All representationalists maintain that there is a necessary connection between an experience’s phenomenal character and intentional content; but there is a disagreement amongst representationalists regarding the nature of those intentional contents that are necessarily connected to phenomenal character. Russellian representationalists maintain that the relevant contents are composed of objects and/or properties, while Fregean representationalists maintain that the relevant contents are composed of modes of presentation of objects and properties. According to Fregean representationalists such as David Chalmers and Brad (...) Thompson, the Fregean variety of the view is preferable to the Russellian variety because the former can accommodate purported counterexamples involving spectrum inversion without illusion and colour constancy while the latter cannot. I maintain that colour constancy poses a special problem for the Fregean theory in that the features of the theory that enable it handle spectrum inversion without illusion cannot be extended to handle colour constancy. I consider the two most plausible proposals regarding how the Fregean view might be developed in order to handle colour constancy—one of which has recently been defended by Thompson —and argue that neither is adequate. I conclude that Fregean representationalism is no more able to accommodate colour constancy than is Russellian representationalism and, as such, ought to be rejected. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a representationalist account of the phenomenal character of color experiences. Representationalism, the thesis that phenomenal character supervenes on a certain kind of representational content, so-called phenomenal content, has been developed primarily in two different ways, as Russellian and Fregean representationalism. While the proponents of Russellian and Fregean representationalism differ with respect to what they take the contents of color experiences to be, they typically agree that colors are exhaustively characterized by (...) the three dimensions of the color solid: hue, saturation, and lightness. I argue that a viable version of representationalism needs to renounce this restriction to three dimensions and consider illumination to be a genuine phenomenal dimension of color. My argument for this thesis falls into two parts. I first consider the phenomenon of color constancy in order to show that neither Russellian nor Fregean representationalism can do justice to the phenomenal significance of local illumination. I subsequently formulate a version of representationalism that accounts for illumination by taking it as a phenomenal dimension of color. (shrink)

According to Frege a proposition—or, in his terms, a thought—is an abstract structured entity constituted by senses which satisfies, at least, the three following properties: it can be semantically assessed as true or as false, it is the object of so called propositional attitudes and it can be grasped. What Frege meant by 'grasping' is the peculiar way in which we can have epistemic access to propositions. The possibility for propositions to be grasped is put by Frege as a warrant (...) for their existence: to challenge their graspability would amount to jeopardise their ontological reality. But is it true, as Frege uncritically maintained, that the "graspability requirement" is satisfied as far as propositions (as he conceived them) are concerned? This is the topic of the present work. A negative answer to the above mentioned question has been given in recent time by the representatives of what has come to be labelled the "cognitive turn" in analytical philosophy. People such as Fodor and Johnson-Laird patently denied the possibility for propositions, conceived à la Frege, to be accessed by the grasping relation. What grounds their position is, to put it roughly, the following train of thought: in order for something to be the target of the grasping relation it must enter the mind. Nothing which is different from a mental entity can enter the mind. Therefore, what can be grasped must be mental. The upshot of this move implies, among other things, the rejection of that radical anti-psychologism which was characteristic of the forefathers of the analytical tradition. In our work we shall try to resist their conclusion by showing that it is not necessary to zero the distinction between propositions and mental entities in order to provide an adequate account of the grasping relation. What one has to give up, instead, is only Frege's late Platonism of the "third realm" which, in our view, is a wholly unnecessary and dispensable accretion of his picture. For, as we shall show, if Platonism is in place it is difficult to provide an account of the grasping relation which makes no use of the "representationalist hypothesis" — i.e. of the hypothesis that ideas mediate our access to whatever can be given to us. But representationalism, once in place, makes the theoretical role of the notion of sense dispensable or purely additional. (shrink)

Conceptualism is the thesis that, for any perceptual experience E, (i) E has a Fregean proposition as its content and (ii) a subject of E must possess a concept for each item represented by E. We advance a framework within which conceptualism may be defended against its most serious objections (e.g., Richard Heck's argument from nonveridical experience). The framework is of independent interest for the philosophy of mind and epistemology given its implications for debates regarding transparency, relationalism and (...) class='Hi'>representationalism, demonstrative thought, phenomenal character, and the speckled hen objection to modest foundationalism. (shrink)

