Mental Representation and Closely Conflated Topics Angela Mendelovici A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of Princeton University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Recommended for Acceptance by the Department of Philosophy Primary advisor: Frank Jackson Secondary advisor: Gilbert Harman September, 2010 c Copyright 2010 by Angela Mendelovici. All rights reserved. For my mother, my father, and my grandmother. Abstract Part I of the dissertation argues for the production view of mental represen- tation, on which that mental representation is a product of the mind rather than a relation to things in the world. I argue that the production view allows us to make best sense of cases of reliable misrepresentation. I also argue that there are various theoretical benefits of distinguishing representation from the tracking and other relations that representations might enter into. Part II is about the relationship between representational content and phenomenal character, the \what it's like" to be in certain states. I argue for what I call the phenomenal-intentional identity theory (PIIT), the view that phenomenal character is identical with representational content. In the course of arguing for PIIT, I argue that we need to distinguish representational content from what we might call \computational content," the type of content a state might be said to have solely in virtue of its role in a computational system. Part III of the dissertation presents a view of the structure and content of concepts: the efficient concept view. On this view, concepts are structurally simpler and represent less complex contents than is usually thought, but can be unpacked to yield further related contents when needed. We can define various notions of derived content that capture these related contents. I argue that these notions of derived content can do much of the work that the notion of content was initially supposed to do. For instance, I claim that the type of content most closely related to folk psychological notions of content is a species of derived content. As a result, when we are interested in the truth-value of our thoughts, what we happen to be interested in is the truth conditions of a type of derived content, not of content proper. The view that emerges is one on which mental representation does not play all the roles it is often thought to play, such as roles in computational or folk-psychological theories of mind and behavior, or roles in metaphysical theories of truth and reference. Rather, it turns out that these roles are played by other features of mental states, each crucial for understanding the mind and its place in nature, and each importantly related to mental representation. iv Acknowledgements This dissertation has benefited tremendously from countless interactions with friends and colleagues at Princeton and elsewhere. Embryonic versions of various ideas in this dissertation have been presented at various conferences, colloquia, and other forums at Princeton University, the Australasian Asso- ciation of Philosophy, the Australian National University, the University of Waterloo, the University of Western Ontario, Cornell University, the Uni- versity of Washington at St. Louis, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Toronto, the University of Minnesota, and CUNY. I thank the audiences at those talks, and my commentators David Ivy, Mark Herr, Janette Dinishak, and Mike Collins for their probing comments. Many people have provided detailed and incisive written comments on one or more chapters of this dissertation. I am grateful to Paul Benacerraf, Matt Ishida, David Pitt, Vanessa Schouten, Jack Spencer, Helen Yetter, Joshua Hershey, Corey Maley, Andrew Huddleston, Caleb Cohoe, Jeff Speaks, Uriah Kriegel, Cathal O´ Madag´ainand Heather Logue. I am especially indebted to James V. Martin, Philipp Koralus, and Jack Woods, who have provided extensive comments on multiple drafts of multiple chapters and who constantly challenge my views. I am also grateful for various meetings and discussions that have helped me see many issues in a new light. For these I thank Derek Baker, Mark Budolfson, David Chalmers, Tim Crane, Kati Farkas, Bill Fish, Bas van Fraassen, Tamar Gendler, Josh Knobe, John Maier, Matthew Moss, and Susanna Schellenberg. My greatest debt is to my advisors, Frank Jackson and Gilbert Harman, for reading multiple versions of many chapters, as well as versions of chapters that never made it to the final copy, for offering guidance, and for fully supporting me, despite not always fully agreeing with my views. Finally, I thank my friends and family, especially my parents, Sam Baker, Corinne Gartner, Elizabeth Ktorides, James V. Martin, Carla Merino, Vanessa Schouten, and Jack Woods, for their emotional and intellectual support throughout the past few years. And as usual, all remaining mistakes are solely my own. v Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements v Contents vi List of Figures x List of Tables xi I The Production View 1 1 Introduction 2 2 The Problem of Mental Representation 6 2.1 Mental representation is a phenomenon . .6 2.2 Other ways of approaching the problem of mental representation 8 2.2.1 Folk psychology . .9 2.2.2 Cognitive science . 