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Fred Dretske’s information-based theory of intentional states

University of British Columbia

The purpose of this dissertation is to advance our understanding of the intentionality of mental states through a critical examination of Fred Dretske's theory of mind. Dretske's theorizing is constrained by his desire both to save central features of our "pretheoretic" conception of mind and, at the same time, to be appropriately "materialistic" (and hence "naturalistic"). Dretske's materialism is captured in his claim that: "...the crucial point is that whatever set of facts we select to analyze the mental are facts which, taken individually, are recognizably physical — the sort that exist, or can exist, in a world devoid of minds" (Dretske 1994a, p. 131). Central features of our pretheoretic conception of mind that Dretske wishes to preserve include: - that ordinary categories such as thought, belief, and desire capture real categories of mental states, - that mental states are certain kinds of representational states, and therefore they have semantic content (meaning), - that a mental state's having a particular representational content is an explanatorily relevant (because causally relevant) fact about it. Dretske proposes that intentional, representational contents of the cognitive states of a cognitive system are fixed by the history of information-bearing relations (also called "indicational" relations) that those states of the system have had to aspects of the system's environment. Further, the resulting representational contents are themselves essentially and entirely relational in nature. One cognitive system with an internal configuration type-identical to another, but with type-distinct (or in the limiting case no) history of indicational relations to its environment, will have type-distinct (or in the limiting case no) representational contents. Within these constraints, then, Dretske must show both how mental representation is possible and also how it is causal-explanatorily relevant to behaviour. As such, it is indicational relations that need to provide the basis both for an account of how a cognitive state comes to have its given content, and also for an account of the causal-explanatory role that its having that very content may have for the behaviour of the cognitive system whose state it is. However, 1 argue that indicational relations per se can do neither. This is so particularly on Dretske's own, strong, conception of indication. Buiiit even on weaker conceptions proposed by others as a remedy, factors which ought to count as intentional by Dretske's own lights (and which are importantly non-relational) become important contributors to intentional content determination in a way that would commit the overall account to a general and pervasive circularity. 1 argue that some of these factors, having to do with matters of "receptivity" and perceptual "discrimination", are endemic to the very processes of operant conditioning that Dretske must appeal to as contributing to the rise of states with intentional contents.

Thesis/Dissertation

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2009-04-17

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7335

Philosophy

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace