Teleosemantics and Pluralism about Functions
Location
PANEL: Intersections in Art, Philosophy, and Place
Mudd 113
Moderator: Kipp Colvin
Document Type
Presentation - Open Access
Start Date
5-1-2026 3:30 PM
End Date
5-1-2026 4:30 PM
Abstract
This thesis investigates Nicholas Shea’s version of teleosemantics, a contemporary naturalistic theory of representation. Shea aims to address longstanding difficulties faced by traditional teleosemantic theories by adopting a pluralist framework that integrates both task functions and exploitable relations into content determination. A distinctive feature of Shea’s account is the role assigned to persistence as a process that can stabilize functions for representation. I argue that persistence cannot play this role. Shea seeks to explain behavioral success and failure in terms of representational content. For such explanations to succeed, there must be normative standards for evaluating functional performance. I contend that stabilizing processes generate these standards only when interactions between representational systems and environmental structure differentially favor certain behavioral outcomes over alternatives in virtue of their consequences. This constraint is motivated by examining how evolution by natural selection and feedback-based learning stabilize functions. I then argue that persistence, understood as an organism’s continued survival, struggles to satisfy this constraint and therefore raises a challenge for Shea’s account.
Keywords:
Teleosemantics, Representation, Mental content functions
Recommended Citation
Hartog, Naomi, "Teleosemantics and Pluralism about Functions" (2026). Research Symposium. 17.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/researchsymp/2026/presentations/17
Major
Philosophy
Project Mentor(s)
Todd Ganson, Philosophy
2026
Teleosemantics and Pluralism about Functions
PANEL: Intersections in Art, Philosophy, and Place
Mudd 113
Moderator: Kipp Colvin
This thesis investigates Nicholas Shea’s version of teleosemantics, a contemporary naturalistic theory of representation. Shea aims to address longstanding difficulties faced by traditional teleosemantic theories by adopting a pluralist framework that integrates both task functions and exploitable relations into content determination. A distinctive feature of Shea’s account is the role assigned to persistence as a process that can stabilize functions for representation. I argue that persistence cannot play this role. Shea seeks to explain behavioral success and failure in terms of representational content. For such explanations to succeed, there must be normative standards for evaluating functional performance. I contend that stabilizing processes generate these standards only when interactions between representational systems and environmental structure differentially favor certain behavioral outcomes over alternatives in virtue of their consequences. This constraint is motivated by examining how evolution by natural selection and feedback-based learning stabilize functions. I then argue that persistence, understood as an organism’s continued survival, struggles to satisfy this constraint and therefore raises a challenge for Shea’s account.
