Ruth Millikan - Views

Views

Millikan is most famous for the view which, in her 1989 paper of the same name, she refers to as "Biosemantics". Biosemantics is a theory about something philosophers often refer to as "intentionality". Intentionality is the phenomenon of things being such that they are 'about' other things, paradigm cases being thoughts and sentences. A belief of mine that you will do my chores for me, for example, is about you and about my chores. The same is true of a corresponding desire, intention or spoken or written command.

In general the goal of a theory of intentionality is to explain the phenomenon - things being such that they are 'about' other things - in other, more informative, terms. Such a theory aims to give an account of what this "aboutness" consists in. Just as chemistry offers the claim that "water is H2O" as a theory of what water consists in, so biosemantics aims for a constitutive account of intentionality. Such an account, Millikan stresses, must deal adequately with such hallmarks of mentality as error, confusion, and what looks like standing in a relation (the "aboutness" relation) to something that doesn't exist. For example: one "sees" the stick is bent, but realizes otherwise after pulling it from the water; the inexperienced prospector thinks he's struck it rich, but he's holding a lump of pyrite ("fool's gold"); the field marshal thinks about the next day's battle, the child wants to ride a unicorn, and the phrase "the greatest prime" is somehow "about" a number that cannot possibly exist (there's a simple proof for this).

As the name hints, Millikan's theory explains intentionality in terms that are broadly 'biological'. Specifically, she explains intentionality using the explanatory resources of natural selection: what thoughts and sentences and desires are "about" is ultimately elucidated by reference to what has been selected and what it has been selected for (i.e., what advantage it conferred on ancestors who possessed it). Especially important is what might be called the co-evolution of producer-mechanisms and consumer-mechanisms. Millikan refers to the intertwined selection histories of these mechanisms to explain the hallmarks of mentality and to offer a wide range of positions on various matters of dispute in the philosophy of mind and language.

In her article, "Naturalist Reflections on Knowledge", Millikan defends the position that the justification of true beliefs through an explanation in accordance with evolution constitutes knowledge.