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Peter Schulte [20]Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte [13]
  1. Teleological theories of mental content.Peter Schulte & Karen Neander - 2022 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  2. Perceiving the World Outside: How to Solve the Distality Problem for Informational Teleosemantics.Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2018 - Philosophical Quarterly 68 (271):349-369.
    Perceptual representations have distal content: they represent external objects and their properties, not light waves or retinal images. This basic fact presents a fundamental problem for ‘input-oriented’ theories of perceptual content. As I show in the first part of this paper, this even holds for what is arguably the most sophisticated input-oriented theory to date, namely Karen Neander's informational teleosemantics. In the second part of the paper, I develop a new version of informational teleosemantics, drawing partly on empirical psychology, and (...)
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  3. The nature of perceptual constancies.Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (1):3-20.
    Perceptual constancies have been studied by psychologists for decades, but in recent years, they have also become a major topic in the philosophy of mind. One reason for this surge of interest is Tyler Burge’s (2010) influential claim that constancy mechanisms mark the difference between perception and mere sensitivity, and thereby also the difference between organisms with genuine representational capacities and ‘mindless’ beings. Burge’s claim has been the subject of intense debate. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that we cannot (...)
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  4. Perceptual representations: a teleosemantic answer to the breadth-of-application problem.Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2015 - Biology and Philosophy 30 (1):119-136.
    Teleosemantic theories of representation are often criticized as being “too liberal”, i.e. as categorizing states as representations which are not representational at all. Recently, a powerful version of this objection has been put forth by Tyler Burge. Focusing on perception, Burge defends the claim that all teleosemantic theories apply too broadly, thereby missing what is distinctive about representation. Contra Burge, I will argue in this paper that there is a teleosemantic account of perceptual states that does not fall prey to (...)
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  5. Why mental content is not like water: reconsidering the reductive claims of teleosemantics.Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2020 - Synthese 197 (5):2271-2290.
    According to standard teleosemantics, intentional states are selectional states. This claim is put forward not as a conceptual analysis, but as a ‘theoretical reduction’—an a posteriori hypothesis analogous to ‘water = H2O’. Critics have tried to show that this meta-theoretical conception of teleosemantics leads to unacceptable consequences. In this paper, I argue that there is indeed a fundamental problem with the water/H2O analogy, as it is usually construed, and that teleosemanticists should therefore reject it. Fortunately, there exists a viable alternative (...)
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  6.  45
    Mental content.Peter Schulte - 2023 - Cambridge University Press.
    This Element provides a comprehensive introduction to contemporary theories of mental content. After clarifying central concepts and identifying the questions that dominate the current debate, it presents and discusses the principal accounts of the nature of mental content (or mental representation), which include causal, informational, teleological and structuralist approaches, alongside the phenomenal intentionality approach and the intentional stance theory. Additionally, it examines anti-representationalist accounts which question either the existence or the explanatory relevance of mental content. Finally, the Element concludes by (...)
  7. Truthmakers: A tale of two explanatory projects.Peter Schulte - 2011 - Synthese 181 (3):413-431.
    Truthmakers are supposed to explain the truth of propositions, but it is unclear what kind of explanation truthmakers can provide. In this paper, I argue that ‘truthmaker explanations’ conflate two different explanatory projects. The first project is essentially concerned with truth, while the second project is concerned with reductive explanation. It is the latter project, I maintain, which is really central to truthmaking theory. On this basis, a general account of truthmaking can be formulated, which, when combined with a specific (...)
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  8. Grounding Nominalism.Peter Schulte - 2018 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 100 (2):482-505.
    The notion of grounding has gained increasing acceptance among metaphysicians in recent years. In this paper, I argue that this notion can be used to formulate a very attractive version of (property) nominalism, a view that I call ‘grounding nominalism’. Simplifying somewhat, this is the view that all properties are grounded in things. I argue that this view is coherent and has a decisive advantage over competing versions of nominalism: it allows us to accept properties as real, while fully accommodating (...)
