Pavlos Christodoulou - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Pavlos Christodoulou

In this chapter and the next I shall be considering two topics which are widely regarded as raisi... more In this chapter and the next I shall be considering two topics which are widely regarded as raising difficulties for physicalism. This chapter will be concerned with mental representation. The next chapter will deal with consciousness. It is not difficult to see why mental representation is often thought to present a problem for physicalism. Mental states like beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, and the other propositional attitudes have representational contents: they represent the world as being a certain way. But how can this be, if such mental states involve nothing more than physical states of the brain? If my belief that Lima is the capital of Peru is realized by an arrangement of neurones, then how does this belief manage to reach out across the world and latch on to a city I have never seen? How can a bank of neurones be about something outside my head? 1 Different ph ysicalist theories of mind, such as functionalism, or Davidsonian anomalous monism, or any of the many other physicalist accounts of mind currently on offer, will make this problem precise in rather different ways. However, since my aim in this chap ter is to defend a positive solution-the teleological theory of representation-which will be available to physicalists of all kinds, it will not matter greatly exactly which version of physicalism we start with. So I shall follow the pattern o f much recent literature, and start once more with functionalism. The overall plan of this chapter will be as follows. In the next section (3.2) I shall show how repesentation arises as a problem for functionalism, and offer the tel eological theory of representation as an initial solution. Then, after some brief comments about broad propositional attitudes (3.3), I shall elaborate some of the details of the teleological theory, in the course of answering the standard objection that some beliefs serve biological purposes even when they are false (3.4). This will prompt some discussion of the status of belief-desire psychology (3.5), and also show how the teleological theory incorporates, rather than competes with, the ide a that truth guarantees the satisfaction of desires (3.6). Sections 3.7-10 will then defend this satisfaction-guaranteeing component in the teleological theory against a number of objections, and will also consider some alternative theories which sh are this satisfaction-guaranteeing assumption, but do not incorporate it within a teleological context. After this I shall return to the issue of broad beliefs, showing how it is unsurprising, given the teleological theory, that beliefs and desiress hould fail to supervene on brain states (3.11-12). The final two sections of the chapter will then discuss the availability of empirical evidence for the teleological theory (3.13), and point out the radically anti-verificationist implications of th e theory (3.14). 3.2 Functionalism and Representation Functionalism views beliefs and desires and other mental states as internal causal intermediaries between perception and behaviour. For functionalism, w e might say, beliefs and desires are part of a system of internal pushes and pulls which explains why people behave as they do. This functionalist picture of mental states raises immediate questions about representation. After all, why should components in an internal causal structure be credited with representational powers? Surely an internal causal role is one thing, and a representational relationship to an (almost invariably) extra-cranial state of affairs another. Functionali sm seems to describe only the first, causal aspect of mental states, and to omit the second, representational aspect. As it is sometimes put, functionalism seems to give us only the "syntax" of mental states, and to leave out their "semantics". It is true that most versions of functionalism follow everyday practice and identify beliefs and desires in terms of "content clauses", as the belief that p, the desire that q, and so on. However, from the perspective of the rest of the functionalist package, this need only be viewed as the most convenient among many possible ways of indicating the causal structure of beliefs and desires, as one way of "labelling" causal

In this chapter and the next I shall be considering two topics which are widely regarded as raisi... more In this chapter and the next I shall be considering two topics which are widely regarded as raising difficulties for physicalism. This chapter will be concerned with mental representation. The next chapter will deal with consciousness. It is not difficult to see why mental representation is often thought to present a problem for physicalism. Mental states like beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, and the other propositional attitudes have representational contents: they represent the world as being a certain way. But how can this be, if such mental states involve nothing more than physical states of the brain? If my belief that Lima is the capital of Peru is realized by an arrangement of neurones, then how does this belief manage to reach out across the world and latch on to a city I have never seen? How can a bank of neurones be about something outside my head? 1 Different ph ysicalist theories of mind, such as functionalism, or Davidsonian anomalous monism, or any of the many other physicalist accounts of mind currently on offer, will make this problem precise in rather different ways. However, since my aim in this chap ter is to defend a positive solution-the teleological theory of representation-which will be available to physicalists of all kinds, it will not matter greatly exactly which version of physicalism we start with. So I shall follow the pattern o f much recent literature, and start once more with functionalism. The overall plan of this chapter will be as follows. In the next section (3.2) I shall show how repesentation arises as a problem for functionalism, and offer the tel eological theory of representation as an initial solution. Then, after some brief comments about broad propositional attitudes (3.3), I shall elaborate some of the details of the teleological theory, in the course of answering the standard objection that some beliefs serve biological purposes even when they are false (3.4). This will prompt some discussion of the status of belief-desire psychology (3.5), and also show how the teleological theory incorporates, rather than competes with, the ide a that truth guarantees the satisfaction of desires (3.6). Sections 3.7-10 will then defend this satisfaction-guaranteeing component in the teleological theory against a number of objections, and will also consider some alternative theories which sh are this satisfaction-guaranteeing assumption, but do not incorporate it within a teleological context. After this I shall return to the issue of broad beliefs, showing how it is unsurprising, given the teleological theory, that beliefs and desiress hould fail to supervene on brain states (3.11-12). The final two sections of the chapter will then discuss the availability of empirical evidence for the teleological theory (3.13), and point out the radically anti-verificationist implications of th e theory (3.14). 3.2 Functionalism and Representation Functionalism views beliefs and desires and other mental states as internal causal intermediaries between perception and behaviour. For functionalism, w e might say, beliefs and desires are part of a system of internal pushes and pulls which explains why people behave as they do. This functionalist picture of mental states raises immediate questions about representation. After all, why should components in an internal causal structure be credited with representational powers? Surely an internal causal role is one thing, and a representational relationship to an (almost invariably) extra-cranial state of affairs another. Functionali sm seems to describe only the first, causal aspect of mental states, and to omit the second, representational aspect. As it is sometimes put, functionalism seems to give us only the "syntax" of mental states, and to leave out their "semantics". It is true that most versions of functionalism follow everyday practice and identify beliefs and desires in terms of "content clauses", as the belief that p, the desire that q, and so on. However, from the perspective of the rest of the functionalist package, this need only be viewed as the most convenient among many possible ways of indicating the causal structure of beliefs and desires, as one way of "labelling" causal