Porter, Brian (2019) Teleosemantics and Tetrachromacy. [Preprint]
![[img]](https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/fileicons/text.png) |
Text
Teleosemantics and Tetrachromacy Final Manuscript.docx - Accepted Version Download (34kB) |
Abstract
Teleosemantics explains mental representation in terms of etiological history: a mental state’s representational contents are the result of natural selection, or some other selection process. Critics have argued that the “swampman” thought experiment poses a counterexample to teleosemantics. In several recent papers, Papineau has argued that a merely possible swampman cannot serve as a counterexample to teleosemantics, but has acknowledged that actual swampmen would pose a problem for teleosemantics. In this paper, I argue that there are real-world cases of swampman-like representation, in the form of functional tetrachromacy. People with functional tetrachromacy are born with four types of cones in each eye, rather than the usual three, and as a result can represent a wider variety of colors than the average person. I argue that the functional tetrachromat’s additional color representations are not the result of a selection process. Functional tetrachromacy is therefore a real-world case of mental representation without an etiological history, and therefore poses a genuine counterexample to teleosemantics.
| Export/Citation: | EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL |
| Social Networking: |
| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creators: |
|
||||||
| Keywords: | Teleosemantics; tetrachromacy; mental representation; philosophy of mind; color perception | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Function/Teleology Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Perception |
||||||
| Depositing User: | Mr. Brian Porter | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 08 Dec 2019 03:32 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 08 Dec 2019 03:32 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 16692 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Function/Teleology Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Perception |
||||||
| Date: | 5 December 2019 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/16692 |
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}