Abstract

Presented at the international conference "Green Intelligence? - Debating Plant Cognition" in Basle, Switzerland on October 23th 2021. A critical reply to Marc Artiga, Communication and Deception in Plants. Objecting to Artiga's arguments in favor of Plant Cognitivism, I try to show why deception does not imply cognitive or representational (contentful) states. Sensory detectors or communication channels in plants, simpler animals or artificial sensory systems do not need to display a perspective on the world to be tricked. Correlational failure and hard-wired response mechanisms can suffice. Furthermore, I offer a sketch of an explanatory understanding of content in terms of objectivity, arguing against the dominant overgeneralization of representation in terms of functional information-use. (© Adrian Wieczorek)