10 2.2.3 Getting around in the world . 11 2.2.4 Assessability for truth or accuracy . 12 2.2.5 Intentionality or directedness . 15 2.3 Objections . 15 2.3.1 Perception and thought . 15 2.3.2 \Raw matter" and interpretation . 17 2.4 Why we're not just talking past each other . 18 2.5 The other putative features of mental representation . 18 3 The Metaphysical Problem with Relation Views 20 4 The Possibility of Reliable Misrepresentation 28 4.1 Reliable misrepresentation . 28 4.2 Tracking theories of mental representation . 31 4.3 The problem for tracking theories . 33 4.4 The problem for non-tracking relation views . 36 vi 4.5 Conclusion . 38 5 Actual Cases of Reliable Misrepresentation 39 5.1 Mismatch cases . 39 5.1.1 How to find out what representations represent . 40 5.1.2 Three mismatch cases . 41 5.1.3 Other perceptual mismatch cases . 51 5.1.4 Non-perceptual mismatch cases . 52 5.1.5 Another argument against tracking theories . 55 5.1.6 Responses . 55 5.2 From a mismatch case to anti-realism . 59 5.2.1 From a mismatch case to a debunking argument . 61 5.2.2 A lack of further evidence . 67 5.2.3 From a lack of evidence to anti-realism . 68 5.2.4 For those already committed to a non-tracking relation view . 68 5.3 Conclusion . 71 6 The Significance of Tracking 72 6.1 Types of reliable misrepresentation . 72 6.2 Tracking contributes to successful behavior . 73 6.3 Notions of success other than veridicality . 74 6.4 Conclusion . 77 II The Phenomenal-Intentional Identity Theory 78 7 The Phenomenal-Intentional Identity Theory 79 7.1 Introduction . 79 7.2 Motivations for some identity claim . 81 7.2.1 Introspection reveals one mental feature . 81 7.2.2 An impressive correlation . 82 7.2.3 A unified theory of mind . 84 7.3 Putative counterexamples to intentionalism . 84 7.3.1 Challenges arising from unavailable contents: Pain . 85 7.3.2 Non-perceptual states . 89 7.4 Putative counterexamples to the phenomenal intentionality theory . 103 7.4.1 Non-conscious states . 103 7.4.2 Thoughts . 104 7.5 PIIT . 110 8 Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mental Representation 111 8.1 Introduction . 111 8.2 Ontological naturalism . 112 8.2.1 Science as delivering an ontology . 113 vii 8.2.2 Science as offering examples of successful explanations 117 8.3 Methodological naturalism . 119 8.4 Naturalism and mental representation . 120 8.4.1 Going with the evidence . 121 8.4.2 Predicting new evidence . 121 8.4.3 Reductionism: The time and the place . 121 III The Efficient Concept View 124 9 Introduction to Part III 125 10 The Efficient Concept View 129 10.1 Introduction . 129 10.2 For the efficient concept view . 130 10.2.1 For (Simpler Vehicles).................. 136 10.2.2 Unpacking . 143 10.2.3 For (Simpler Contents)................. 144 10.2.4 The content of concepts . 148 10.2.5 Section summary . 148 10.3 Derived Content . 148 10.3.1 Defining new notions of content . 150 10.3.2 Is derived content really content? . 155 10.4 The production view and the efficient concept view . 158 10.5 PIIT and the efficient concept view . 159 10.6 Conclusion . 161 11 Folk Psychological Content: A Case Study 162 11.1 What the folk notion of content tracks . 163 11.1.1 Extra ingredient #1: Derived content . 163 11.1.2 Extra ingredient #2: Referents . 164 11.2 Why these extra ingredients do not hinder the predictive accuracy of folk psychology . 165 11.2.1 Why it's not so bad to track derived content . 165 11.2.2 Why it's not so bad to track referents . 167 11.3 Conclusion . 168 12 The Internalism/Externalism Debate 169 12.1 Reconciling internalism with externalist intuitions . 169 12.1.1 Externalist intuitions . 170 12.1.2 Worries with externalism . 170 12.2 Rendering externalist intuitions harmless . 171 12.3 Accommodating externalist intuitions . 171 12.3.1 The first strategy . 171 12.3.2 The second strategy . 172 12.4 Conclusion . 173 viii 13 Conceptual Analysis 174 13.1 Conceptual analysis takes work . 174 13.2 Conceptual analysis faces in principle difficulties . 176 13.3 The analytic/synthetic distinction(s) . 180 13.4 The paradox of analysis . 181 13.5 Reconstruction . 182 13.5.1 Reconstruction is easy on the efficient concept view . 183 13.6 Reconstruction versus discovering more derived content . 184 13.7 Conclusion .