Bibliographical data for
Author
Title of Edited Collection
Open MIND
Editors
Publication Date
January 2015
Publication Place
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
ISBN
9783958570146
Abstract
The primary purpose of this paper is to develop a solution to one version of the problem of mental causation. The version under examination is the content causation problem: that of explaining how the specifically representational properties of mental phenomena can be causally efficacious of behaviour. I contend that the apparent insolubility of the content causation problem is a legacy of the dyadic conception of representation, which has conditioned philosophical intuitions, but provides little guidance about the relational character of mental content. I argue that a triadic conception of representation yields a more illuminating account of mental content and, in so doing, reveals a candidate solution to the content causation problem. This solution requires the rehabilitation of an approach to mental content determination that is unpopular in contemporary philosophy. But this approach, I conclude, seems mandatory if we are to explain why mental content matters.