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  9. How AI Systems Can Be Blameworthy.Hannah Altehenger, Leonhard Menges & Peter Schulte - 2024 - Philosophia (4):1-24.
    AI systems, like self-driving cars, healthcare robots, or Autonomous Weapon Systems, already play an increasingly important role in our lives and will do so to an even greater extent in the near future. This raises a fundamental philosophical question: who is morally responsible when such systems cause unjustified harm? In the paper, we argue for the admittedly surprising claim that some of these systems can themselves be morally responsible for their conduct in an important and everyday sense of the term—the (...)
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  10. How Frogs See the World: Putting Millikan’s Teleosemantics to the Test.Peter Schulte - 2012 - Philosophia 40 (3):483-496.
    How do frogs represent their prey? This question has been the focus of many debates among proponents of naturalistic theories of content, especially among proponents of teleosemantics. This is because alternative versions of the teleosemantic approach have different implications for the content of frog representations, and it is still controversial which of these content ascriptions (if any) is the most adequate. Theorists often appeal to intuitions here, but this is a dubious strategy. In this paper, I suggest an alternative, empirical (...)
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  11. (1 other version)Can Truthmaker Theorists Claim Ontological Free Lunches?Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2011 - European Journal of Philosophy 22 (2):249-268.
    Truthmaker theorists hold that propositions about higher-level entities (e.g. the proposition that there is a heap of sand) are often made true by lower-level entities (e.g. by facts about the configuration of fundamental particles). This generates a problem: what should we say about these higher-level entities? On the one hand, they must exist (since there are true propositions about them), on the other hand, it seems that they are completely superfluous and should be banished for reasons of ontological parsimony. Some (...)
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  12.  71
    Challenging Liberal Representationalism: A Reply to Artiga.Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2019 - Dialectica 73 (3):331-348.
    Liberal representationalism is the view that even some internal states of very simple organisms like plants or bacteria count as genuine representations. This view has been heavily criticized by many authors, including myself. In a recent paper, Marc Artiga attempts to defend liberal representationalism against these criticisms. One of his main targets is an argument of explanatory exclusion that he ascribes to Burge, Ramsey, Rescorla, Sterelny and me (among others). In this paper, I reply to Artiga by distinguishing the exclusion (...)
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  13.  80
    No Functions for Rocks: Garson’s Generalized Selected Effects Theory and the Liberality Problem.Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2021 - Analysis 81 (2):369-378.
    1. IntroductionIn What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter, Justin Garson offers a novel theory of biological functions, the generalized selected effects (GSE) theory.1 He presents the theory in a clear and comprehensive way, defends it against various objections and applies it to different areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of psychiatry, the debate about mechanisms and the debate about teleosemantic theories of mental content.2Like other proponents of the aetiological approach to functions, Garson maintains that a trait’s biological functions (...)
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  14. Naturalizing the content of desire.Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (1):161-174.
    Desires, or directive representations, are central components of human and animal minds. Nevertheless, desires are largely neglected in current debates about the naturalization of representational content. Most naturalists seem to assume that some version of the standard teleological approach, which identifies the content of a desire with a specific kind of effect that the desire has the function of producing, will turn out to be correct. In this paper I argue, first, that this common assumption is unjustified, since the standard (...)
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  15. The Structuring Causes of Behavior: Has Dretske Saved Mental Causation?Frank Hofmann & Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2014 - Acta Analytica 29 (3):267-284.
    Fred Dretske’s account of mental causation, developed in Explaining Behavior and defended in numerous articles, is generally regarded as one of the most interesting and most ambitious approaches in the field. According to Dretske, meaning facts, construed historically as facts about the indicator functions of internal states, are the structuring causes of behavior. In this article, we argue that Dretske’s view is untenable: On closer examination, the real structuring causes of behavior turn out to be markedly different from Dretske’s meaning (...)