I develop a Russellian representationalist account of size experience that draws importantly from contemporary vision science research on size perception. The core view is that size is experienced in ‘body-scaled’ units. So, an object might, say, be experienced as two eye-level units high. The view is sharpened in response to Thompson’s (forthcoming) Doubled Earth example. This example is presented by Thompson as part of an argument for a Fregean view of size experience. But I argue that the Russellian view (...) I develop handles the Doubled Earth example in a natural and illuminating way, thereby avoiding the need to posit irreducible experiential ‘modes of presentation’. I also address a kind of neo-Fregean ‘reference-fixing’ view of size experience, that shares features with the Russellian view developed. I give reasons for favoring the latter. Finally, I argue that Peacocke’s claim that spatial experience is ‘unit free’ is not persuasive. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes aspects of the relationship between consciousness and intentionality. It focuses on the phenomenal character and the intentional content of perceptual states, canvassing various possible relations among them. It argues that there is a good case for a sort of representationalism, although this may not take the form that its advocates often suggest. By mapping out some of the landscape, the chapter tries to open up territory for different and promising forms of representationalism to be explored (...) in the future. In particular, it argues for a nonreductive, narrow, and Fregean variety of representationalism, which contrasts strongly with more widely explored varieties. It concludes with some words about the fundamental relationship between consciousness and intentionality. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the claim recently defended by Josh Weisberg that a certain version of the self-representational approach to phenomenal consciousness cannot avoid a set of problems that have plagued higher-order approaches. These problems arise specifically for theories that allow for higher-order misrepresentation or—in the domain of self-representational theories—self-misrepresentation. In response to Weisberg, I articulate a self-representational theory of phenomenal consciousness according to which it is contingently impossible for self-representations tokened in the context of a conscious mental (...) state to misrepresent their objects. This contingent infallibility allows the theory to both acknowledge the (logical) possibility of self-misrepresentation and avoid the problems of self-misrepresentation. Expanding further on Weisberg’s work, I consider and reveal the shortcomings of three other self-representational models—put forward by Kreigel, Van Gulick, and Gennaro—in order to show that each indicates the need for this sort of infallibility. I then argue that contingent infallibility is in principle acceptable on naturalistic grounds only if we attribute (1) a neo-Fregean kind of directly referring, indexical content to self-representational mental states and (2) a certain ontological structure to the complex conscious mental states of which these indexical self-representations are a part. In these sections I draw on ideas from the work of Perry and Kaplan to articulate the context-dependent semantic structure of inner-representational states. (shrink)

This thesis is a defense of the Content View on perceptual experience, of the idea that our perceptual experiences represent the world as being a certain way and so have representational content. Three main issues are addressed in this work. Firstly, I try to show that the Content View fits very well both with the logical behaviour of ordinary ascriptions of seeing-episodes and related experiential episodes, and with our pretheoretical intuitions about what perceiving and experiencing ultimately are: that preliminary analysis (...) speaks for the prima facie plausibility of such a view. Secondly, I put forward a detailed account of perceptual episodes in semantic terms, by articulating and arguing for a specific version of the Content View. I provide arguments for the following theses: Perceptual content is two-layered so it involves an iconic level and a discrete or proto-propositional level. Perceptual content is singular and object-dependent or de re, so it includes environmental objects as its semantic constituents. The phenomenal character of perceptual experience is co-determined by the represented properties together with the Mode, but not by the perceived objects: that is what I call an impure representationalism. Perceptual content is 'Russellian': it consists of worldly objects, properties and relations. Both perceptual content and phenomenal character are 'wide' or determined by environmental factors, thus there is no Fregean, narrow perceptual content. Thirdly, I show that such a version of the Content View can cope with the objections which are typically moved against the Content View as such by the advocates of disjunctivism. I myself put forward a moderately disjunctivist version of the Content View, according to which perceptual relations must be told apart from hallucinations as mental states of a different kind. Such a disjunctivism is 'moderate' insofar as it allows genuinely relational perceptual experiences and hallucinations to share a positive phenomenal character, contrary to what Radical Disjunctivism cum Naïve Realism holds. Showing that the Content View vindicates our pre-theoretical intuitions and does justice of our ordinary ascriptive practices, articulating a detailed and argued version of the Content View, and showing that such a version is not vulnerable to the standard objections recently moved to the Content View by the disjunctive part, all that can be considered as a big, multifaceted Argument for the Content View. (shrink)

