Darwin and Disjunction: Foraging Theory and Univocal Assignments of Content

Abstract

According to Jerry Fodor, “[h]uffing and puffing and piling on the teleology just doesn’t help with the disjunction problem; it doesn’t lead to univocal assignments of intentional content” (1990, p. 72). That Fodor separates these two claims with only a semicolon is unfortunate, for each merits individual scrutiny. First, there is the claim that appeals to the theory of evolution by natural selection will not help with the disjunction problem. I will argue that the truth of this claim depends upon how we characterize the relation between a representational state and that which it is about Fodor assumes this relation must be a causal one, and this assumption leads inevitably to the disjunction problem.

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