I 248
Representation/Animals/Papineau: there is the danger to put more into the explanation than justified by the specific design of animals.
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Explanation, >
Causal explanation, >
Behavior, >
Animals, >
Animal language.
I 256
Representation/Papineau: why should an animal have no general representations?
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Generality/Papineau, >
Generalization.
I 257
After all, it has this disposition right now, because its behavior in the past has led to this result.
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Dispositions.
Disposition/Representation/Papineau: should the disposition itself not be regarded as the incarnation of the general information "Drinking supplies water"?
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Embodiment.
I do not want to dispute such content attributions. The disposition represents information about the general "connection of reaction with result" (B & T, V > R).
Purpose-Means-Thinking/Papineau: when it requires explicit representations, it no longer follows that simple beings can be regarded as purpose-means thinkers.
I 258
Explicit representation requires physical tangibility.
Vs: all behavioral dispositions must have some kind of physical embodiment.
I 259
Explicit/implicit: if an organism implicitly has different pieces of general information in different dispositions ("water is in ponds"), it still has no system to combine them.
Purpose-Means-Thinking/Papineau: requires explicit representation of general information so that it can be processed to provide new items of general information.
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Adaption.
Thesis: this is a biological adaptation that specifically applies to human beings.
Vs: 1. Purpose-middle-thinking is too simple, and therefore widespread in the animal kingdom.
2. Purpose-means-thinking is too difficult and therefore not an essential component...
I 261
...of our evolutionary heritage.
Then purpose-means-thinking is a by-product.
Papineau: that does not mean that they cannot take over any function.
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Purpose, >
Function.
