In Defense of a Different Taxonomy: A Reply to Owens

Abstract

M /[any philosophers urge that cognitive psychology needs to 6narrow notion of content it uses to individuate mental states since Twin Earth thought experiments demonstrate that content cannot supervene on current physical bodily states. However, in his In Defense of a Different Doppelganger,I Joseph Owens argues that this move to narrow content will not work, since narrow content is not really a species of content at all. His claim rests on a dilemma concerning two ways to taxonomize behavior, neither of which can support a viable narrow content taxonomy. However, in this essay, I will argue that there is a third way to taxonomize behavior that Owens overlooks-one which does promote individuation by narrow yet genuinely contentful content. Owens observes that cognitive psychology is prima facie committed to following requirements: (1) Making essential explanatory appeal to content-individuated states, states akin to belief, desire, and like, and (2) the methodological principle that organisms can differ in psychological explanatory states only if they differ in some internal (nonrelational) physical fashionthe principle of psychophysical supervenience.2 But, as Owens rightly notes, these requirements appear incompatible. Both Hilary Putnam3 and Tyler Burge4 point out that individuation by