In this paper, written more than ten years before Making it Explicit, I take a close look at the pivotal role which assertions play in human interactions. Tending a bridge from the Kantian theory of judgements to Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy, with the Fregean notion of conceptual content providing the pillars, and relying on the teachings drawn from the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy as keystones, I begin by questioning the dominant view of representationalism in analytical philosophy after Russell, Carnap and (...) Tarski. It is here that I begin weaving the conceptual network that will eventually blossom into the program of pragmatic rationalism with logical inferentialism and semantic expressivism as pivotal notions, manifest in our game of asking for and giving reasons. It is for these reasons that I agree that a bilingual version of this early piece seems a good starting point for the reflections on what unites and what divides la philosophical visions of Wittgenstein and my own. (shrink)

The argument of this chapter proceeds in the form of constructive criticism of Charles Travis’s recent work on perception. Travis has presented a powerful argument against the idea that perception, as such, provides us with true-or-false representations of the world. The representationalist view, Travis argues, fails to respect the fundamental Fregean distinction between "the conceptual" and "the nonconceptual." According to Travis, what perception presents us with is nonconceptual; hence, perception is indeterminate as far as representational content goes. Travis argues (...) that determinate representational content, on the other hand, is only created when things are judged to be some particular way or another. In this chapter, Avner Baz finds himself in substantial agreement with Travis, but argues that something important also goes missing in the latter’s account, namely what Baz calls "the phenomenal world"; that is, the world as perceived and responded toprior to becoming the object of true or false judgments. In particular, Baz shows how Travis consistently represses the phenomenal world in his account of perception whenever he attempts to explain the perception of what Wittgenstein calls "aspects"; for any respectable account of the perception of such aspects, Baz argues, ought to bring the phenomenal world into view. (shrink)

Brentano and his students were the first to wrestle an Aristotelian perceptual concept, intentionality, into the modern metaphysics of mind. This dissertation recovers theories of Franz Brentano , Kazimierz Twardowski , and Edmund Husserl by appreciating each as an unique attempt to make a modern home for the ancient doctrine of "aboutness." The dissertation corrects a broad range of contemporary misunderstandings and criticisms of Brentano School philosophy, in particular one advanced by Martin Heidegger . ;Brentano's Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (...) is marked by deep tensions between the doctrine of intentional inexistence and its Comtean positivism; Brentano treated mental contents as Comtean phenomena. Understanding physical phenomena as facts presented by sensations, and as syntactic building-blocks for higher-order mental phenomena, I reject misinterpretations of Brentano as either anti-reductionist or Immanentist. The unstable Brentanian account of intentionality was inherited by his student Twardowski. On the Content and Object of Presentations hoped to shore up Brentano's position with a crisp distinction of mental contents from worldly objects; Twardowski was among the first to attempt to integrate intentionality with a modern representationalism. The result was subjective mental content through which objects in the extra-conscious world are represented, a watershed in the history of representationalisms. Twardowski treated the representational relation as resemblance and mental contents as " quasi pictures," but Twardowski was among the first distinctly 20th Century representationalists, those who treat mental content as extra-conscious. Husserl's solution to Brentano's problem rejected the positivistic phenomena of his teacher and criticized the quasi-pictures of his classmate. The heart of the Logical Investigations account of consciousness is a distinction between two kinds of mental content. The intentional objects of the world at large are our mental contents , the very things that remain fixed while our mental contents fluctuate. Understanding this dynamic relation between two kinds of mental content, I reject readings of the Investigations which treat ideal content as either Fregean or Aristotelian. The recovery of Husserl's notion of ideality, one strategy amongst several in attempts to integrate intentionality with modern metaphysics, abets a defense of early Husserlian phenomenology from one of its most powerful critics. (shrink)

This paper explores the idea that the structure of intentionality is fundamentally the structure of a practice, not the structure of a language, or some quasi-linguistic system of representational entities. I show how and why neo-Fregean theory of content is committed to this practical turn. Mis-representation is often thought to be problematic for the neo-Fregean, but I show not only that it accommodates the phenomena better than the representationalist position, but also that the idea of error that the (...) representationalist wants with empty singular terms is redundant, for it has no role to play in explaining the systematicity of thought. (shrink)

