Functional Role Theories and Tracking Theories Again

This chapter considers functional role theories of intentionality , on which original intentionality is a matter of a representation's functional roles. According to short-arm functional role theories, these functional roles only include functional relations between representations, while according to long-arm versions of the theory, the relevant functional roles can include relations to items in the external environment. This chapter argues that short-arm theories face in-principle difficulties: they cannot attribute content determinately, and it is not clear why functional roles should give rise to intentionality in the first place. This motivates long-arm versions of the theory. However, these versions inherit the tracking theory's mismatch problem. The chapter closes by arguing that the fundamental problem with both tracking and functional role theories is that neither tracking relations nor functional roles are sufficient for giving rise to intentionality.

Cognitive science · Epistemology · Functional equivalence · Intentionality · Representation (politics) · Tracking (education) · Computer Science · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology · Social Power and Status Dynamics