Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism (Paperback)

~ (Author) "In the early pages of Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein compares words to tools..." (more)
Key Phrases: explicit intension, adapted proper function, public intension, Abe Lincoln, Option Two, Santa Claus (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An exciting book. It is a sustained effort at developing a naturalistic view of intentionality. Millikan's writing is clear, forceful, and illuminating."
- Hector Neri-Casteneda, Indiana University.



"Ruth Millikan presents a remarkably original and ambitious theory concerning the topics that have been at the center of philosophical attention in recent years.... Along the way answers are given to just about all the persistent puzzle questions about meaning, intentionality and representation that currently preoccupy the field."
- Daniel C. Dennett, Tufts University



"This is philosophy at its best."
- Fred I. Dretske, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Product Description

Preface by Daniel C. Dennett

Beginning with a general theory of function applied to body organs, behaviors, customs, and both inner and outer representations, Ruth Millikan argues that the intentionality of language can be described without reference to speaker intentions and that an understanding of the intentionality of thought can and should be divorced from the problem of understanding consciousness. The results support a realist theory of truth and of universals, and open the way for a nonfoundationalist and nonholistic approach to epistemology.

Ruth Millikan is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. A Bradford Book.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 367 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (December 16, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262631156
• ISBN-13: 978-0262631150
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #931,893 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars defines "function" in a non-circular way, March 31, 2002

By	Toni Wuersch (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

The book explains why the reproduction of tools, actions, adaptations and habits can matter separately from single instances of use, without referring to any specialized internal mechanisms, as Fodor or Chomsky might require.

It thus throws an enormous weight of exemplary philosophical junk (Dennett might claim most of the literature on free will goes here) in the dumpster, by showing that a battery of single counterexamples can be irrelevant to a reproductive motive.

The book also defines "function" by referring to reproductive motives, not use motives. A mass of literature referring to function becomes clearer thereby. Dysfunction becomes far less relevant than one might expect when one sees "dysfunction" opposed to "function", as if a law of contradiction applied.

I like the formalism in the book, which Millikan seems to have felt compelled to softpedal in her subsequent writings. In a way, Millikan does for "function" here what Abraham Robinson did for infinitesimals. She rehabilitates an aid to intuition, so that people who might be inclined to deny it because it lacks a formal well-definition might have to admit it.

The context is biological, i.e., survival and posterity matter more than origins in the mist, a process is step by step, and ideas can persist despite cases of failure.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential source for philosophy of mind, May 25, 2007

By	Aaron Boyden (Providence, Rhode Island) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

And probably for related topics. Millikan's account of functions and "Normal" functioning is extremely well-developed, and can provide much needed content to "functionalist" accounts of various kinds, helping greatly in evaluating their merits and their defects. Her notion of a function also enables a unified account to be given of functions for which things are designed and for things which are not designed (obviously without the theological dodge of saying everything is designed).