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  16. Beyond Verbal Disputes: The Compatibilism Debate Revisited.Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (3):669-685.
    The compatibilism debate revolves around the question whether moral responsibility and free will are compatible with determinism. Prima facie, this seems to be a substantial issue. But according to the triviality objection, the disagreement is merely verbal: compatibilists and incompatibilists, it is maintained, are talking past each other, since they use the terms “free will” and “moral responsibility” in different senses. In this paper I argue, first, that the triviality objection is indeed a formidable one and that the standard replies (...)
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  17.  81
    Constancy Mechanisms and Distal Content: a Reply to Garson.Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - 2021 - Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1):229-237.
    Sensory perceptions represent things in the outside world. This mundane fact raises a major problem for naturalistic theories of content: the ‘distality problem’. In a previous paper for this journal, I presented a solution to this problem which makes central appeal to constancy mechanisms. Justin Garson, also in this journal, recently criticized my solution and suggested a Dretskean alternative to it. Here, I defend my proposal by arguing, first, that Garson's criticisms ultimately miss the mark, and secondly, that his Dretskean (...)
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  18.  11
    Inneres Sprechen und die Sprache des Geistes: Ein Kommentar zu Language, Cognition, and the Way We Think.Peter Schulte - 2024 - Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 78 (3):442-446.
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  19. The Difference Between Moral and Rational “Oughts”: An Expressivist Account.Peter Schulte - 2012 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (2):159-174.
    Morality and rationality are both normative: the moral claim “you ought to help others” is a genuine normative judgment, as well as the rational maxim “you ought to brush your teeth twice a day”. But it seems that there is a crucial difference these two judgments. In the first part of this paper, I argue that this difference is to be understood as a difference between two kinds of normativity: demanding and recommending normativity. But the crucial task is, of course, (...)
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  20.  62
    Teleosemantik weitergedacht. Über Grundlagen, Probleme, neue Entwicklungen.Peter Schulte & Fabian Hundertmark - 2019 - Information Philosophie 3:18-31.
  21.  35
    Worum geht es in der Kompatibilismusdebatte?Peter Schulte - 2012 - Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 66 (2):310-334.
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  22. Sammelband: Glaube und Rationalität - Gibt es gute Gründe für den (A)theismus?Romy Jaster & Peter Schulte - 2019 - Münster, Deutschland: mentis.
    Menschen glauben aus den unterschiedlichsten Gründen an Gott. Aber ist dieser Glaube rational gerechtfertigt? In diesem Band streiten führende Religionsphilosoph/-innen um die Frage, ob die besten Gründe für oder gegen den Theismus sprechen. Einige Beiträge unterziehen klassische Argumente für bzw. gegen die Existenz Gottes einer neuen Betrachtung. Andere gehen der Frage nach, welche Bedingungen eigentlich erfüllt sein müssen, damit die Überzeugung, Gott existiere, als vernünftig angesehen werden kann. Gelten hier dieselben Standards wie bei Überzeugungen über die Existenz von Quasaren? Oder (...)
     
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  23.  23
    Glaube und Rationalität - Gibt es gute Gründe für den (A)theismus?Peter Schulte & Romy Jaster (eds.) - 2019 - Mentis.
    "Menschen glauben aus den unterschiedlichsten Gründen an Gott. Aber ist dieser Glaube rational gerechtfertigt? In diesem Band streiten führende Religionsphilosoph/-innen um die Frage, ob die besten Gründe für oder gegen den Theismus sprechen. Einige Beiträge unterziehen klassische Argumente für bzw. gegen die Existenz Gottes einer neuen Betrachtung. Andere gehen der Frage nach, welche Bedingungen eigentlich erfüllt sein müssen, damit die Überzeugung, Gott existiere, als vernünftig angesehen werden kann. Gelten hier dieselben Standards wie bei Überzeugungen über die Existenz von Quasaren? Oder (...)
