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  • 标题:Bio-semantics, ecology and content ascription
  • 本地全文:下载
  • 作者:Alejandro Rosas
  • 期刊名称:Saga - Revista de Estudiantes de Filosofía
  • 印刷版ISSN:0124-8480
  • 出版年度:2011
  • 卷号:12
  • 期号:23
  • 页码:23-34
  • 语种:English
  • 出版社:Universidad Nacional de Colombia
  • 摘要:Advocates of bio-semantics propose that the content of representations be fixed with reference to their biological function. A legitimate plurality of etiological functions for a given representation, however, stands in the way of fixing content. Attempts to overcome this problem for content ascription with a counterfactual argument have been accused of misusing the selection for/selection of distinction. I reconstruct the counterfactual argument in the context of the constraints on evolutionary design that underlie an ecological theory of selection pressures. I then argue that these constraints assign a modest role to etiological function in a method for content ascription. But it requires abandoning the claim that a priori thinking in terms of etiological function will solve content ascription; in particular, it cannot replace cognitive theory and experimentation. As behavioural ecologists have warned, biological functions should not be too quickly translated into proximate, in particular perceptual, mechanisms.
  • 关键词:Bio-semantics;Content;Etiological functions;Ecology;Neander;Representations
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