BIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO MENTAL
REPRESENTATION
Karen Neander
1 THE PROBLEM OF INTENTIONALITYTeleosemantics is a biologically inspired, some of us would like to say biologically
informed, approach to the philosophical problem of intentionality. Whether it will
prove right or fruitful in the long run is an issue with significant implications not
only for issues in philosophy of mind but also for the relations between biology
and psychology and for the nature of neuroscience.
While recognition of the problem of intentionality is arguably ancient, it has
most famously been stated by the 19th century Austrian philosopher, Franz
Brentano. As Brentano [1874, p. 112] says,
Nothing can be judged, desired, hoped or feared, unless one has a
presentation of that thing.... [W]henever we desire something...
we have before our minds that which we desire.In Brentano’s terms, desiring wine involves a presentation of wine. More gen-
erally, he says, you cannot have any mental attitude toward a thing unless it is
present to your mind. You cannot hope, doubt, taste, believe or remember that
the wine is fruity unless the wine and its being fruity is present to your mind.
However, as Brentano emphasized, a thing need not be present in the ordinary
sense to be present to your mind. The wine must be present if you are to taste it,
but you can hope, doubt, believe or remember that it is fruity in its absence. We
can think about Black Holes and polar bears when none are nearby. We can wish
for the fountain of youth or a cure for cancer even if there is no fountain of youth
or cure for cancer. In what way, then, is the object of our thought ‘present’ at all?
By a presentation of a thing Brentano tells us that he means reference to content.
The thing is ‘present’, as we would nowadays express it, only in so far as it is
represented. But these are just more words to describe the same phenomenon:
How do minds and brains represent things? What is reference to content?
Teleosemantic theories (extensively defended by Millikan [1984; 1989a; 2000],
Papineau [1984; 1987; 1993], Dretske [1986; 1988; 1994], and others) are a diverse
range of answers to this question, but each teleosemantic theory maintains that the
answer involves a (in a certain sense to be explained) normative and teleological
General editors: Dov M. Gabbay,
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Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Philosophy of Biology
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