Fred Dretske's theory of indicatory functions (Dretske 1988 & 1994)is undoubtedly one of the more ambitious attempts to articulate a sound naturalistic foundation for an adequate theory of intentional content. In what follows I argue that, contrary to Dretske's explicit intentions, his theory fails a crucial adequacy test - that of accounting for mental content as a system-intrinsic property. Once examined in light of the first-person perspective of an embodied psy- chological agent, I argue, it becomes clear that neither 'indication', (...) nor 'function', as used by Dretske, can be consistently applied. Dre- tske's theory of indicatory functions is, thus, doubly incoherent. It is then argued that the problems identified here stretch far beyond Dretske's specific theory - covering the better part of contemporary attempts to naturalize content. I conclude by suggesting that these general problems of representation, exemplified so vividly in Dretske's theory, also testify to the inadequacy of the quest to reduce tel- eological phenomena (function and purpose) to predominantly mechanistic variables. (shrink)

There are many facets to mental life and mental experience. In this chapter, I attempt to account for some central characteristics among those facets. I argue that normative function and representation are emergent in particular forms of the self-maintenance of far from thermodynamic equilibrium systems in their essential far-from-equilibrium conditions. The nature of representation that is thereby modeled.

This article focuses on the problem of representational content. Accounting for representational content is the central issue in contemporary naturalism: it is the major remaining task facing a naturalistic conception of the world. Representational content is also the central barrier to contemporary cognitive science and artificial intelligence: it is not possible to understand representation in animals nor to construct machines with genuine representation given current (lack of) understanding of what representation is. An elaborated critique is offered to current approaches to (...) representation, arguing that the basic underlying approach is, at root, logically incoherent, and, thus, that standard approaches are doomed to failure. An alternative model of representation - interactivism - is presented that avoids or solves the problems facing standard approaches. Interactivism is framed by a version of functionalism, and a naturalization of that functionalism completes an outline of a naturalization of representation and representational content. (shrink)