In this paper I point out main shortfalls of the three main families of theories of perception and I propose a sort of inferential realism. In addition, I argue that there cannot be a scientific variant of direct realism and illustrate this point with reference to P.F.Strawson's attempt to reconcile, not naïve realism and the scientific variant as he amounts to, but rather, direct and indirect realism. I draw the distinction between four cases of illusion, and I refer to one (...) of these, namely to the case of veridical illusion, to show that Strawson's view, put in terms of the Fregean sense-reference distinction, fails. As regards indirect realism, I argue against the representationalist account and the Lockean picture of primary and secondary qualities. Phenomenalism is rejected in terms of the impossibility to identify an object throughout different contexts and I suggest that what is for x to be that x in different contexts can be given only by a realist analysis of a material object. Finally, I provide an account of what it is for A to perceive that x with respect to different contexts and I conclude with what conditions should veridical perception meet and therefore propose the framework of a new theory of perception. (shrink)

Almost every case of visual experience is as of a unified state of affairs and as of one or more specific particulars. I argue that a view on which the content of visual experience is a singular proposition does a better job at explaining these two features of visual experience than three popular theories: the Complex Property Theory, Generalism, and Fregean Particularism. The defended view, however, entails that there are no visual hallucinations traditionally understood. I make the case for (...) the plausibility of this consequence. (shrink)

Perceptual experiences inform us about objective properties of things in our environment. But they also have perspectival character in the sense that they differ phenomenally when objects are viewed from different points of view. Contemporary representationalists hold, at a minimum, that phenomenal character supervenes on representational content. Thus, in order to account for perspectival character, they need to indentify a type of representational content that changes in appropriate ways with the perceiver’s point of view. Many representationlists, including Shoemaker and Lycan, (...) argue that such contents are best construed in terms of mind-dependent properties. Other representationalists, including Tye and Dretske, hold that these contents involve only mind-independent properties. Susanna Schellenberg has recently developed an account of perceptual experience that would serve these latter representationalists extremely well. She suggests that we can do justice to the perspectival character of perceptual experience by appeal to representations of a certain type of relational properties, so-called ‘situation-dependent properties.’ In this paper, I critically engage with Schellenberg’s proposal in order to show how mind-independent representationalists can explain perspectival character. I argue that appeal to situation-dependent properties is problematic. I then show that mind-independent representationalists can account for perspectical character by means of scenario contents in Christopher Peacocke’s sense. (shrink)

Discusses recent work on representationalism, including: the case for a representationalist theory of consciousness, which explains consciousness in terms of content; rivals such as neurobiological type-type identity theory (Papineau, McLaughlin) and naive realism (Allen, Campbell, Brewer); John Campbell and David Papineau's recent objections to representationalism; the problem of the "laws of appearance"; externalist vs internalist versions of representationalism; the relation between representationalism and the mind-body problem.

There are passages in Kant’s writings according to which empirical intuitions have to be (a) singular, (b) object-dependent, and (c) immediate. It has also been argued that empirical intuitions (d) are not truth-apt, and (e) need to provide the subject with a proof of the possibility of the cognized object. Having relied on one or another of the a-e constraints, the naïve realist readers of Kant have argued that it is not possible for empirical intuitions to be representations. Instead they (...) have argued for a relationalist reading of empirical intuitions in terms of an acquaintance relation between the subject and the intuited object. -/- For the sake of argument, I will grant the naïve realist reader of Kant that empirical intuitions should satisfy all the a-e constraints. Nevertheless, by incorporating these constraints, one by one, into a representationalist theory of empirical intuitions, I will show that not only doesn’t a naïve realist reading of empirical intuitions follow, but also that the naïve realist has hastily overlooked a range of perfectly representationalist readings of intuitions available to Kant and his representationalist allies. On the positive side, I will argue that there is an extra constraint on intuitions—i.e., that givenness does not require presence to consciousness—that directly goes against any naïve realist account of intuitions. (shrink)

Intermodal representationalists hold that the phenomenal characters of experiences are fully determined by their contents. In contrast, intramodal representationalists hold that the phenomenal characters of experiences are determined by their contents together with their intentional modes or manners of representation, which are nonrepresentational features corresponding roughly to the sensory modalities. This paper discusses a kind of experience that provides evidence for an intermodal representationalist view: intermodal experiences, experiences that unify experiences in different modalities. I argue that such experiences are much (...) easier to explain on the intermodal view. (shrink)

