History
Franz Brentano, the nineteenth century philosopher, spoke of mental states as involving presentations of the objects of our thoughts. This idea encompasses his belief that one cannot desire something unless they actually have a representation of it in their minds.
Dennis Stampe was one of the first philosophers in modern times to suggest a theory of content according to which content is a matter of reliable causes.
Fred Dretske's book, Knowledge and the Flow of Information (1981), was a major influence on the development of informational theories, and although the theory developed there is not a teleological theory, Dretske (1986, 1988, 1991) later produced an informational version of teleosemantics. He begins with a concept of carrying information that he calls "indicating", explains that indicating is not equivalent to representing, and then suggests that a representation's content is what it has the function of indicating
Read more about this topic: The Naturalization Of Intentionality
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