Volume 35, 1998
Philosophy of Mind
Mary Litch
Pages 143-148
Identity Conditions for Indicator State Types within Dretske’s Theory of Psychological Content Naturalization
Within the context of Dretske’s theory of psychological content naturalization, as laid out in Explaining Behavior, the concept of an indicator state type plays a pivotal role. Providing a general (and non-circular) description of the identity conditions for being a token of an indicator state type is a prerequisite for the ultimate success of Dretske’s theory. However, Dretske fails to address this topic. Thus, his theory is incomplete. Several different approaches for specifying these identity conditions are possible; however, each is inadequate.