Andrew Rubner

This paper addresses a long-standing debate concerning the information-conveying function of sensory systems. The debate comes into focus with sensory systems in their most elemental form. These most basic systems consist of structurally distinct receptor (input) and effector (output) units. The receptor element has evolved under selective pressure exerted by an environmental stimulus and the effector has evolved under selective pressure exerted by a positive or negative affordance (a resource or threat). Take, for example, moth auditory systems dedicated to responding to the threat of predation posed by bats: the input side has been shaped by high-frequency sound, while the output (flight response) is adapted to the threat. When a sensory system has been shaped in this way by both a stimulus and an affordance, we face a question fraught with controversy. Does the system have the job of reporting on the stimulus or the affordance? Karen Neander has argued convincingly that the viewpoint from mainstream cognitive science supports the stimulus answer. The aim of this paper is to show that basic sensory systems also channel information about affordances. The argument of the paper draws on foundational assumptions of sensory ecology, a branch of biology concerned with the informational needs of organisms and how organisms have evolved to satisfy these needs. The viewpoint from sensory ecology complements the perspective familiar from cognitive science, revealing a critical role for sensory information about affordances.

According to contemporary consensus, physical probabilities may be “non-uniform”: they need not correspond to a uniform measure over the space of physically possible worlds. Against consensus, I argue that only uniform probabilities connect robustly to long-run frequencies. Suppose, for example, that a uniform measure assigns a probability of x to a coin landing Heads on any given toss (independently of the outcomes on other tosses). Then, in almost all physically possible worlds containing many tosses, the frequency of Heads outcomes approximates x. Thus, if the physical probability of Heads is not x, the frequency deviates from this probability in almost all physically possible worlds. But this would undermine the robust connection between long-run frequencies and physical probabilities. Conclusion: the uniform measure assigns the correct physical probability to Heads outcomes! This paper makes the argument rigorous and general, and evaluates its significance.

Neuroscience lacks a standard conceptual framework for interpreting and reporting experimental results. Consequently, the neuroscience literature is full of heterogeneous “filler verbs” (‘underlying’, ‘supporting’, etc.) linking neural activity with cognition. In this paper, I focus on the possibility that mental phenomena are “realized” in the brain. I begin by examining how philosophers have explicated the realization relation, drawing out two conditions that are common across accounts: metaphysical sufficiency and synchrony. I then develop a two-pronged argument. At the mesoscale of neural circuits, sufficiency fails. At the macroscale of multi-circuit mechanisms, synchrony fails. There is no empirical evidence of mental processes synchronized with neural mechanisms, and none is forthcoming given actual research practices in neuroscience. A major upshot is that we should not expect the same terminology to be suitable for theorizing about the mind in both philosophy and science.

The language of thought hypothesis (LoTH) claims that thoughts are underpinned by language-like vehicles. A central motivation is that there is a relevant similarity between language and thought explained by LoTH. But how language-like is the language of thought? I argue that this question has no obvious answer—many candidate answers render LoTH trivial or false. Thus LoTH faces a similarity problem: the challenge of fleshing out the similarity between natural language and the language of thought. There are two promising solutions to this problem: conservatism and liberalism. Conservatism is the received view. It says the language of thought is similar to natural language only insofar as it features propositional contents. I challenge the received view by defending liberalism—the view that the language of thought can feature both propositional and non-propositional contents. Liberalism should be preferred on empirical and theoretical grounds. I conclude by showing liberalism has broader consequences for other philosophical issues, such as the nature of concepts, Frege’s Puzzle, and the possibility of non-propositional intentionality.

Functionalism, the doctrine that tokens realize types in virtue of filling a functional role, remains a dominant view in the metaphysics of mind and of science. At the heart of the view is the concept of filling a functional role. Despite this importance, the dominant conception of filling a functional role, the subset approach, has some well-known problems and a comprehensive alternative is needed to replace it. In this paper, I present a novel account of filling a functional role, the multiple action account. On the multiple action account, a token fills the functional role of some type by having a possibly distinct functional role. For some Y that is part of some type’s functional role, a token does Y by doing X, some part of the token’s functional role. I defend the ‘by test’ for determining when a token does Y by doing X. I conclude with an exploration and defense of three important implications of this view: first, that there are essentially functional properties; second, that some token can have a range of causal properties, including some that belong to essentially functional types and some that do not; and third, that there are important modal differences in the various things that a token does.

This essay introduces and explores the problem of making sense of God’s actions, particularly as it manifests in Ted Chiang’s short story Hell Is the Absence of God. The problems of evil and of undeserved reward and punishment are cast as special cases of the problem of making sense of God’s actions. The essay explores the different ways various characters in the story encounter and grapple with the problem. Finally, I argue that the setup in Chiang’s story undercuts certain prominent replies against the problem of evil, such as the free will and mysterious ways defenses.

Not all actions are intentional actions. What separates merely doing something from intentionally doing something? One point of separation seems to be luck. Too much luck, or luck of a certain variety, seems to undermine the possibility of acting intentionally. This naturally leads to the idea that intentional action presupposes reliable success. I argue against this idea. Taking inspiration from Gareth Evans’ account of singular thought, I argue that what separates mere action from intentional action in lucky successes is a difference in one's discriminative capacity. In order to intentionally act, an agent must possess the capacity to discriminate successful ways of doing what they try to do from ways of failing to do what they try to do.