Abstract
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.
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Notes
It is important to notice that a sender–receiver structure can be instantiated within a single organism or in different organisms.
Of course, this sender-receiver model is supposed to apply at the level of types. Teleosemantics does not require that every representation (token) is consumed by another system. A particular alarm call can be a representation even if it is not heard by any fellow. It suffices if these activities are performed often enough in consumer systems of that type. We will come back to that issue later.
Strictly speaking, Millikanian teleosemantics claims we should focus on the least detailed Normal explanation of how C has historically performed its function. Since these details are irrelevant for the discussion at hand, I will leave them aside.
One can easily be misled here by the different uses of the expression 'common interest' that can be found in the literature. For instance, Maynard Smith and Harper (2003, p. 27) define cases of ‘common interest’ as involving two organisms that 'place the possible outcomes of the interaction in the same rank order of preference'. This is a stronger notion from the one I am using here (and the one that is required for teleosemantics). In the sense intended here, there can be common interest between two organisms even if there is partial competition or even if signaling involves some partial cost that could be avoided by the organisms involved. This is why, prima facie, phenomena like the ‘handicap principle’ (Zahavi and Zahavi 1997) do not threaten teleosemantics.
Nonetheless, a rejection of the cooperation requirement, the sender-receiver model and condition 1a of teleosemantics is still compatible with some versions of teleosemantics. Indeed, as I will argue later, one could keep condition 1b in order to develop a consumer-based teleosemantic account very similar to Millikans' own approach. I want to thank an anonymous referee for pressing on this issue.
Mimicry is defined in terms of the Photuris versicolor and Photinus species, but notice that the problem pointed out here concerns (at least) any case of aggressive mimicry. This example is supposed to highlight a broad and significant set of cases that mainstream teleosemantics cannot account for.
This qualification is required because it has been argued that, in some cases, predator and prey may have some common interest. For instance, according to the Perception Advertisement Hypothesis, some organisms inform their predators that they have been perceived, so that hunting per surprise becomes futile (Radner 1999, p. 129–130). Gazelles, for example, perform a set of controlled jumps (called 'stotting') so as to communicate to the predator that it has been detected (Sterelny and Griffiths 1999) or that it is a healthy exemplar (Maynard-Smith and Harper 2003, p. 61; Ruxton et al. 2004, ch. 6). Apparently, this sort of signs benefit both predator and prey; the former does not attempt an attack that will probably fail and the latter avoids a possible threat (Millikan 2004; Ruxton et al. 2004, ch. 6).
Even if these examples exist, aggressive mimicry seems to be a different sort of case. It is extremely plausible that the light emitted by Predator in order to lure F-males only benefits the former.
Here I think Stegmann (2009, p. 868) misdescribes what the mainstream teleosemanticists would say. He claims that, on this view, ‘the function of the predator’s producing device is to token [F-female-type] flashes that map the presence of the hungry predator’. If that were the case (and assuming mainstream teleosemantics) the flash would mean there is a hungry predator, and not there is an F-female willing to mate. However, that would constitute a denial of Mimicry (see also 3.3).
Of course, assuming that the Predator’s flashings are real signals can also explain why F-males are mistaken. Nonetheless, that does not affect my main point; what I argue is that accepting that they are signals is not required in explanations of behavior and that rejecting mimicry has interesting advantages from a scientific point of view.
Notice that, for our purposes, we only need to assume that this process of copy is a sufficient condition for a set of entities to constitute a biological kind. The idea is, I think, extremely plausible and it is a claim that many teleosemanticists have explicitly argued for (Millikan 1984, 2000; Neander 2002).
Let me mention that kinds like heart or eye, which are sometimes suggested in the literature, are probably not reproductive kinds in the sense intended here. Eyes, for instance, have probably evolved independently several times (Nilsson 1996), so convergence rather than homology explains why they share many properties in common. Perhaps vertebrate eye or mammalian heart are more plausible examples of reproductive kinds. I want to thank an anonymous referee for this suggestion.
Note that this argument is only supposed to defend Teleosemantics from a sensible objection. In particular, it does not provide a reason for favoring Teleosemantics over Stegmann’s view, because the latter can avoid the problem by simply denying that there is any sense in which the Predator’s mechanism is malfunctioning. I want to thank an anonymous referee for pressing me on this issue.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Alejandro Díaz, Manolo Martinez, David Pineda, an anonymous referee and the audience of the XV Taller d’Investigació en Filosofia (TIF) for very helpful comments, suggestions and criticisms.
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Artiga, M. Signaling without cooperation. Biol Philos 29, 357–378 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-014-9436-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-014-9436-0