My PhD research aims to better understand the explanatory work done by the ‘meaning’ and ‘information’ attributed to signals in the biological and psychological studies of animal communication. The end goal is to better understand the issue of human-nonhuman continuity (at least when it comes to the semantics and pragmatics of communication).
I am also interested in the explanatory role of ‘mental representation’; the relationship between folk psychological vs subpersonal explanations of behaviour; and naturalistic explanations of religious belief. — Supervisors: Kim Sterelny and Ronald Planer
Why explain the communicative behaviours of animals by invoking the information/meaning ‘transmit... more Why explain the communicative behaviours of animals by invoking the information/meaning ‘transmitted’ by signals? Why not explain communication in purely causal/functional terms? This thesis addresses active controversy regarding the nature and role of concepts of information, content and meaning in the scientific explanation of animal communication. I defend the methodology of explaining animal communication by invoking the ‘meaning’ of signals, and responds to worries raised by sceptics of this methodology in the scientific and philosophical literature. This involves: showing what facts about communication a non-informational methodology leaves unexplained; constructing a well-defined theory of content (or ‘natural meaning’) for most animal signals; and getting clearer on what cognitive capacities, if any, attributing natural meaning to signals implies for senders and receivers. Second, it weighs into comparative debates on human-nonhuman continuity, arguing that there are, in fact, different notions of meaning applicable to human communication that have different consequences for how continuous key aspects of human communication are with other species.
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2019
The arbitrariness of a signal has long been seen as a theoretically important but difficult to pi... more The arbitrariness of a signal has long been seen as a theoretically important but difficult to pin down notion. In this article, we suggest there are at least two different notions of arbitrariness at play in philosophical and scientific debates concerning the use of arbitrary signals, and work towards improved analyses of both. We then consider how these different types of arbitrariness can co-occur and come apart. Finally, we examine the connections between these two types of arbitrariness and the cognitive complexity of signal users with an eye towards better evaluating one possible form of human-nonhuman communicative continuity. We show that each type of arbitrariness bears its own nuanced relationship to cognitive complexity, demonstrating the theoretical importanceof keeping these two notions separate.
Essay-length review of Karen Neander's (2017) 'A Mark of the Mental'. Philosophers have long pond... more Essay-length review of Karen Neander's (2017) 'A Mark of the Mental'. Philosophers have long pondered over the relationship between folk psychology and the conception of our mind developed by the cognitive sciences. How do beliefs, desires, wishes, and the like relate to the account of cognition given by neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and cognitive psychology? These propositional attitudes have remained recalcitrant to scientific absorption due to their ‘aboutness’ or ‘intentionality’. Propositional attitudes represent the world, and the project of naturalising mental representation has been a central philosophical project for the last forty years or so. It is the project of explaining aboutness in terms of the mechanisms and interactions recognised by the cognitive sciences. Neander’s book is an important, though deliberately modest, contribution to this project. She aims to give a theory of non-conceptual, perceptual representation. She discusses some features of human vision. But her main working examples are the prey-recognition system of anurans, such as T5-2 cells located in the optic tectum of the toad. This structure is complex enough to be a plausible example of representation rather than a mere causal relay; simple enough to be tractable; and obviously non-conceptual. Her further aim is to give an account of the mental representations involved in the propositional attitudes (or whatever person-level cognitive states there may be, if talk of propositional attitudes is discarded), using her account of non-conceptual content plus the other resources of the cognitive sciences. There are some brief hints about this further project, but the central aim of the book is to give a naturalised account of perceptual representation. This is a fine book: clear, restrained in its claims, measured, and lucid in argument. We think Neander does give a defensible account of perceptual content. But we do see places where pressure can be applied to her framework.
Exactly what makes an interaction between two organisms a case of communication is contentious. H... more Exactly what makes an interaction between two organisms a case of communication is contentious. Historically, debate has taken place between definitions of communication invoking information transmission vs definitions invoking causal influence. More recently, there has been some convergence on a hybrid definition: invoking (co-adapted) causal influence mediated via the transmission of information. After proposing an understanding of what it means to say that a receiver is causally influenced by the transmission of information, I argue that an information-mediated influence definition overextends to include most, indeed maybe all, co-adapted interactions. This is because the transmission of correlational information is actually a feature of most, if not all, co-adapted interactions. I end by considering whether adding an arbitrariness criterion to an information-mediated influence definition helps. After giving an account of what arbitrariness amounts to, I argue that it swings things too far in the opposite direction: we go from a definition of communication that is too liberal to one that is too restrictive. This is because many signal kinds are not arbitrary. It turns out to be extremely difficult to capture what makes communication unique.
