on the representation of definition

Definition of 'representation'

• representation

representation in American English

Representation in british english, examples of 'representation' in a sentence representation, related word partners representation, trends of representation.

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In other languages representation

• American English : representation / rɛprɪzɛnˈteɪʃən /
• Brazilian Portuguese : representação
• Chinese : 代表
• European Spanish : representación
• French : représentation
• German : Vertretung
• Italian : rappresentanza
• Japanese : 代表
• Korean : 대표
• European Portuguese : representação
• Spanish : representación
• Thai : การมีตัวแทน

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• representamen
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Related terms of representation

• ensure representation
• equal representation
• exact representation
• fair representation
• false representation
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Definition of representation noun from the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary

representation

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Meaning of represent in English

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represent verb ( ACT FOR )

• All the local churches were represented at the memorial service .
• All the nations of the world will be represented at the conference .
• A group of four teachers were delegated to represent the school at the union conference .
• They purport to represent the wishes of the majority of parents at the school .
• A friend of the victim was subpoenaed as a witness by lawyers representing the accused .
• alternatively
• bargain something away
• change over
• compensation
• make up for something
• someone's answer to someone/something idiom
• step into the breach idiom
• sub out something
• substitutability
• substitutable
• substitution

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

represent verb ( DESCRIBE )

• ¼ and 0.25 are different ways of representing the same fraction .
• The wild cards are represented here by asterisks .
• The decimal system represents numbers in terms of groups of ten.
• Each number on the scale represents twice the speed of the preceding number .
• Writers of realist novels try to represent life as it is.
• anti-realism
• anti-realist
• complementary
• confederate
• naturalistically
• non-figurative
• non-representational
• poetic licence

represent verb ( BE )

• The course represents excellent value for money .
• This huge , unfinished building represents the last hurrah of the former regime .
• The new price represents a saving of more than 40 percent .
• This new policy represents a change of direction for the government .
• Her father's blessing represented a bestowal of consent upon her marriage .
• account for something
• be a thing idiom
• existential
• existentially
• have legs idiom
• self-existence
• self-existent

represent | American Dictionary

• representation

represent | Business English

Examples of represent, translations of represent.

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Hanna Pitkin, The Concept of Representation

School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona

• Published: 10 December 2015
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This chapter reviews Hanna Pitkin’s seminal book, The Concept of Representation , her most important and lasting contribution to political philosophy. Using Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ordinary-language theory, Pitkin explores the semantic landscape and the etymology of the concept of representation. In particular, she expounds on the meaning of representation by proposing four different views of representation: formalistic representation, descriptive representation, symbolic representation, and substantive representation. This chapter discusses Pitkin’s arguments, with particular emphasis on her assertion that representation is a paradox and that genuine representation respects the autonomy of the represented and the representative. It also considers the limitations of The Concept of Representation , such as its failure to adequately examine the relationship between democracy and representation.

Hanna Pitkin’s brilliance is in her meticulous and methodical attention to the underlying structure and meaning of political concepts. She excavates past meanings, traces their etymological development, and surveys the terrain of contemporary usages, not to solve political problems, but to uncover and understand the tensions and paradoxes that constitute political life. Pitkin systemically presents the language through which humans describe, understand, and evaluate political behavior in order to show how people can have different and contradictory aims. Her work also highlights the costs for pursuing any one aim in a singular fashion. In this way, Pitkin’s work provides a conceptual roadmap for navigating the vast and puzzling nature of political ideas.

