Indeterminacy of Function Attributions

Abstract

Abstract The thesis that minds are part of the natural scheme of things, and that intentionality of mental states is a manifestation of the causal relations and laws of the physical world, is a familiar one. A number of philosophers, myself being among them, are committed to it. And some of these philosophers have sought to show that a theory of content for mental states could be developed by appealing to the functions of our perceptual and mental organs. The rough thought was simply this: talk about functions is in its surface grammar teleological. Teleology is essentially intentional. So, if function assignments can be given a reductive analysis in terms of causal relations and causal laws, then we will have found a key to naturalizing intentionality, and this will be the first step towards understanding the source of the intentional nature of minds.