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12Naturalistic Theories of ReferenceIn Michael Devitt & Richard Hanley (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language, Wiley-blackwell. 2006.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Original and Derived Meaning The Causal‐Historical Theory The Crude Causal Theory The Asymmetric Dependency Theory Teleosemantics Informational semantics.
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Types of Traits: Function, structure, and homology in the classification of traitsIn André Ariew, Robert Cummins & Mark Perlman (eds.), Functions: New Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology, Oxford University Press. 2002.
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78A Mark of the Mental: A Defence of Informational TeleosemanticsMIT Press. 2017.Drawing on insights from causal theories of reference, teleosemantics, and state space semantics, a theory of naturalized mental representation. In A Mark of the Mental, Karen Neander considers the representational power of mental states—described by the cognitive scientist Zenon Pylyshyn as the “second hardest puzzle” of philosophy of mind. The puzzle at the heart of the book is sometimes called “the problem of mental content,” “Brentano's problem,” or “the problem of intentionality.” Its motiv…Read more
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82Minds without Meanings: An Essay on the Content of ConceptsPhilosophical Review 126 (3): 410-417. 2017.
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146The division of phenomenal labor: A problem for representationalist theories of consciousnessPhilosophical Perspectives 12 411-34. 1998.
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2715. Types of Traits: The Importance of Functional HomologuesIn André Ariew, Robert Cummins & Mark Perlman (eds.), Functions: New Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology, Oxford University Press. pp. 390. 2002.
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136Pruning the tree of lifeBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (1): 59-80. 1995.argue that natural selection does not explain the genotypic arid phenotypic properties of individuals. On this view, natural selection explains the adaptedness of individuals, not by explaining why the individuals that exist have the adaptations they do, but rather by explaining why the individuals that exist are the ones with those adaptations. This paper argues that this ‘Negative’ view of natural selection ignores the fact that natural selection is a cumulative selection process. So understoo…Read more
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101What does natural selection explain? Correction to SoberPhilosophy of Science 55 (3): 422-426. 1988.In this paper I argue against Sober's claim that natural selection does not explain the traits of individuals. Sober argues that natural selection only explains the distribution of traits in a population. My point is that the explanation of an individual's traits involves us in a description of the individual's ancestry, and in an explanation of the distribution of traits in that ancestral population. Thus Sober is wrong, natural selection is part of the explanation of the traits of individuals
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24Fitness and the Fate of UnicornsIn Valerie Gray Hardcastle (ed.), Where Biology Meets Psychology: Philosophical Essays, Mit Press. 1999.
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156Biological Approaches to Mental RepresentationIn Christopher Stephens & Mohan Matthen (eds.), Elsevier Handbook in Philosophy of Biology, Elsevier. 2004.
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Types of traits. Function, structure, and homology in the classification of traitsIn André Ariew, Robert Cummins & Mark Perlman (eds.), Functions: New Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology, Oxford University Press. pp. 402--422. 2002.
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61Moths and metaphors. Review essay on organisms and artifacts: Design in nature and elsewhere by Tim Lewens (review)Biology and Philosophy 21 (4): 591-602. 2006.
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290Explaining Complex Adaptations: A Reply to Sober’s ”Reply to Neander’British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (4): 583-587. 1995.
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168Are homologies (selected effect or causal role) function free?Philosophy of Science 76 (3): 307-334. 2009.This article argues that at least very many judgments of homology rest on prior attributions of selected‐effect (SE) function, and that many of the “parts” of biological systems that are rightly classified as homologous are constituted by (are so classified in virtue of) their consequence etiologies. We claim that SE functions are often used in the prior identification of the parts deemed to be homologous and are often used to differentiate more restricted homologous kinds within less restricted…Read more
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76The function of cognition: Godfrey-Smith's environmental complexity thesis (review)Biology and Philosophy 12 (4): 567-580. 1997.
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1J. Haugeland: "Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea" (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 66 (n/a): 269. 1988.
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5. Content for Cognitive ScienceIn Graham Macdonald & David Papineau (eds.), Teleosemantics: New Philo-sophical Essays, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2006.
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445The teleological notion of 'function'Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (4). 1991.This Article does not have an abstract
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158Solving the Circularity Problem for Functions: A Response to NanayJournal of Philosophy 109 (10): 613-622. 2012.
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156Functional analysis and the species designSynthese 194 (4). 2017.This paper argues that a minimal notion of function and a notion of normal-proper function are used in explaining how bodies and brains operate. Neither is Cummins’ notion, as originally defined, and yet his is often taken to be the clearly relevant notion for such an explanatory context. This paper also explains how adverting to normal-proper functions, even if these are selected functions, can play a significant scientific role in the operational explanations of complex systems that physiologi…Read more
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114Pictorial representation: A matter of resemblanceBritish Journal of Aesthetics 27 (3): 213-226. 1987.
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Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Biology |