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  24. How to link particulars to universals: Four versions of Bradley's regress refuted.Peter Schulte - 2007 - Philosophia Naturalis 44 (2):219-237.
    It is often claimed that Realism about universals is problematic because it cannot account for the relation between particulars and universals without falling prey to ,,Bradley's regress". In this article, I consider four different versions of this regress argument (the semantic regress, the explanatory regress, the ,One over Many' regress, and the truthmaker regress), each based on a different ,regress-generating' assumption. I argue that none of these arguments succeeds in refuting Realism. Still, I contend that two interesting conclusions can be (...)
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  25.  45
    Plädoyer für einen physikalistischen Naturalismus.Peter Schulte - 2010 - Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 64 (2):165-189.
    Naturalisten stehen heute vor zwei großen Herausforderungen: Sie müssen zunächst präzisieren, was sie mit dem Ausdruck „Naturalismus“ meinen, und ihre Position anschließend plausibel begründen. Gegner des Naturalismus haben in den letzten Jahren immer wieder zu zeigen versucht, dass der Naturalist diesen Herausforderungen nicht gerecht werden kann. Ich argumentiere in diesem Artikel dafür, dass traditionelle Formulierungen der Naturalismusthese tatsächlich problematisch sind, dass es aber einen Ausweg für den Naturalisten gibt: Er kann natürliche Entitäten durch ihre besondere Beziehung zu physikalischen Tatsachen charakterisieren. (...)
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  26.  15
    Philosophy of Plant Cognition: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.Gabriele Ferretti, Peter Schulte & Markus Wild (eds.) - 2024 - Routledge.
    This volume features new research about the philosophy of plant intelligence and plant cognition, one of the most intriguing and complex current debates at the intersection of biology, cognitive science and philosophy. The debate about plant cognition is marked by deep disagreements. Some theorists are confident that the empirical evidence supports the ascription of cognitive capacities to plants. Others hold that such claims are overblown, and defend more traditional, non-cognitive accounts of plant behavior. Still others seek to formulate intermediate positions. (...)
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  27. Was ist instrumentelle Irrationalität?Peter Schulte - 2009 - Studia Philosophica: Jahrbuch Der Schweizerischen Philosoph Ischen Gesellschaft, Annuaire de la Société Suisse de Philosphie 68:85-104.
    In this paper, I start from the observation that there are obvious instances of instrumental irrationality, i.e. cases where subjects act knowingly against their strongest preferences. This observation raises an important question: Which facts determine the ‘strength’ of preferences? I consider a standard answer to this question – ‘revealed preference theory’– which turns out to be unsatisfactory. Then I turn to a more promising alternative: the ‘higher order theory’ of preference strength. But this proposal also faces a major problem, the (...)
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  28.  32
    Willensfreiheit und Aufmerksamkeit bei Descartes.Peter Schulte - 2017 - Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 71 (1):5-36.
    The claims about free will that Descartes makes in his writings seem, at first glance, to be inconsistent. In recent years, several authors have argued that we can dissolve the apparent contradiction by taking a closer look at the role that attention plays in Descartes’s theory of the processes of judging and deciding. Prima facie, this exegetical approach seems promising, thus its considerable influence is understandable. Nevertheless, I aim to show that the approach is doomed to failure, since its proponents (...)
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  29.  11
    Zwecke und Mittel in einer natürlichen Welt: instrumentelle Rationalität als Problem für den Naturalismus?Peter Schulte - 2010 - Paderborn: Mentis.
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  30.  21
    Review of: "Femmes finales: natural selection, physiology, and the return of the repressed". [REVIEW]Peter Https://Orcidorg288X Schulte - unknown
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  31. Breaking the Spell. Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. [REVIEW]Peter Schulte - 2006 - Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 60 (3).
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  32. Die Frage nach Gott. [REVIEW]Peter Schulte - 2007 - Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 61 (1).
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