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Evolutionary Causation and Teleosemantics

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Life and Mind

Part of the book series: Interdisciplinary Evolution Research ((IDER,volume 8))

Abstract

Disputes about the causal structure of natural selection have implications for teleosemantics. Etiological, mainstream teleosemantics is based on a causalist view of natural selection. The core of its solution to Brentano’s Problem lies in the solution to Kant’s Puzzle provided by the Modern Synthesis concerning populational causation. In this paper, I suggest that if we adopt an alternative, statisticalist view on natural selection, the door is open for two reflections. First, it allows for setting different challenges to etiological teleosemantics that arise if a statisticalist reading of natural selection is right. Second, by providing a different solution to Kant’s Puzzle based on individual causes of evolution, statisticalism promotes a different answer to Brentano’s Problem, what I label as Agential Teleosemantics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It is relevant to remark that the connection between causation and misrepresentations takes place within teleosemantics’ aim of naturalizing intentionality. In this sense, teleosemantics was born against two classical approaches to representational content. One is the idea that the content of a representation is determined by its relation with other representations – known as intensionalist theories. The difficulty of this attempt is naturalism, insofar as we cannot be naturalists and simultaneously anchor intentionality in other intentional stuff. In this view, misrepresentation cannot be a problem of causation insofar as content is not determined by reference but by how representations relate with each other. Teleosemantics opposes this view; it provides a referentialist theory of content. However, the second theory that teleosemantics rejects is the causalist one, which is also referentialist. Even if causalist theories of content pursue a naturalistic view of intentionality, they seem incapable of dealing with misrepresentations. In this sense, teleosemantics emerged as the attempt to solve misrepresentation and simultaneously accept the causalist view of intentional explanations defended by causalist theories. Therefore, misrepresentation becomes primarily an issue of causation once we stress the commitment of teleosemantics to naturalism. I thank an anonymous review for noting the importance of this clarification.

  2. 2.

    Certainly, there could be a non-naturalist teleosemantic project. For instance, if we adopt a theological view of organism design, we can define the function of representational systems but in this case not from a scientific perspective. Moreover, as pointed out by an anonymous reviewer, there might be an attempt to solve Brentano’s Problem from the notion of biological function with any specific solution to Kant’s Puzzle, for instance, claiming that the notion of function is fundamental. As the reviewer recognizes, the teleosemantic project that departs from such a position may not be considered naturalist.

  3. 3.

    Other figures of the Causalist School are Abrams (2012), Millstein (2006), Pence (2021), Pence and Ramsey (2013), Ramsey (2016), Reisman and Forber (2005), and Stephens (2004).

  4. 4.

    I thank an anonymous review for comments on this point.

  5. 5.

    Note that Neander’s example concerns the current frequency of a trait achieving or not its function. However, this scenario can also be presented in relation to past, historical frequencies. Let’s appeal to the case of sperm, used by Millikan. Rightly, she points out that the current frequency of a trait function does not lead us directly to its proper function—sperms perform their proper function at a very low frequency. However, this argument applies not only to current frequencies but also to historical frequencies (its frequency during selection processes): it is not necessary that in selection processes a trait must have a high frequency to be selected for. Sperms could perform their proper function infrequently and nonetheless be selected to perform such function. I thank an anonymous review for comments on this point.

  6. 6.

    Certainly, one can take a midterm position and argue for both individual and populational causes of evolution. As Walsh noted (2003, 2019), this view defends a two-force model (cf. Sect. 4): evolutionary forces come from two different sources. However, as it was remarked above, this view is not endorsed by statisticalists insofar as it blurs the nature of populational explanations based on trait fitness. There are not two forces but two different levels of explanation (cf. Walsh (2019) for details).

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Acknowledgments

I thank the useful comments and suggestions of an anonymous reviewer. I am grateful to Sergio Balari for the discussion of the ideas presented here and for his help to make the language of this paper closer to readable English. This work has received the support of the Spanish Government through grant FFI2017-87699-P and the National Agency of Investigation and Innovation (Uruguay) through grant POS_EXT_2018_1_154759.

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  1. Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Tiago Rama

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  1. Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    José Manuel Viejo

  2. Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Mariano Sanjuán

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Rama, T. (2023). Evolutionary Causation and Teleosemantics. In: Viejo, J.M., Sanjuán, M. (eds) Life and Mind. Interdisciplinary Evolution Research, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30304-3_14

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