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A Consumer-Based Teleosemantics for Animal Signals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ulrich E. Stegmann
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Abstract

Ethological theory standardly attributes representational content to animal signals. In this article I first assess whether Ruth Millikan's teleosemantic theory accounts for the content of animal signals. I conclude that it does not, because many signals do not exhibit the required sort of cooperation between signal-producing and signal-consuming devices. It is then argued that Kim Sterelny's proposal, while not requiring cooperation, sometimes yields the wrong content. Finally, I outline an alternative view, according to which consumers alone are responsible for conferring representational status and determining content. I suggest that consumer-based teleosemantics reconstruct the content of both cooperative and noncooperative signals and explain how a given trait can mean different things to different consumers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 76 , Issue 5 , December 2009 , pp. 864 - 875
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Ruth Millikan, David Papineau, Nicholas Shea, and Peter Godfrey-Smith provided valuable comments on the manuscript. I am also thankful for the responses of audiences at Pittsburgh, Bristol, Hannover (Germany), and Leeds, where different versions of this article were given. The generous support of the British Academy (PDF and OCG), the PSA, and the Arts Faculty of the University of Bristol is gratefully acknowledged.

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