A prominent view of phenomenal consciousness combines two claims: (i) the identity conditions of phenomenally conscious states can be fully accounted for in terms of these states’ representational content; (ii) this representational content can be fully accounted for in non-phenomenal terms. This paper presents an argument against this view. The core idea is that the identity conditions of phenomenally conscious states are not fixed entirely by what these states represent (their representational contents), but depend in part on how they represent (...) (their representational attitudes or modes). The argument highlights the myriad liabilities and difficulties one must accrue when one tries to appeal only to what phenomenally conscious states represent in accounting for their phenomenal individuation. (shrink)

This paper overviews the current status of debates on tracking representationalism, the view that phenomenal consciousness is a matter of tracking features of one's environment in a certain way. We overview the main arguments for the view and the main objections and challenges it faces. We close with a discussion of alternative versions of representationalism that might overcome the shortcomings of tracking representationalism.

Representationalism is a philosophical position which reduces all phenomenal conscious states to intentional states. However, starting from the phenomenal consciousness, the phenomenal intentionality theory provides an explanation of all sorts of intentionality. Against Michael Shim's interpretation, I argue that, although Hussserl's phenomenology is certainly considered as an antipode of strong representationalism, Husserl does not stand in opposition the weak representationalists, because Husserl maintains an essential connection between the senses of noemata and the hyletic data. In addition, Husserl's phenomenology (...) is also consistent with the phenomenal theory of intentionality. According to him, statically and genetically, all non-phenomenal intentional states take a recourse to phenomenal intentional states and eventually to sensual perceptions. (shrink)

Representationalism is the view that the phenomenal character of experiences is identical to their representational content of a certain sort. This view requires a strong transparency condition on phenomenally conscious experiences. We argue that affective qualities such as experienced pleasantness or unpleasantness are counter-examples to the transparency thesis and thus to the sort of representationalism that implies it.

I argue that strong representationalism, the view that for a perceptual experience to have a certain phenomenal character just is for it to have a certain representational content (perhaps represented in the right sort of way), encounters two problems: the dual looks problem and the duplication problem. The dual looks problem is this: strong representationalism predicts that how things phenomenally look to the subject reflects the content of the experience. But some objects phenomenally look to both have and (...) not have certain properties, for example, my bracelet may phenomenally look to be circular-shaped and oval-shaped (and hence non-circularshaped). So, if strong representationalism is true, then the content of my experience ought to represent my bracelet as being both circular-shaped and non-circular-shaped. Yet, intuitively, the content of my experience does not represent my bracelet as being both circular-shaped and non-circular-shaped. The duplication problem is this. On a standard conception of content, spatio-temporally distinct experiences and experiences had by distinct subjects may differ in content despite the fact that they are phenomenally indistinguishable. But this undermines the thesis that phenomenal character determines content. I argue that the two problems can be solved by applying a version of an idea from David Chalmers, which is to recognize the existence of genuinely centered properties in the content of perceptual experience. (shrink)

There are two very different ways of thinking about perception. According to representationalism, perceptual states are representations: they represent the world as being a certain way. They have content, which may or may not be different from the content of beliefs. They represent objects as having properties, sometimes veridically, sometimes not. According to relationalism, perception is a relation between the agent and the perceived object. Perceived objects are literally constituents of our perceptual states and not of the contents thereof. (...) Perceptual states are not representations. My aim is to argue that if we frame this debate as a debate about the individuation of perceptual states, rather than the nature of perception, then we can reconcile these two seemingly conflicting ways of thinking about perception. (shrink)

This paper replies to objections from perceptual distortion against the representationalist thesis that the phenomenal characters of experiences supervene on their intentional contents. It has been argued that some pairs of distorted and undistorted experiences share contents without sharing phenomenal characters, which is incompatible with the supervenience thesis. In reply, I suggest that such cases are not counterexamples to the representationalist thesis because the contents of distorted experiences are always impoverished in some way compared to those of normal experiences. This (...) can be shown by considering limit cases of perceptual distortion, for example, maximally blurry experiences, which manifestly lack details present in clear experiences. I argue that since there is no reasonable way to draw the line between distorted experiences that have degraded content and distorted experiences that do not, we should allow that an increase in distortion is always accompanied by a change in content. This applies to perceptual distortions due to blur, double vision, perspective, and illumination conditions. (shrink)

