Karen Neander is a founder of teleosemantics. Her book reveals years of subtle thought on the naturalistic explanation of original intentionality, of how, ultimately, representations can be about the world. Neander's explanation, at the preconceptual level of sensory-perceptual representations, is wonderfully informed and detailed. This book is a major advance.
Michael Devitt, Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York; author of Ignorance of Language
While informational and teleosemantic approaches to content have been around for decades, Neander carefully builds the case for a unique view that fuses the best elements from each. A Mark of the Mental will hold significant interest for philosophers of mind and cognitive science, and its discussions of functions will be relevant to philosophers of biology as well.
Daniel Weiskopf, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Georgia State University; coauthor of An Introduction to the Philosophy of Psychology
Neander's book addresses some of the most important and challenging topics in perceptual psychology and the philosophy of perception, in each case making important advances. The main goal of the book is to develop and defend a theory of what it is for a perceptual state to represent an external object or property. The account that Neander offers, which is based on the notions of causation and biological function, is in my judgment the most promising one that has so far appeared. Among other virtues, it meshes nicely with information-processing psychology. The book also addresses a range of important ancillary topics. To illustrate, Neander argues persuasively that nonconceptual perceptual representations can (in a content-constitutive way) be analogs of their contents, and that their contents are “thin,” in the sense that they involve properties like colors, sizes and shapes, and complex configurations of such properties, as opposed to higher-level properties like PREY, CAUSE, and MALE-FACE. The book is aimed at professors of philosophy and cognitive science, and at advanced students of those disciplines. If you're in one of those groups, I strongly urge you to buy a copy – and also to read it!
Chris Hill, Professor of Philosophy, Brown University
Neander's excellent book should be studied by cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind and biology working on representation and intentionality.
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