Sceptics of informational terminology argue that by attributing content to signals, we fail to ad... more Sceptics of informational terminology argue that by attributing content to signals, we fail to address nonhuman animal communication on its own terms. Primarily, we ignore that communication is sender driven: i.e. driven by the intrinsic physical properties of signals, themselves the result of selection pressures acting on signals to influence receivers in ways beneficial for senders. In contrast, information proponents argue that this ignores the degree to which communication is, in fact, receiver driven. The latter argue that an exclusive focus on the intrinsic mechanical properties of signals cannot explain why receivers respond as they do. This is because receivers are not prisoners of sender influence. They possess response flexibility, and so we can only explain why receivers respond to signals as they do by positing that receivers ‘derive information’ from signals. I argue that, while basically true, this response flexibility can take one of two forms depending on the causal-explanatory role of information in understanding the response of the receiver: diachronic, on the one hand; and synchronic, on the other. In species with diachronic response flexibility only, information is derived by receivers from signals in a minimal sense. In such cases, information is an ultimate explanatory construct: one underpinned by historical facts at the population level. Alternatively, in species with synchronic response flexibility, information is derived by receivers from signals in a richer sense. Here, information is a proximate explanatory construct: one underpinned by cognitive-mechanistic facts at the level of the individual organism. Without recognising the different ways information can be derived from signals, and the different causal-explanatory roles (ultimate vs proximate) information can play in understanding alternate kinds of receiver flexibility (diachronic vs synchronic), proponents of information leave themselves open to the charge of anthropomorphising some signalling systems.
The handicap principle (HP) stipulates that signal reliability can be maintained if signals are c... more The handicap principle (HP) stipulates that signal reliability can be maintained if signals are costly to produce. Yet empirical biologists are typically unable to directly measure evolutionary costs, and instead appeal to expenditure (the time, energy and resources associated with signaling behavior) as a sensible proxy. However the link between expenditure and cost is not always as straightforward as proponents of HP assume. We consider signaling interactions where whether the expenditure associated with signaling is converted into an evolutionary cost is in some sense dependent on the behavior of the intended recipient of the signal. We illustrate this with a few empirical examples and demonstrate that on this alternative expenditure to cost mapping the traditional predictions of HP no longer hold. Instead of full information transfer, a partially informative communication system similar to that uncovered by Zollman, Bergstrom and Huttegger (2012) is possible.
Essay-length review of Craver & Darden's (2013) 'In Search Of Mechanisms'. This is a book about t... more Essay-length review of Craver & Darden's (2013) 'In Search Of Mechanisms'. This is a book about the methodology of biology. Carl Craver and Lindley Darden join forces to advance a unified model of biological explanation as rooted in the search for mechanisms. The authors pay close attention to successful cases of explanation in diverse areas of biology, both historical and contemporary, in order to bring to life an accessible and comprehensive proscriptive model of biological discovery. This review presents some important aspects of the mechanistic model in its present form, and notes a few of the critical worries for conceiving of it as the standard model of explanation in the life sciences. Worries raised relate to a) the scope of mechanistic explanation in biology when it comes to understanding population-level phenomena and robust, self-organising phenomena, and b) the level of detail that is required of good biological explanation, despite the existence of 'difference-makers' on levels above those that include the physical structure of entities and their precise, spatiotemporal organisation.
According to recent cognitive explanations of religiosity, belief in supernatural agents is a res... more According to recent cognitive explanations of religiosity, belief in supernatural agents is a result of species-universal cognitive modules operating in environments similar enough to those these modules evolved in. Less attention has been given to the cognitive basis of atheism. The author brings together three ways in which atheism could arise that are a priori compatible with recent cognitive explanations of religiosity. One way is reflective and involves the effortful overturning of unreflective modular cognition. The other two ways are unreflective and involve, firstly, the operation of modular cognition in evolutionarily novel environments, and secondly, developmental variation of modular cognition. The author argues that there is evidence for both a reflective route and at least one unreflective route to atheism, and that reflective and unreflective causes probably interact with each other. Consequently, he argues that the cognitive profiles of atheists are not necessarily more reflective than those of believers, nor any less ‘natural’.