To understand Self-Representationalism you need to understand its family. Self-Representationalism is a branch of the Meta-Representationalist family, and according to theories in this family what distinguishes conscious mental representations from unconscious mental representations is that conscious ones are themselves the target of a mental meta¬-representational state. A mental state M1 is thus phenomenally conscious in virtue of being suitably represented by some mental state M2. What distinguishes the Self-Representationalist branch of the family is the claim that M1 and (...) M2 must be the same token mental state, so a mental state is phenomenally conscious in virtue of suitably representing itself. This Self-Representationalist branch of the family divides into further branches, giving us specific implementations of the Self-Representationalist approach. But before asking whether we should adopt Self-Representationalism, and in what form, we should reflect on why Meta-Representationalism is an attractive family in the first place. After all, Self-Representationalist theories trade on their family name, claiming to deliver on the promises that drive the Meta-Representationalist approach. The two most important promises of Meta-Representationalism are: a) the promise of capturing the transitivity of consciousness and; b) the promise of rendering consciousness naturalisable. I discuss each in turn. (shrink)

A representationalist-friendly introduction to representationalism which covers a number of central problems and objections.

Representationalism is a thesis about the phenomenal character of experiences, about their immediate subjective ‘feel’.1 At a minimum, the thesis is one of supervenience: necessarily, experiences that are alike in their representational contents are alike in their phenomenal character. So understood, the thesis is silent on the nature of phenomenal character. Strong or pure representationalism goes further. It aims to tell us what phenomenal character is. According to the theory developed in Tye 1995, phenomenal character is one and (...) the same as representational content that meets certain further conditions. One very important motivation for this theory is the so-called ? transparency of experience.? The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the appeal to transparency more carefully than has been done hithertofore, to make some remarks about the introspective awareness of experience in light of this appeal, and to consider one problem case for transparency at some length, that of blurry vision. Along the way, I shall also address some of the remarks Stephen Leeds makes in his essay on transparency. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Basic Representationalist Model Model‐based Theorizing and Homuncular Functionalism Other Pieces of the Picture “Look, Mr Dalton …” References.

Colombo’s (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2013) plea for neural representationalism is the focus of a recent contribution to Phenomenology and Cognitive Science by Daniel D. Hutto and Erik Myin. In that paper, Hutto and Myin have tried to show that my arguments fail badly. Here, I want to respond to their critique clarifying the type of neural representationalism put forward in my (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2013) piece, and to take the opportunity to make a few (...) remarks of general interest concerning what Hutto and Myin have dubbed “the Hard Problem of Content.”. (shrink)

In recent years the cognitive science community has witnessed the rise of a new, dynamical approach to cognition. This approach entails a framework in which cognition and behavior are taken to result from complex dynamical interactions between brain, body, and environment. The advent of the dynamical approach is grounded in a dissatisfaction with the classical computational view of cognition. A particularly strong claim has been that cognitive systems do not rely on internal representations and computations. Focusing on this claim, we (...) take as a starting point a question recently raised by Cliff and Noble: " if evolution did produce a design that used internal representations, how would we recognize it?" (Knowledge-based vision and simple visual machines, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 352 , 1165-1175, 1997). We will argue that cognitive science lacks a proper operationalization of the notion of representation, and therefore is unable to fruitfully discuss whether a particular system has representations or not. A basic method to detect representations in a physical system, grounded in isomorphism, turns out to be quite unconstrained. We will look at a practical example of this problem by examining the debate on whether or not van Gelder's (What might cognition be, if not computation? Journal of Philosophy, 92 , 345-381, 1995) controversial example of the Watt Governor is representational. We will conclude that cognitive science, as of yet, has no empirically applicable means to answer Cliff and Noble's question unequivocally. This makes the recent representationalism vs. anti-representationalism debate a debate for the sake of appearance. (shrink)

We now know of a number of ways of developing real analysis on a basis of abstraction principles and second-order logic. One, outlined by Shapiro in his contribution to this volume, mimics Dedekind in identifying the reals with cuts in the series of rationals under their natural order. The result is an essentially structuralist conception of the reals. An earlier approach, developed by Hale in his "Reals byion" program differs by placing additional emphasis upon what I here term Frege's Constraint, (...) that a satisfactory foundation for any branch of mathematics should somehow so explain its basic concepts that their applications are immediate. This paper is concerned with the meaning of and motivation for this constraint. Structuralism has to represent the application of a mathematical theory as always posterior to the understanding of it, turning upon the appreciation of structural affinities between the structure it concerns and a domain to which it is to be applied. There is, therefore, a case that Frege's Constraint has bite whenever there is a standing body of informal mathematical knowledge grounded in direct reflection upon sample, or schematic, applications of the concepts of the theory in question. It is argued that this condition is satisfied by simple arithmetic and geometry, but that in view of the gap between its basic concepts (of continuity and of the nature of the distinctions among the individual reals) and their empirical applications, it is doubtful that Frege's Constraint should be imposed on a neo-Fregean construction of analysis. (shrink)

