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Rethinking Functional Reference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Andrea Scarantino
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Abstract

The theoretical construct of functional reference is the main tool used by animal communication researchers to explore how animals refer to the world in the absence of a language. Functionally referential signals are commonly defined as signals elicited by a specific class of stimuli and capable of causing behaviors adaptive to such stimuli in the absence of contextual cues. I will argue that this definition is conceptually flawed and propose an alternative definition according to which signals can functionally refer to things that rarely cause them while relying on the essential contribution of contextual cues.

Type
General Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 5 , December 2013 , pp. 1006 - 1018
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I want to thank the audience of my talk at the PSA 2012 meeting in San Diego this past November for helpful questions. I also want to thank the participants to the Proto-Language Workshop organized by Mitch Green and Dorit Bar-On at the University of Virginia in March 2012 for useful feedback on a different version of this article.

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