Putting I-Thoughts to Work

A traditional view holds that the self-concept is essentially indexical. In a highly influential article, Ruth Millikan famously held that the self-concept should be understood as a Millian name with a sui generis functional role. This article presents a novel explanatory argument against the Millian view and in favor of the indexical view. The argument starts from a characterization of the self-concept as a device of information integration. It then shows that the indexical view yields a better explanation of the integration function than the Millian view. The resulting account can rebut Millikan’s objections and it has broader implications for the debate on the essential indexical.

Putting I-Thoughts to Work

A traditional view holds that the self-concept is essentially indexical. In a highly influential article, Ruth Millikan famously held that the self-concept should be understood as a Millian name with a sui generis functional role. This article presents a novel explanatory argument against the Millian view and in favor of the indexical view. The argument starts from a characterization of the self-concept as a device of information integration. It then shows that the indexical view yields a better explanation of the integration function than the Millian view. The resulting account can rebut Millikan’s objections and it has broader implications for the debate on the essential indexical.

Artifacts and Their Functions

How do artifacts get their functions? It is typically thought that an artifact’s function depends on its maker’s intentions. This chapter argues that this common understanding is fatally flawed. Nor can artifact function be understood in terms of current uses or capacities. Instead, it proposes that we understand artifact function on the etiological model that Ruth Millikan and others have proposed for the biological realm. This model offers a robustly normative conception of function, but it does so naturalistically by employing our best scientific theories, in particular natural selection. To help make this case, it proposes “living artifacts” (organisms designed for human purposes through artificial selection) as a bridge between the artifactual and the biological realms.

REPRESENTAÇÃO E CONTEXTO: A CRÍTICA DE MILLIKAN A DRETSKE

Discuto, neste artigo, duas críticas que Ruth Millikan dirige à teleosemântica informacional proposta por Fred Dretske. A primeira relaciona-se à noção de informação natural e a segunda à impossibilidade de representar indivíduos. As duas críticas têm o mesmo fundamento - o fato de a teleosemântica informacional de Dretske ser independente de contexto (context-free). Argumento que Millikan está correta apenas em relação à primeira crítica, mas que ela não está inteiramente correta em relação à segunda crítica. Embora seja independente de contexto, a teleosemântica proposta por Dretske tem papel explanatório em relação a alguns tipos de representações.

Una crítica al argumento kantiano de McDowell en contra de la percepción animal.

<p>John McDowell afirma que la percepción siempre es filtrada por conceptos o, por decirlo con el usual término kantiano, por la espontaneidad. Sin conceptos que soporten la percepción, sería imposible tenerpercepciones inteligibles y ordenadas del mundo extramental que justificaran las creencias. Una posible consecuencia de esta clase de argumentación es que los animales no humanos, incapaces de generar conceptos estructurados como lo demanda McDowee, incluso son incapaces de tener percepciones ordenadas del mundo circundante. </p><p>En este trabajo, reconstruiré los argumentos de McDoweel contra la percepción no-conceptual. En segundo lugar, mostraré ciertas dificultades con las que se enfrenta esta clase de argumentos al intentar explicar el comportamiento animal.</p><p>Defenderé mis conclusiones en concordancia con los comentarios de Ruth Millikan sobre los conceptos. Para ello, trataré de mostrar la posibilidad de tener percepciones, e incluso conceptos, que no necesariamente involucre la espontaineidad kantiana demandada por McDowell, sino más bien un encuentro práctico con el mundo, como lo ha sugerido Millikan. </p>

Zum Begriff nicht-mathematischer Funktionen

Proceeding from a set of conditions that an adequate notion of a non-mathematical function should satisfy, we examine some of the most influential of these notions, including Cummins-functions, to conclude that the teleosemantic notion of a non-mathematical proper function, suggested originally by Ruth Millikan, best satisfies the proposed conditions. In particular, this notion allows us to talk consistently about organisms having some functions while Operating, at the same time, dysfunctionally. In addition, we show that the teleosemantic notion of relational and adaptive proper functions can be applied to singular events being part of developments in evolution and learning processes. We conclude that it is in this framework, rather than on the basis of the so-called theory of memes, that an application of the teleosemantic notion of a proper function to social areas can be seriously considered.