Dretske

Im ersten Teil der Hausarbeit stelle ich Überzeugungen und phänomenale Erfahrungen vor. Ich werde zeigen, dass diese einen Gehalt bzw. Intentionalität haben und welchen Einfluss diese Eigenschaft auf die kausale Rolle hat, wenn es darum geht, welche Überzeugungen von welchen phänomenalen Erfahrungen verursacht werden. Im zweiten Teil stelle ich Dretskes Position im Bezug auf phänomenale Zustände und Überzeugungen dar, wie er sie in Dretske (1988, 1998) vertreten hat.

Im letzten, kritischen Abschnitt, will ich Dretskes Position dahingehend kritisieren, dass er es nicht schafft, Introspektion und die Kausalbeziehung zwischen phänomenalen Zuständen und Überzeugungen im Allgemeinen mit deren Inhalt zu verknüpfen, da der Gehalt phänomenaler Zustände in der Evolutionsgeschichte (Phylogenese), der Gehalt von Überzeugungen hingegen aus der Ontogenese stammt und da der Gehalt phänomenaler Erfahrungen, in seiner Theorie, keinen Einfluss auf ihre kausale Rolle hat.

"Some propose that the question of how you know that James is angry can be adequately answered with the claim that you see that James is angry. Call this the Perceptual Hypothesis. Here, I examine that hypothesis.

I argue that there are two different ways in which the Perceptual Hypothesis could be made true. You might see that James is angry by seeing his bodily features. Alternatively, you might see that James is angry by seeing his anger. If you see that James is angry in the first way, your knowledge is inferential. If you see that James is angry in the second way, your knowledge is not inferential. These are different ways of knowing that James is angry. So the Perceptual Hypothesis alone does not adequately answer the question of how you know that fact. To ascertain how you know that James is angry, we need to decide whether or not you saw his anger.

This is an epistemological argument. But it has consequences for a theory of perception. It implies that there is a determinate fact about which features of an object you see. This fact is made true independently of what you come to know by seeing.

In the final section of the paper, I seek to undermine various ways in which the claim that you see James’ anger may be thought implausible."

"The Perceptual Hypothesis is that we sometimes see, and thereby have non-inferential knowledge of, others’ mental features. The Perceptual Hypothesis opposes Inferentialism, which is the view that our knowledge of others’ mental features is always inferential. The claim that some mental features are embodied is the claim that some mental features are realized by states or processes that extend beyond the brain. The view I discuss here is that the Perceptual Hypothesis is plausible if, but only if, the mental features it claims we see are suitably embodied. Call this Embodied Perception Theory.

I argue that Embodied Perception Theory is false. It doesn’t follow that the Perceptual Hypothesis is implausible. The considerations which serve to undermine Embodied Perception Theory serve equally to undermine the motivations for assuming that others’ mental lives are always imperceptible."

Based upon the natural limits of observation, we tackle a critical review of Dretske’s approach to information, knowledge and perception. The physics of the manifestation of an arbitrary object –tackled in Part 2 as a separate article– sets forth an informational boundary stating that information cannot be enough to support our cognitive processes. The problems do not rely –as Dretske supposes- on the lacks of the channel, but on the very nature of observation. Furthermore, Dretske’s approach –handcuffed to his maximalist support on information- presents some lacks concerning processual character of information, fuzziness of perception and knowledge, contents de dicto and conventional regularities. The posed limits and problems intend to settle new foundations for a more refined conjunction of information and knowledge.

Keywords: Physics of observation, Waves, Inverse problem, Theory of perception, Biophysics, Dretske, Epistemology, Communication, Cognition, Signal, Information content, Information Flow.

The paper seeks to analyze the elucidation of the nature of misrepresentation in terms of ‘teleosemantic’ functions as offered by Dretske and Millikan. In two first parts of the paper, Dretske’s teleosemantics and the role his account of function plays in his teleosemantics are investigated. In a third part, Dretske’s concept of function is compared to Ruth Millikan’s account (although her theory of representation is not taken under consideration here). On the one hand, Millikan’s theory is similar to Dretske’s, on the other hand, it is much better worked out and, as a consequence, it is less controversial than Dretske’s proposal. In the fourth part, my analysis is summarized. Finally, the critical conclusions concerning Dretske’s teleosemantics as well as the use of the concept of function in naturalizing representation are presented.

Secondary and tertiary qualities are plausibly explained along dispositionalist lines.. Concepts of such qualities are response-dependent, denoting properties that are partly mind/brain-dependent. Unfortunately, dispositionalism is hard to square with extant version of naturalistic theories of representation.. In particular the standard naturalistic (indicational) semantics of representational content cannot handle the question from either the subjectivist or the dispositional viewpoint. The paper proposes a remedy;: the problem can be solved  in a smooth and natural way, provided that we revise and supplement the standard semantics in a rather obvious fashion, by allowing the mind/brain–involving properties to figure within it.