By far, Hanna Pitkin’s most important and lasting contribution to political philosophy is The Concept of Representation . Using Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ordinary-language theory, this seminal book sketches the semantic landscape and the etymology of the concept of representation. Pitkin details how a map can “represent” a local topography, an actor can “represent” Hamlet, an attorney can “represent” a litigant, and a senator can “represent” her constituents. Despite these seemingly disparate usages, Pitkin identifies a common meaning: Representation is “the making present of something which is nevertheless not literally present” (143). Notice the paradox: representation requires both being present and being not present. Pitkin traces this paradox throughout various usages of representation. For instance, this paradox is most apparent in the activity of representation: representatives should be responsive to their constituents’ preferences (constituents’ preferences present) and act independently in accordance with their constituents’ best interests (constituents’ preferences not present). Her paradoxical approach to representation focuses on whether the autonomy of both the represented and the representative is being preserved. Pitkin maintains that genuine representation requires both. For this reason, Pitkin does not try to reconcile these paradoxical features of representation; rather, she illuminates these contradictions in order to reduce misunderstandings. For Pitkin, political life entails many paradoxical and contradictory commitments. An important task of political theory is to help humans identify and clarify these paradoxes.

The Concept of Representation usefully catalogues the vocabulary used to describe, explicate, and assess electoral behavior. Furthermore, Pitkin’s insistence that the meaning of representation depends on its usage enables her analysis to apply to political behavior beyond elections: Pitkin’s catalogue can pertain to non-state actors such as international, transnational, and non-governmental organizations as well as to courts, interest groups, lobbyists, and social movements. As the meaning of representation has become inextricably tied to modern notions of democracy, the significance of Pitkin’s analysis has grown. Her work lays out the underlying schematic foundation of democratic representative institutions and practices. Pitkin’s contribution is enduring because it can accommodate changing political practices and thereby incorporate the evolving meanings of representation.

Pitkin’s assertions, that representation is a paradox and that genuine representation respects the autonomy of the represented and the representative, provide grounds for criticizing different forms of governance such as illiberal democracies ( Zakaria 1997 ) and hybrid regimes ( Diamond 2002 ). After all, in her discussion of how kings can be representatives and how the Soviet Union holds elections, Pitkin recognizes that representative institutions can increase the legitimacy of tyrants and serve undemocratic purposes. Her paradoxical understanding of representation, though, offers reasons for criticizing even the deliberative turns of authoritarian regimes, for example, China, if deliberations on the local level do not translate into sufficient capacities to act on the central level ( He and Warren 2011 ).

Furthermore, Pitkin’s etymological analysis of fascist forms of representation holds implicit warnings to those who want to eliminate the paradoxical nature of representation: Representation can become mere authority, when representative institutions suppress the autonomy of the represented. Even the responsiveness of representatives to citizens’ preferences can be used as a form of control. In this way, Pitkin’s schematic understanding of representation provides reasons for criticizing and even rejecting certain representative practices.

That said, Pitkin recognizes that there are multiple ways to negotiate the contradictory standards for representation. For her, the activity of representation is necessarily pluralist. Because genuine representation requires representatives to act independently and in a manner responsive to the represented, representatives can balance these competing standards in different acceptable ways. For this reason, Pitkin holds that appropriate standards for evaluating representation will depend importantly on the nature of interests, welfare, and wishes of the represented, the relative capacities of representative and constituents, and the nature of the issues with which the representative must deal (210). In this way, Pitkin recommends shifting the theoretical attention away from general questions such as “how should an individual represent?” to questions focused on how a particular individual should act in a particular institutional and political context.

So to understand democratic representation using Pitkin’s approach, one needs to ask the following questions: What are the appropriate standards for democratic representation? 1 What are the interests of democratic citizens that should guide and constrain their representatives’ behavior? Do representatives and their constituents have the necessary capacities for democratic representation? What is the nature of the issues facing democratic representatives and their constituents? While her theoretical framework recommends asking certain questions, Pitkin does not provide answers to them.

For instance, Pitkin never adequately specifies how we are to identify constituents’ objective interests. At times, she implies that constituents should have “some say” in what these are. However, she recognizes that trustees will sometimes need to advance constituents’ interests by going against their preferences. For Pitkin, representatives who do so must only provide justifications for their actions. It is unclear, though, how or whether “genuine” representative processes should guarantee or require representatives to give such explanations. Perhaps it follows that transparency should be understood as an “objective interest” of democratic citizens, but Pitkin does not elaborate.

