1102 Book Reviews

Institut für Philosophie jonathan beere

Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Unter den Linden 6
10099 Berlin
Germany
doi:10.1093/mind/fzn136

Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays, edited by Graham Mac-

Donald and David Papineau. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. 232.
H/b £49.00, P/b £18.99.

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Teleosemantics is the project of using facts about biological function to justify
ascriptions of mental content. In most forms, natural selection is the cen-
trepiece of this explanation of the relationship between our thoughts, their
contents and the things in the world that we think about, but the story is not a
simple one. Few if any individual thoughts are plausibly adaptations, so my
thoughts about cupcakes inter alia pick out cupcakes, not because they are
adaptations, but because of the functions performed by an array of adapta-
tions that allow me to detect objects, kinds, functional relationships, and sub-
tle differences in the responses of my sensory modalities. Alternative accounts
rest the relevant biological functions on propensities or the role that particular
representations play in their wider doxastic and physiological contexts, but
respite from the perils of evolutionary reasoning is purchased at the cost of
well-known problems in the analysis of misrepresentation and again there are
many details to be hammered out. The modern debate about the nature of
biological function began in the early 1970s. By this reckoning, teleosemantics
is entering early middle age. The hammering is quieter now but still incessant.
Central characters in the debate remain enthusiastic but others, including
Peter Godfrey-Smith in this volume, detect a decline in the general air of opti-
mism that pervaded teleosemantics in the 1990s.
So it was with curiosity that I approached Teleosemantics: New Philosophical
Essays. There are other excellent collections particularly on foundational issues
in teleosemantics (see for example D. Buller (ed.), Function, Selection, and
Design, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1999; or A. Ariew, R.
Cummins, and M. Perlman (eds), Functions: New Essays in the Philosophy of
Psychology and Biology, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). What then
would be delivered by a new collection of new essays on the topic? I am glad to
report that there is much of interest in MacDonald and Papineau’s collection,
which presents a variety of new approaches to the discipline ideal for those
whose interest in teleosemantics might be in need of rekindling.
The collection begins with an excellent introductory chapter by the editors,
making a persuasive case for teleosemantics as an attractive and plausible
account of mental content. As with many contributors to this volume, the
authors present the debate as a strategy for naturalising mental content. Indi-

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 Book Reviews 1103

cator semantics is introduced but rejected on the grounds that it fails as a tool
for analysing misrepresentation (a claim that is appropriately balanced by its
advocacy in Dretske’s chapter). Particularly useful for non-specialists is the
detailed setting out of Millikan-style teleosemantics including the lexicon of
production, consumption, reproductively established families etc. Papineau’s
own hybrid theory is also presented. Although an opinionated introduction, it
is none the less sufficiently theoretically neutral and appropriately detailed to
make a good jumping off point for those interested in getting up to speed on
the context of the debate about mental content and on the variety of teleose-
mantic solutions to that problem. The chapters that follow are a mix of foun-

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dational issues (Godfrey-Smith, Jackson, Dretske, Millikan, Cummins et al.),
new teleosemantic analyses of particular types of mental content (Ryder,
Neander, and Price), and discussion of the contribution of teleosemantics to
other debates in cognitive science (Sterelny and Matten).
Two longstanding objections to teleosemantics are set out and responded to
in this volume. The first is the familiar swampman worry. This is most sympa-
thetically stated in the chapter by Frank Jackson which, slightly surprisingly,
comes after the solution to the problem proffered by Fred Dretske. In Jackson’s
terms, the folk qua folk do not know which states are products of evolution,
but they do know what they believe and desire. But if beliefs and desires are
part of the output of evolutionary history then they cannot know what beliefs
and desires they have without first knowing the relevant evolutionary history.
Dretske’s solution is to argue that we can have Cartesian authority about the
nature of our thoughts even if we have no such authority for their being
thoughts. His argument seems well supported by analogy. Everyday perception
yields an inventory of the ordinary furniture of the world, but it does not sim-
ilarly deliver the information that there really is a physical world of which that
furniture is part. Only philosophy can do that. Perhaps Jackson’s response
would be along the lines of his concluding section, namely that it is just too
revisionary to suggest that when I speak of my desires I actually have no idea
whether I am speaking of desires at all. This is one point in the book where I
wished that the authors had addressed each others’ theses directly.
The second major objection is set out by Ruth Millikan, although it derives
originally from Christopher Peacocke. If mental content is determined by
selection then seemingly we could only have thoughts that afforded reproduc-
tive advantage. This is the problem of so-called ‘useless content’ (a slight mis-
nomer since it attaches to mental states that have a use but are not fitness
enhancing). As noted above, my thoughts about cupcakes need not be
explained by some special reproductive advantage afforded by an understand-
ing of cupcakes. Rather, the content of such thoughts is parasitic upon the
possession of a host of straightforwardly adaptive characteristics. As Millikan
puts it, ‘Our desires are not all fitness enhancing, but they have been often
enough in the past for us to say that the mechanisms that produce them are
adaptations’ (p. 104). An ingenious objection to this standard solution is set

