| Theorist | Theory of the normative | Faux, simplistic example
|
|---|
| Dretske (for referential concepts)
| A representation is correct when it is caused by the kind
of object that would have caused it during the training period.
| 'COW' representation caused by a horse is incorrect
because in the training period a horse would not cause the
representation 'COW'.
|
|---|
| Millikan (for referential concepts)
| A representation is correct when it is produced by and
consumed by a representational system S; where that
production and consumption is similar to the past
productions and consumptions of similar systems S in the
ancestors of the organism; and these kinds of productions
and consumptions gave a fitness benefit to the organism
which in part led it to pass on the trait for the system
to this individual.
| 'FLY' produced by and consumed by a frog when it sees the
image of a fly on a computer screen is incorrect because the
system in the frog that is producing and consuming this
representation was inherited by this frog because in the
ancestors of this frog, the production and consumption of
the representation 'FLY' gave them a fitness benefit only
when it was caused by real flies (because this enable those
frogs to catch and eat flies, and this made those frog more
likely to have children, and pass on the
fly-representation-system-trait).
|
|---|
| Dennett (for beliefs)
| Belief that P is correct if this is the kind of
belief that I judge a rational agent should have.
| Belief that this horse seen on a dark night is
a cow is incorrect because I judge that you should
believe it is a horse and not a cow.
|
|---|
| Churchland (for beliefs)
| Because beliefs don't exist, they don't have a
normative nature.
| Not applicable
|
|---|