Teleosemantics and Ethology

Abstract The debate between different versions of teleosemantics has largely centered around which alternative offers the most plausible account of the contents of simple animal representations. A serious issue is that theorists not only disagree on which proposal best explains the contents of these representations but also on what the contents actually are. To make progress, we need well-supported identifications of contents that are independent of the philosophical theories designed to explain them and the intuitions of their advocates. I suggest that the recognitional capacities ascribed by ethologists to explain animal behavior provide such identifications. I argue that these identifications conflict with the two main teleosemantic approaches. Ethologists characterize animals as recognizing other animals that constitute their prey, predators or mates, as well as other behaviorally significant objects. I contend that other recent philosophical attempts to find independent identifications of contents misinterpret ethological studies as denying that animals recognize such objects.