Why explain the communicative behaviours of animals by invoking the information/meaning ‘transmit... more Why explain the communicative behaviours of animals by invoking the information/meaning ‘transmitted’ by signals? Why not explain communication in purely causal/functional terms? This thesis addresses active controversy regarding the nature and role of concepts of information, content and meaning in the scientific explanation of animal communication. I defend the methodology of explaining animal communication by invoking the ‘meaning’ of signals, and responds to worries raised by sceptics of this methodology in the scientific and philosophical literature. This involves: showing what facts about communication a non-informational methodology leaves unexplained; constructing a well-defined theory of content (or ‘natural meaning’) for most animal signals; and getting clearer on what cognitive capacities, if any, attributing natural meaning to signals implies for senders and receivers. Second, it weighs into comparative debates on human-nonhuman continuity, arguing that there are, in fact, different notions of meaning applicable to human communication that have different consequences for how continuous key aspects of human communication are with other species.
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2019
The arbitrariness of a signal has long been seen as a theoretically important but difficult to pi... more The arbitrariness of a signal has long been seen as a theoretically important but difficult to pin down notion. In this article, we suggest there are at least two different notions of arbitrariness at play in philosophical and scientific debates concerning the use of arbitrary signals, and work towards improved analyses of both. We then consider how these different types of arbitrariness can co-occur and come apart. Finally, we examine the connections between these two types of arbitrariness and the cognitive complexity of signal users with an eye towards better evaluating one possible form of human-nonhuman communicative continuity. We show that each type of arbitrariness bears its own nuanced relationship to cognitive complexity, demonstrating the theoretical importanceof keeping these two notions separate.
Essay-length review of Karen Neander's (2017) 'A Mark of the Mental'. Philosophers have long pond... more Essay-length review of Karen Neander's (2017) 'A Mark of the Mental'. Philosophers have long pondered over the relationship between folk psychology and the conception of our mind developed by the cognitive sciences. How do beliefs, desires, wishes, and the like relate to the account of cognition given by neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and cognitive psychology? These propositional attitudes have remained recalcitrant to scientific absorption due to their ‘aboutness’ or ‘intentionality’. Propositional attitudes represent the world, and the project of naturalising mental representation has been a central philosophical project for the last forty years or so. It is the project of explaining aboutness in terms of the mechanisms and interactions recognised by the cognitive sciences. Neander’s book is an important, though deliberately modest, contribution to this project. She aims to give a theory of non-conceptual, perceptual representation. She discusses some features of human vision. But her main working examples are the prey-recognition system of anurans, such as T5-2 cells located in the optic tectum of the toad. This structure is complex enough to be a plausible example of representation rather than a mere causal relay; simple enough to be tractable; and obviously non-conceptual. Her further aim is to give an account of the mental representations involved in the propositional attitudes (or whatever person-level cognitive states there may be, if talk of propositional attitudes is discarded), using her account of non-conceptual content plus the other resources of the cognitive sciences. There are some brief hints about this further project, but the central aim of the book is to give a naturalised account of perceptual representation. This is a fine book: clear, restrained in its claims, measured, and lucid in argument. We think Neander does give a defensible account of perceptual content. But we do see places where pressure can be applied to her framework.
Exactly what makes an interaction between two organisms a case of communication is contentious. H... more Exactly what makes an interaction between two organisms a case of communication is contentious. Historically, debate has taken place between definitions of communication invoking information transmission vs definitions invoking causal influence. More recently, there has been some convergence on a hybrid definition: invoking (co-adapted) causal influence mediated via the transmission of information. After proposing an understanding of what it means to say that a receiver is causally influenced by the transmission of information, I argue that an information-mediated influence definition overextends to include most, indeed maybe all, co-adapted interactions. This is because the transmission of correlational information is actually a feature of most, if not all, co-adapted interactions. I end by considering whether adding an arbitrariness criterion to an information-mediated influence definition helps. After giving an account of what arbitrariness amounts to, I argue that it swings things too far in the opposite direction: we go from a definition of communication that is too liberal to one that is too restrictive. This is because many signal kinds are not arbitrary. It turns out to be extremely difficult to capture what makes communication unique.