Neo-Fregeanism in the philosophy of mathematics consists of two main parts: the logicist thesis, that mathematics (or at least branches thereof, like arithmetic) all but reduce to logic, and the platonist thesis, that there are abstract, mathematical objects. I will here focus on the ontological thesis, platonism. Neo-Fregeanism has been widely discussed in recent years. Mostly the discussion has focused on issues specific to mathematics. I will here single out for special attention the view on ontology which underlies the neo-Fregeans’ (...) claims about mathematical objects, and discuss this view in a broader setting. (shrink)

According to Frege's principle the denotation of a sentence coincides with its truth-value. The principle is investigated within the context of abstract algebraic logic, and it is shown that taken together with the deduction theorem it characterizes intuitionistic logic in a certain strong sense.A 2nd-order matrix is an algebra together with an algebraic closed set system on its universe. A deductive system is a second-order matrix over the formula algebra of some fixed but arbitrary language. A second-order matrix A is (...) Fregean if, for any subset X of A, the set of all pairs a,b such that X{a} and X{b} have the same closure is a congruence relation on A. Hence a deductive system is Fregean if interderivability is compositional. The logics intermediate between the classical and intuitionistic propositional calculi are the paradigms for Fregean logics. Normal modal logics are non-Fregean while quasi-normal modal logics are generally Fregean.The main results of the paper: Fregean deductive systems that either have the deduction theorem, or are protoalgebraic and have conjunction, are completely characterized. They are essentially the intermediate logics, possibly with additional connectives. All the full matrix models of a protoalgebraic Fregean deductive system are Fregean, and, conversely, the deductive system determined by any class of Fregean second-order matrices is Fregean. The latter result is used to construct an example of a protoalgebraic Fregean deductive system that is not strongly algebraizable. (shrink)

Arguments in favor of anti-representationalism in cognitive science often suffer from a lack of attention to detail. The purpose of this paper is to fill in the gaps in these arguments, and in so doing show that at least one form of anti- representationalism is potentially viable. After giving a teleological definition of representation and applying it to a few models that have inspired anti- representationalist claims, I argue that anti-representationalism must be divided into two distinct theses, (...) one ontological, one epistemological. Given the assumptions that define the debate, I give reason to think that the ontological thesis is false. I then argue that the epistemological thesis might, in the end, turn out to be true, despite a potentially serious difficulty. Along the way, there will be a brief detour to discuss a controversy from early twentieth century physics. (shrink)

While philosophers of perception develop representational theories of olfactory experiences, there are doubts regarding whether features of olfactory perception can be accommodated within the representationalist framework. In particular, it is argued that the function of olfaction is not to represent stimuli but rather to evaluate it. The paper claims that the major representational accounts of olfaction have problems in accommodating the evaluative aspects of olfactory phenomenology. However, an alternative position, named “olfactory evaluativism,” is proposed which is free of these problems (...) and may serve as a foundation for further developments of representational approach to olfactory experiences. (shrink)

Bodily sensations, such as pain, hunger, itches, or sexual feelings, are commonly characterized in terms of their phenomenal character. In order to account for this phenomenal character, many philosophers adopt strong representationalism. According to this view, bodily sensations are essentially and entirely determined by an intentional content related to particular conditions of the body. For example, pain would be nothing more than the representation of actual or potential tissue damage. In order to motivate and justify their view, strong representationalists (...) often appeal to the reliable causal covariance between bodily sensations and certain kinds of bodily conditions or to the corresponding biological function that these bodily sensations are supposed to fulfill. In this paper, I argue on the basis of recent empirical research that arguments from reliable causal covariance and biological function cannot motivate the introduction of corresponding intentional content. In particular, I argue that bodily sensations are caused by a heterogeneous class of physiological and psychological factors and their biological functions are too diverse to be reduced to the representation of a particular bodily condition. Responses are available to strong representationalists, but they either require substantial alterations to their core assumptions or incur a significant empirical burden. (shrink)

