also accommodates the distinctive aspects of artifacts. More precisely, the paper develops and defends the Dual-Aspect Theory, which is a monist account according to which an artifact’s function depends on intentional and reproductive aspects. It is argued that this approach meets a set of theoretical and meta-theoretical desiderata and is (...) superior to alternative views. (shrink)

In the biological realm, a complete explanation of a trait seems to include an explanation in terms of function. It is natural to ask of some trait, "What is its function?" or "What purpose in the organism does the particular trait serve?" or "What is the goal of its activity?" There are several views concerning the appropriate definition of function for biological matters. Two popular views of function with respect to living things are Cummins' organizational account and the Griffiths/Godfrey-Smith modern (...) history account. Whereas Cummins argues that a trait functions so as to contribute to the general organization of some organism's present structure, Griffiths, and Godfrey-Smith argue that a trait functions because of its fitness with respect to the organism's recent evolutionary history. In this paper, I show how these accounts can be made compatible and compliment one another. Given that structure, organization, operational flexibility, function, and evolutionary history are all factors to be considered in an organism's makeup, we should expect that the traits of an organism function the way they do because such traits presently contribute to the overall organization of the organism (Cummins) as well as were selected for in the organism's species' recent ancestry (Griffiths/Godfrey-Smith). (shrink)

We argue that living systems process information such that functionality emerges in them on a continuous basis. We then provide a framework that can explain and model the normativity of biological functionality. In addition we offer an explanation of the anticipatory nature of functionality within our overall approach. We adopt a Peircean approach to Biosemiotics, and a dynamical approach to Digital-Analog relations and to the interplay between different levels of functionality in autonomous systems, taking an integrative approach. We then apply (...) the underlying biosemiotic logic to a particular biological system, giving a model of the B-Cell Receptor signaling system, in order to demonstrate how biosemiotic concepts can be used to build an account of biological information and functionality. Next we show how this framework can be used to explain and model more complex aspects of biological normativity, for example, how cross-talk between different signaling pathways can be avoided. Overall, we describe an integrated theoretical framework for the emergence of normative functions and, consequently, for the way information is transduced across several interconnected organizational levels in an autonomous system, and we demonstrate how this can be applied in real biological phenomena. Our aim is to open the way towards realistic tools for the modeling of information and normativity in autonomous biological agents. (shrink)

The central claim of my paper is that pragmatics has a wider scope of application than has been generally appreciated. In particular, I will argue that many discussions of pragmatics are guilty of a problematic form of provincialism. The provincialism at issue restricts the class of target systems of study to those involving groups of developmentally typical humans (or slightly idealized versions thereof), either explicitly as a matter of principle or implicitly as consequence of how it construes the underlying pragmatic (...) notions. In what follows, I will argue that this kind of provincialism is problematic because there are patterns of non-human animal social interaction that cannot be properly explained without recourse to the theoretical tool-kit of pragmatics. Crucially, rejecting provincialism about pragmatics does not entail that there are not important theoretical differences between human and non-human systems of pragmatics. It does, however, require that our core philosophical theories of social interaction and communication be centered on features independent not merely of those at work in human languages but also of uniquely human features of cognition and sociality more generally. (shrink)

This paper explores the significance of intelligent social behavior among non-human animals for philosophical theories of communication. Using the alarm call system of vervet monkeys as a case study, I argue that interpersonal communication (or what I call “minded communication”) can and does take place in the absence of the production and recognition of communicative intentions. More generally, I argue that evolutionary theory provides good reasons for maintaining that minded communication is both temporally and explanatorily prior to the use of (...) communicative intentions. After developing these negative points about the place of communicative intentions in detail, I provide a novel alternative account according to which minded communication is characterized in terms of patterns of action and response that function to coordinate the representational mental states of agents. I show that an account which centers on patterns of representational coordination of this sort is well suited to capture the theoretical roles associated with minded communication and that it does so in a way that provides a good fit with comparative facts about the presence of minded communication among non-human animals. (shrink)

