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Explaining how to perceive the new: causal-informational teleosemantics and productive response functions

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Abstract

According to Karen Neander’s causal-informational teleosemantics, the contents of perceptual states depend on the etiological response functions of sensory-perceptual systems. In this paper, I argue that this theory is, despite its virtues, unable to explain how humans and other animals are capable of perceiving properties with which no sensory-perceptual system has ever been confronted. After rejecting Neander’s own proposal in terms of second-order similarity and a proposal inspired by Ruth Millikan in terms of simplicity, I offer a solution which equates functions with manifestations of dispositions that made a difference to evolutionary success. My suggestion is able to generate determinate and plausible contents for new perceptual states while still preserving the idea that etiological functions explain evolutionary success.

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Notes

  1. Since this paper is not concerned with conceptual perceptual representations, the qualification ‘nonconceptual’ will be omitted from now on.

  2. This requires the perceptual system in question to fulfill the following three conditions. (1) There is a range of determinates of an inner determinable (e.g., the firing rate of one or many neurons, the strength of synaptic connections). (2) There is a range of determinates of an outer determinable (e.g., frequency of sound, distance to the object, amount of pressure). (3) There is a semantic mapping between inner and outer determinates.

  3. Since the toy visual system is only an illustration, it is irrelevant for the matter at hand whether the states of single neurons should be regarded as representations in the first place. See Cao (2012) for an argument to the contrary.

  4. Justin Garson (2019; Garson and Papineau 2019) shows that perceptual learning can be accounted for by causal-informational teleosemantics by taking neural selection into account.

  5. Please note that Neander’s theory of functions varies in some respects from the standard version, as I will discuss in Sect. 5.

  6. In order for the second-order similarity requirement to exclude only non-ordinal but not non-linear perceptual semantic mappings, it should be understood as follows: three determinate representations are chosen arbitrarily from a determinable R and then assigned to the variables Rx, Ry and Rz so that Rx has the lowest or highest X-value of these determinates.

  7. For example, the function to respond to a wavelength between 380 and 755 nm except for 479 nm by producing a neural activity of x2/20,000 Hz and to respond to a wavelength of 479 nm by producing a neural activity of \(2. 0 6 9 7\sqrt x - 33 . 7 8\) Hz.

  8. The relevant functions are (a) to respond to wavelengths of x between 380 and 755 nm by producing a neural activity of x2/20,000 Hz and (b) to respond to wavelengths of x between 380 and 450 nm and between 612.5 nm by producing a neural activity of x2/20,000 Hz and to respond to wavelengths of x between 450 and 612.5 nm by producing a neural activity of \(2. 0 6 9 7\sqrt{x} - 33 . 7 8\) Hz.

  9. For example, human hearts beat at a certain speed, depending on inputs from the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system, among other things. Whether a specific heart rate produced in response to inputs constitutes a malfunction, however, does not depend on the question whether this specific rate or the given inputs have been present before.

  10. So strictly speaking, Neander’s theory of content is CDAT together with a selected disposition theory of functions. But as we will see in Sect. 6, this is not sufficient to explain perceptual productivity.

  11. E.g., to wavelengths of x between 380 and 450 nm by producing a neural activity of x2/20,000 Hz and to wavelengths of x between 450 and 612.5 nm by producing a neural activity of \(2. 0 6 9 7\sqrt x - 33 . 7 8\) Hz.

  12. In my view, an analogous problem arises for Shea (2013, p. 74ff.) who aims to explain productivity within the framework of Millikan’s Biosemantics. But addressing this issue is beyond the scope of this paper.

  13. See Menzies (2004, Sect. 5f., 2007, Sects. 8.4–8.7) for a detailed answer to the question of which possible situations count as relevantly similar.

  14. Of course, there are also cases where condition (i) is not fulfilled, because the candidate explanation is too coarse-grained. But these cases are not relevant here.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Marc Artiga, Max Beninger, Justin Garson, Michal Hladky, Marie Kaiser, Steven Kindley, Brian Leahy, Karen Neander, Christian Nimtz, Peter Schulte, Rose Trappes and the audiences in Bergen, Bielefeld, Munich, Osnabrück and Vienna for valuable comments on previous versions of this paper. This research was supported by the project ‘Advancing Teleosemantics’ (SCHU 2860/2-1, NI 1320/2-1) and the SFB TRR 212 (NC3) (INST 215/531-1), both funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

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  1. Abteilung Philosophie, Universität Bielefeld, Postfach 10 01 31, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany

    Fabian Hundertmark

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Hundertmark, F. Explaining how to perceive the new: causal-informational teleosemantics and productive response functions. Synthese 198, 5335–5350 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02406-3

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