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1104 Book Reviews

out by Cummins et al. who argue that teleosemantics cannot allow for the
evolving of the ability to exploit previously unexplored content: that requires
content to pre-date selection, and teleosemantics requires selection to pre-
date content. Again, the two papers would have been enhanced had they more
directly addressed each other’s arguments.
Many a graduate thesis on teleosemantics has focused very narrowly on a
frogs-eye view of the content of particular mental states. In the first of the
chapters on foundational issues Peter Godfrey-Smith is concerned that we
ought also be prepared to take a big picture view. What is the aim of the teleo-
semantic enterprise? What does it share with other representationalist models

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of mental content? How relevant are the concerns of those debating represen-
tationalism to the daily interests of behavioural scientists and neuroscientists?
This last question is addressed in the chapters by Sterelny and Matten that
focus on the philosophical and scientific payoff generated when teleosemantics
is applied outside of the debate about mental content.
Kim Sterelny asks: if evolution explains the meaning of our thoughts, to
what extent can evolution explain the development of language? Natural lan-
guages, such as English, are obviously inherited and fitness enhancing. Are
they therefore adaptations? Part of the power of any language is the flexibility
of its lexicon. So, Sterelny argues that, while aspects of language are modular,
languages as a whole cannot be. Furthermore, it makes no sense to think of
language as performing a single function in response to a single selection pres-
sure. Language did not precede the development of our abilities to represent
social norms, other minds, causal interactions and so on. So, in this broader
sense, the function that language performs has varied greatly over our evolu-
tionary history.
Mohan Matten asks: what feature are we attributing to an object when we
assign it to a particular sensory class? He argues that understanding the prove-
nance of mental content will inevitably influence our understanding of indi-
vidual concepts. For Matten, teleosemantics makes plain an important choice
that we face in analysing such assignments. Should we look upstream at what
caused the representation in question or downstream at the function that such
assignments perform in creatures like us? So Matten would have us rephrase
the question ‘what is colour’ first to ‘what is colour in humans?’ and then to
‘what is colour for in humans?’
Teleosemantics is a piecemeal solution to the problem of representational
content. The remainder of this collection is dedicated to solving a few more
pieces of the puzzle. Karen Neander wades back into the venerable issue of
ascribing content to amphibians. Dan Ryder argues that our brains have
evolved under long-term selection for interaction with kinds, characterized
as ‘sources of correlation’ (p. 120). As a result human brains are model-mak-
ing machines. Carolyn Price investigates the difference in content between
normal evaluative judgements and emotional appraisals.

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 Book Reviews 1105

The breadth and quality of the chapters in this collection signal a note of
optimism about teleosemantics. None the less, it is an idea that polarises phi-
losophers of mind. Some think it clearly true and others think it clearly not
worth pursuing. Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays gives us a snapshot
of this philosophical impasse, but it also shows us the value to be gained from
taking the theory seriously. The debate about teleosemantics forces us to
reconsider what we hope to gain from investigating the nature of mental con-
tent. Despite being compact, this collection gives a good picture of the status
of the debate for philosophers of mind, scientists and philosophers in cognate
disciplines, and for senior students.

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Department of Philosophy james maclaurin
University of Otago
PO BOX 56
Dunedin 9054
New Zealand
doi:10.1093/mind/fzn137

Elucidating the Tractatus: Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy of

Logic and Language, by Marie McGinn. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006.
Pp. xiv + 316.
The goal of this book is to present an interpretation of the philosophy of logic
and language put forward in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. McGinn sees her reading
as occupying a middle ground between two unsatisfactory extremes. One is
the view, advanced by David Pears, among others, that the Tractatus seeks to
ground the logical structure of language in the metaphysical structure of real-
ity. The other is the view, associated with Cora Diamond and James Conant,
that the aim of the book is exclusively therapeutic—to expose philosophical
nonsense as plain nonsense. McGinn finds the middle ground that she wants
to occupy in the readings of the Tractatus put forward by Hidé Ishiguro, Brian
McGuinness, Peter Winch, and Rush Rhees. These readings reject the idea that
the Tractatus seeks to ground an account of language in metaphysical doc-
trines, but they still see the book as trying to achieve positive philosophical
insights. McGinn declares modestly that her goal is simply to work out this
interpretative line in detail, and to offer textual evidence in its support.
Chapter one is devoted mainly to putting forward an account of the nature
of the task that the Tractatus seeks to accomplish, on the reading that McGinn
recommends. Her proposal on this point is that the Tractatus does not attempt
to provide explanations, but only descriptions or clarifications of how lan-
guage works. This is one of the continuities that McGinn finds between the
Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s later work.
Chapters two and three provide an insightful presentation of the ways in
which Wittgenstein thought his ideas would overcome the difficulties that he

Mind, Vol. 117 . 468 . October 2008 © Mind Association 2008