Switch to: Citations

Add references

You must login to add references.
  1. Biosemantics.Ruth Millikan - 1989 - Journal of Philosophy 86 (6):281--297.
    " Biosemantics " was the title of a paper on mental representation originally printed in The Journal of Philosophy in 1989. It contained a much abbreviated version of the work on mental representation in Language Thought and Other Biological Categories. There I had presented a naturalist theory of intentional signs generally, including linguistic representations, graphs, charts and diagrams, road sign symbols, animal communications, the "chemical signals" that regulate the function of glands, and so forth. But the term " biosemantics " (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   294 citations  
  • The Mathematical Theory of Communication.Claude E. Shannon & Warren Weaver - 1949 - University of Illinois Press.
    Scientific knowledge grows at a phenomenal pace--but few books have had as lasting an impact or played as important a role in our modern world as The Mathematical Theory of Communication, published originally as a paper on communication theory more than fifty years ago. Republished in book form shortly thereafter, it has since gone through four hardcover and sixteen paperback printings. It is a revolutionary work, astounding in its foresight and contemporaneity. The University of Illinois Press is pleased and honored (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   644 citations  
  • Indication and adaptation.Peter Godfrey-Smith - 1992 - Synthese 92 (2):283-312.
    This paper examines the relationship between a family of concepts involving reliable correlation, and a family of concepts involving adaptation and biological function, as these concepts are used in the naturalistic semantic theory of Dretske's "Explaining Behavior." I argue that Dretske's attempt to marry correlation and function to produce representation fails, though aspects of his failure point the way forward to a better theory.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   43 citations  
  • Information Increase in Biological Systems: How does Adaptation Fit?John Collier - unknown
    Progress has become a suspect concept in evolutionary biology, not the least because the core concepts of neo-Darwinism do not support the idea that evolution is progressive. There have been a number of attempts to account for directionality in evolution through additions to the core hypotheses of neo-Darwinism, but they do not establish progressiveness, and they are somewhat of an ad hoc collection. The standard account of fitness and adaptation can be rephrased in terms of information theory. From this, an (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Biosemantics.Ruth Millikan - 2007 - In Brian P. McLaughlin, Ansgar Beckermann & Sven Walter (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   198 citations  
  • Cultural evolution and the variable phenotype.William Harms - 1996 - Biology and Philosophy 11 (3):357-375.
    It is common in attempts to extend the theory of evolution to culture to generalize from the causal basis of biological evolution, so that evolutionary theory becomes the theory of copying processes. Generalizing from the formal dynamics of evolution allows greater leeway in what kinds of things cultural entities can be, if they are to evolve. By understanding the phenomenon of cultural transmission in terms of coordinated phenotypic variability, we can have a theory of cultural evolution which allows us to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature.Peter Godfrey-Smith (ed.) - 1996 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    This book explains the relationship between intelligence and environmental complexity, and in so doing links philosophy of mind to more general issues about the relations between organisms and environments, and to the general pattern of 'externalist' explanations. The author provides a biological approach to the investigation of mind and cognition in nature. In particular he explores the idea that the function of cognition is to enable agents to deal with environmental complexity. The history of the idea in the work of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   280 citations