Sceptics of informational terminology argue that by attributing content to signals, we fail to ad... more Sceptics of informational terminology argue that by attributing content to signals, we fail to address nonhuman animal communication on its own terms. Primarily, we ignore that communication is sender driven: i.e. driven by the intrinsic physical properties of signals, themselves the result of selection pressures acting on signals to influence receivers in ways beneficial for senders. In contrast, information proponents argue that this ignores the degree to which communication is, in fact, receiver driven. The latter argue that an exclusive focus on the intrinsic mechanical properties of signals cannot explain why receivers respond as they do. This is because receivers are not prisoners of sender influence. They possess response flexibility, and so we can only explain why receivers respond to signals as they do by positing that receivers ‘derive information’ from signals. I argue that, while basically true, this response flexibility can take one of two forms depending on the causal-explanatory role of information in understanding the response of the receiver: diachronic, on the one hand; and synchronic, on the other. In species with diachronic response flexibility only, information is derived by receivers from signals in a minimal sense. In such cases, information is an ultimate explanatory construct: one underpinned by historical facts at the population level. Alternatively, in species with synchronic response flexibility, information is derived by receivers from signals in a richer sense. Here, information is a proximate explanatory construct: one underpinned by cognitive-mechanistic facts at the level of the individual organism. Without recognising the different ways information can be derived from signals, and the different causal-explanatory roles (ultimate vs proximate) information can play in understanding alternate kinds of receiver flexibility (diachronic vs synchronic), proponents of information leave themselves open to the charge of anthropomorphising some signalling systems.
The handicap principle (HP) stipulates that signal reliability can be maintained if signals are c... more The handicap principle (HP) stipulates that signal reliability can be maintained if signals are costly to produce. Yet empirical biologists are typically unable to directly measure evolutionary costs, and instead appeal to expenditure (the time, energy and resources associated with signaling behavior) as a sensible proxy. However the link between expenditure and cost is not always as straightforward as proponents of HP assume. We consider signaling interactions where whether the expenditure associated with signaling is converted into an evolutionary cost is in some sense dependent on the behavior of the intended recipient of the signal. We illustrate this with a few empirical examples and demonstrate that on this alternative expenditure to cost mapping the traditional predictions of HP no longer hold. Instead of full information transfer, a partially informative communication system similar to that uncovered by Zollman, Bergstrom and Huttegger (2012) is possible.
Essay-length review of Craver & Darden's (2013) 'In Search Of Mechanisms'. This is a book about t... more Essay-length review of Craver & Darden's (2013) 'In Search Of Mechanisms'. This is a book about the methodology of biology. Carl Craver and Lindley Darden join forces to advance a unified model of biological explanation as rooted in the search for mechanisms. The authors pay close attention to successful cases of explanation in diverse areas of biology, both historical and contemporary, in order to bring to life an accessible and comprehensive proscriptive model of biological discovery. This review presents some important aspects of the mechanistic model in its present form, and notes a few of the critical worries for conceiving of it as the standard model of explanation in the life sciences. Worries raised relate to a) the scope of mechanistic explanation in biology when it comes to understanding population-level phenomena and robust, self-organising phenomena, and b) the level of detail that is required of good biological explanation, despite the existence of 'difference-makers' on levels above those that include the physical structure of entities and their precise, spatiotemporal organisation.
According to recent cognitive explanations of religiosity, belief in supernatural agents is a res... more According to recent cognitive explanations of religiosity, belief in supernatural agents is a result of species-universal cognitive modules operating in environments similar enough to those these modules evolved in. Less attention has been given to the cognitive basis of atheism. The author brings together three ways in which atheism could arise that are a priori compatible with recent cognitive explanations of religiosity. One way is reflective and involves the effortful overturning of unreflective modular cognition. The other two ways are unreflective and involve, firstly, the operation of modular cognition in evolutionarily novel environments, and secondly, developmental variation of modular cognition. The author argues that there is evidence for both a reflective route and at least one unreflective route to atheism, and that reflective and unreflective causes probably interact with each other. Consequently, he argues that the cognitive profiles of atheists are not necessarily more reflective than those of believers, nor any less ‘natural’.
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