To a first approximation, self-representationalism is the view that a mental state M is phenomenally conscious just in case M represents itself in the appropriate way. Proponents of self-representationalism seem to think that the phenomenology of ordinary conscious experience is on their side, but opponents seem to think the opposite. In this paper, I consider the phenomenological merits and demerits of self-representationalism. I argue that there is phenomenological evidence in favor of self-representationalism, and rather more confidently, (...) that there is no phenomenological evidence against self-representationalism. (shrink)

It is often said that some kind of peripheral (or inattentional) conscious awareness accompanies our focal (attentional) consciousness. I agree that this is often the case, but clarity is needed on several fronts. In this paper, I lay out four distinct theses on peripheral awareness and show that three of them are true. However, I then argue that a fourth thesis, commonly associated with the so-called "self-representational approach to consciousness," is false. The claim here is that we have outer focal (...) consciousness accompanied often (or even always) by inner peripheral (self-)awareness. My criticisms stem from both methodological and phenomenological considerations. In doing so, I offer a diagnosis as to why the fourth thesis has seemed true to so many and also show how the so-called "transparency of experience," frequently invoked by representationalists, is importantly relevant to my diagnosis. Finally, I respond to several objections and to further attempts to show that thesis four is true. What emerges is that if one wishes to hold that some form of self-awareness accompanies all outer-directed conscious states, one is better off holding that such self-awareness is itself unconscious, as is held for example by standard higher-order theories of consciousness. (shrink)

According to the self-representational theory of consciousness – self- representationalism for short – a mental state is phenomenally conscious when, and only when, it represents itself in the right way. In this paper, I consider how self- representationalism might address the alleged explanatory gap between phenomenal consciousness and physical properties. I open with a presentation of self- representationalism and the case for it (§1). I then present what I take to be the most promising self-representational approach to (...) the explanatory gap (§2). That approach is threatened, however, by an objection to self-representationalism, due to Levine, which I call the just more representation objection (§3). I close with a discussion of how the self-representationalist might approach the objection (§4). (shrink)

Representationalism, in its most widely accepted form, is the view that the human mind is an information-using system, and that human cognitive capacities are to be understood as representational capacities. This chapter distinguishes several distinct theses that go by the name "representationalism," focusing on the view that is most prevalent in cogntive science. It also discusses some objections to the view and attempts to clarify the role that representational content plays in cognitive models that make use of the (...) notion of representation. (shrink)

This paper develops a novel problem for representationalism (also known as "intentionalism"), a popular contemporary account of perception. We argue that representationalism is incompatible with supervaluationism, the leading contemporary account of vagueness. The problem generalizes to naive realism and related views, which are also incompatible with supervaluationism.

This paper proposes a subjectivist approach to color within the framework of an externalist form of representationalism about phenomenal consciousness. Motivations are presented for accepting both representationalism and color subjectivism, and an argument is offered against the case made by Michael Tye on behalf of the claim that colors are objective, physical properties of objects. In the face of the considerable difficulties associated with finding a workable realist theory of color, the alternative account of color experience set out, (...) projectivist representationalism, claims that the color properties we encounter in experience exist only in the representational contents of our experiences. Color experiences are caused by the physical structure of objects, but objects are never actually colored and color experiences systematically misrepresent objects as colored. However, despite being an error theory of color, projectivist representationalism does not do violence to our everyday use and understanding of color concepts and terms, nor does it undermine the role of color experience in aiding the perceiving subject in navigating through the world. (shrink)

A deductive system (in the sense of Tarski) is Fregean if the relation of interderivability, relative to any given theory T, i.e., the binary relation between formulas.

Embodied and extended cognition is a relatively new paradigm within cognitive science that challenges the basic tenet of classical cognitive science, viz. cognition consists in building and manipulating internal representations. Some of the pioneers of embodied cognitive science have claimed that this new way of conceptualizing cognition puts pressure on epistemological and ontological realism. In this paper I will argue that such anti-realist conclusions do not follow from the basic assumptions of radical embodied cognitive science. Furthermore I will show that (...) one can develop a form of realism that reflects rather than just accommodates the core principles of non-representationalist embodied cognitive science. (shrink)