In recent years, an increasing number of medical books and papers attempting to analyse the concepts of health and disease from the perspective of evolutionary biology have been published.This paper introduces the evolutionary approach to health and disease in an attempt to illuminate the premisses and the framework of Darwinian medicine. My primary aim is to analyse to what extent evolutionary theory provides for a biological definition of the concept of disease. This analysis reveals some important differences between functional explanations (...) in the field of evolutionary biology and functional explanations in the field of medicine. Moreover, I shall argue that the biological functions relevant to the health of an organism cannot be determined on the basis of evolutionary theory. Accordingly, it seems that Darwinian medicine does not provide for the definition of a biological concept of disease. Still,Darwinian medicine may suggest why we are susceptible to certain diseases; it might also prove a suggestive heuristic on the basis of which new hypotheses concerning relevant treatments of various diseases might be advanced. (shrink)

This paper offers a modeling account of episodic representation. I argue that the episodic system constructsmental models: representations that preserve the spatiotemporal structure of represented domains. In prototypical cases, these domains are events: occurrences taken by subjects to have characteristic structures, dynamics and relatively determinate beginnings and ends. Due to their simplicity and manipulability, mental event models can be used in a variety of cognitive contexts: in remembering the personal past, but also in future-oriented and counterfactual imagination. As structural representations, (...) they allow surrogative reasoning, supporting inferences about their constituents which can be used in reasoning about the represented events. (shrink)

Philosophers of evolutionary biology favor the so-called etiological concept of function according to which the function of a trait is its evolutionary purpose, defined as the effect for which that trait was favored by natural selection. We term this the selected effect (SE) analysis of function. An alternative account of function was introduced by Robert Cummins in a non-evolutionary and non-purposive context. Cummins''s account has received attention but little support from philosophers of biology. This paper will show that a similar (...) non-purposive concept of function, which we term causal role (CR) function, is crucial to certain research programs in evolutionary biology, and that philosophical criticisms of Cummins''s concept are ineffective in this scientific context. Specifically, we demonstrate that CR functions are a vital and ineliminable part of research in comparative and functional anatomy, and that biological categories used by anatomists are not defined by the application of SE functional analysis. Causal role functions are non-historically defined, but may themselves be used in an historical analysis. Furthermore, we show that a philosophical insistence on the primary of SE functions places practicing biologists in an untenable position, as such functions can rarely be demonstrated (in contrast to CR functions). Biologists who study the form and function of organismal design recognize that it is virtually impossible to identify the past action of selection on any particular structure retrospectively, a requirement for recognizing SE functions. (shrink)

The general concept of mental disorder specified in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is definitional in character: a mental disorder might be identified with a harmful dysfunction. The manual also contains the explicit claim that each individual mental disorder should meet the requirements posed by the definition. The aim of this article is two-fold. First, we shall analyze the definition of the superordinate concept of mental disorder to better understand what necessary criteria actually (...) characterize such a concept. Second, we shall consider the concepts of some individual mental disorders and show that they are in tension with the definition of the superordinate concept, taking pyromania and narcissistic personality disorder as case studies. Our main point is that an unexplained and not-operationalized dysfunction requirement that is included in the general definition, while being systematically violated by the diagnostic criteria of specific mental disorders, is a logical error. Then, either we unpack and operationalize the dysfunction requirement, and include explicit diagnostic criteria that can actually meet it, or we simply drop it. (shrink)

Extended Cognition (EC) hypothesizes that there are parts of the world outside the head serving as cognitive vehicles. One criticism of this controversial view is the problem of “cognitive bloat” which says that EC is too permissive and fails to provide an adequate necessary criterion for cognition. It cannot, for instance, distinguish genuine cognitive vehicles from mere supports (e.g. the Yellow Pages). In response, Andy Clark and Mark Rowlands have independently suggested that genuine cognitive vehicles are distinguished from supports in (...) that the former have been “recruited,” i.e. they are either artifacts, or, products of evolution. I argue against this proposal. There are counter examples to the claim that “Teleological” EC is either necessary or sufficient for cognition. Teleological EC conflates different types of scientific projects, and inherits content externalism’s alienation from historically impartial cognitive science. (shrink)

