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Is Representation Rife?
Author(s) -
Papineau David
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
ratio
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-9329
pISSN - 0034-0006
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9329.00210
Subject(s) - realm , representation (politics) , perspective (graphical) , epistemology , simple (philosophy) , code (set theory) , psychology , cognitive science , sociology , philosophy , computer science , artificial intelligence , political science , law , set (abstract data type) , politics , programming language
This paper applies a teleosemantic perspective to the question of whether there is genuine representation outside the familiar realm of belief‐desire psychology. I first explain how teleosemantics accounts for the representational powers of beliefs and desires themselves. I then ask whether biological states which are simpler than beliefs and desires can also have representational powers. My conclusion is that such biologically simple states can be ascribed representational contents, but only in a system‐relative way: such states must be ascribed varying contents when viewed as components in different biological systems. I conclude by arguing that ‘the genetic code’ does not even embody this kind of system‐relative representation.