Dominik Robel
University of Warsaw
Under the heading of ‘naturalising intentionality’, philosophers of mind have tried, for many decades, to find natural conditions accounting for the ‘aboutness’ of mental states. This has, in the case of teleosemantics, developed into a fully fledged theory about how natural functions of animal behaviour account for meaning of their mental states. Intentionality understood as ‘mental semantics’ has led some, including most famously Millikan, to assume that the same mechanisms ground meaning of linguistic expressions. In my presentation, I hope to show that this approach fails to bridge the gap between the kind of normativity required for proper functioning and producing meaningful linguistic expressions. This is because language users are more than mere reliable responders to external stimuli. As noted by Robert Brandom, linguistic normativity is a social institution that needs to be available not only as a description, but recognised and adhered to by its participants.
I propose an alternative to the ‘functional’ account provided by teleosemantics, deriving from the biological notion of autopoiesis. Autopoiesis once dominated discussions in the enactivist space. Lately, however, it has been somewhat sidelined, mainly due to the increasing dominance of sensorimotor enactivism. Autopoietic systems model living organisms by emphasising that they go through constant changes trying to maintain systemic homeostasis. Autopoietic normativity can be described as a causal phenomenon that allows for developing skillful, goal-oriented action. An action is correct in the sense that it allows the system to maintain its internal organisation through change. This means that enactivists can provide useful mechanisms for naturalising neo-pragmatic theories of language, which put skillful action at their centre. While doing so, they can avoid grounding normativity in phylogenetic history, thus avoiding certain challenges to teleosemantics.
Chair: Raffaele Giovanni Caravella
Time: 05 September, 12:00 – 12:30
Location: SR 1.007
SOPhiA 2026 