Recently something close to a consensus about the best way to naturalize the notion of biological function appears to be emerging. Nonetheless, teleological notions in biology remain controversial. In this paper we provide a naturalistic analysis for the notion of natural design. Many authors assume that natural design should be assimilated directly to function. Others find the notion problematic because it suggests that evolution is a directed process. We argue that both of these views are mistaken. Our naturalistic account does (...) not simply equate design with function. We argue that the distinction between function and design is important for understanding the evolution of the physical and behavioral traits of organisms. (shrink)

This research aims to propose a new theory to account for the functions of biological objects. For this, I will show that the most accepted theories of biological functions fail, and then I will propose a new alternative that overcomes the given counterexamples. The research is divided into the following questions: i) appealing to various counterexamples, noting that there is no robust theory capable of accounting for the phenomenon; finally ii) I will give a minimal provisional / operational theory, which (...) allows us to continue incorporating the functional dimension of the features. (shrink)

Pretense is generally thought to constitutively involve imagination. We argue that this is a mistake. Although pretense often involves imagination, it need not; nor is it a kind of imagination. The core nature of pretense is closer to imitation than it is to imagination, and likely shares some of its motivation with the former. Three main strands of argument are presented. One is from the best explanation of cross‐cultural data. Another is from task‐analysis of instances of pretend play. And the (...) third concerns the different ways in which pretense (especially childhood pretense) and imagination impact one's evaluative/affective systems. (shrink)

The analysis of function-ascribing statements, such as “the function of x is y”, is proving to be a difficult matter. It is difficult because we are only beginning to see the complexity which is involved in ascribing functions. The process of discovery has been slow and tedious, with each newly constructed analysis of the meaning of functional ascriptions yielding insights into the structure of functional analysis and functional explanation. However, as each analysis is, in turn, dismantled, we seem to see (...) our insights slip away. In the wake of each exchange, a new member is added to the list of desiderata for an analysis of function-ascribing statements. Thus, the matter of finding a proper analysis of function attributions becomes more and more complex. (shrink)

An examination of difficulties in three standard accounts of functions leads to the suggestion that sentences of the form "the function of x is to do y" are used to make a variety of different claims, all of which involve a means-end relationship and the idea of design, or use, or benefit. The analysis proposed enables us to see what is right and also wrong with accounts that analyze the meaning of function statements in terms of good consequences, goals, and (...) etiological explanation. It also enables us to show that function sentences can be used in providing various types of explanations, including, in certain cases, noncausal explanations of the presence of the item with the function. (shrink)

Ruth Millikan and others advocate theories which attempt to naturalize wide mental content (e.g. beliefs.

How can we think about things in the outside world? There is still no widely accepted theory of how mental representations get their meaning. In light of pioneering research, Nicholas Shea develops a naturalistic account of the nature of mental representation with a firm focus on the subpersonal representations that pervade the cognitive sciences.

In this paper, I discuss the aetiological account of biological interests, developed by Varner, in the context of artefactual organisms envisioned by current research in synthetic biology. In “Sections 2–5”, I present Varner's theory and criticise it for being incapable of ascribing non-derivative interests to artefactual organisms due to their lack of a history of natural selection. In “Sections 6–7”, I develop a new alternative to Varner's account, building on the organisational theory of biological teleology and function. I argue that (...) the organisational account of biological interest is superior to Varner's aetiological account because it can accommodate both artefactual and naturally evolved organisms, provides a non-arbitrary and practical way of determining biological interests, supports the claim that organisms have interests in a sense in which artefacts do not, and avoids the possibility of there being a conflict between what an organismic part is supposed to do and what is in the interest of the organism. (shrink)