Instead, Pitkin concludes with the somewhat unsatisfying formulation that representatives “must not be found persistently at odds with the wishes of the represented without good reason in terms of their interest, without a good explanation of why their wishes are not in accord with their interest”(210). By qualifying her position with the word “persistently,” Pitkin suggests it is only the frequency of decisions contrary to constituents’ preferences without adequate explanation that prevents genuine representation. In this way, Pitkin’s general theoretical approach to evaluating representatives thwarts making particular evaluations. Pitkin does not provide absolute principles that should be used as benchmarks for evaluating a representative’s performance; rather, she offers guidelines about which kinds of questions we should pursue. And for Pitkin, answers to political problems depend in large part on the kind of question being asked.

For example, Pitkin (1965 , 1966 ) saw the “problem of political obligation” and of whether citizens should obey the law as arising from four different clusters of questions. The first cluster, which she calls “the limits of obligation,” considers “when is a person obligated to obey and when not?” This cluster seeks to establish the conditions that necessitate an obligation. The second cluster focuses on “the locus of sovereignty”—that is, the question of “whom are you obligated to obey?” This recognizes that the state is not a monolithic structure; rather, the public sphere can produce various conflicting obligations. The third cluster examines the difference between legitimate authority and mere coercion. In other words, some questions about political obligation are really about the proper use of force. The final cluster investigates the justifications of obligation: “Why are you ever obligated to obey even a legitimate authority?” Pitkin argues that these various clusters of questions generate distinct and sometimes incompatible answers. An answer to the question “whom you should obey” will not provide a satisfactory solution to the question “why should you obey a legitimate authority?” Similarly, a question “why should you obey a legitimate authority” will not inform you how you should differentiate a legitimate authority from mere coercion. Given the different issues implicit in the problem of political obligation, answers to the question “should a person obey the law” will depends in a large part which cluster of questions is being stressed (1965, 990).

In addition to revealing the need to clarify political questions, Pitkin catalogues the vocabulary with which we investigate and assess representative processes and practices within democracies. Two things strike me as remarkable about using Pitkin’s analysis of representation as the schematic foundation for understanding democratic representation. First, The Concept of Representation never adequately examines the relationship between democracy and representation. The relationship is presumed, not explicated. In fact, as mentioned before, her discussion of representation includes analysis of non-democratic forms of governance. Pitkin notes that “every government claims to represent,” implying that representation is not an exclusively democratic practice. Moreover, she stresses that through much of human history, “both the concept and the practice of representation have had little to do with democracy or liberty” (2). For instance, Pitkin depicts representation as initially a burden placed on aristocrats by the king as an efficient way to collect taxes. Aristocrats were appointed as the king’s delegates. However, the institutionalization of these delegates created a political body that could eventually resist the king’s power. With this institutional transformation, representation became a matter of rights, as opposed to merely a burden.

In her later years, Pitkin admitted that The Concept of Representation took the relationship between democracy and representation “for granted as unproblematic. ” Pitkin explained that “Like most people even today, I more or less equated democracy with representation or at least with representative government” (2004, 336). Here she acknowledges how contemporary understandings of a political concept can bias theoretical and conceptual analysis. Pitkin goes on to say that the conflation of democracy and representation is “profoundly misleading,” for it obscures the way “that representation increasingly supplants democracy instead of serving it” (2004, 339). Here Pitkin raises an interesting question about whether democracy can be adequately protected by a political representation that is only intermittently bolstered by citizen participation, deliberation, and enforcement of human and constitutional rights ( Castiglione 2012 ). Pitkin remains suspicious of the elitist nature of representation.

Second, her theoretical contribution to assessing representative processes in democracies is remarkable given her claim that the concept of representation is, and will always be , a paradox. Satisfying the criteria of representation demanded by one meaning of representation requires violating the criteria required by other meanings. Paradoxes might be descriptively accurate, capturing complexities and contradictions generated by various usages of the term; however, their explanatory power is limited to the degree that they ascribe multiple interpretations to the same phenomena. How does one argue with, let alone refute, a paradox? Pitkin sketches the paradoxical terrain of representation with little advice about how to navigate the normative complexities and ambiguities of representation. In the end, Pitkin requires her readers to use their own judgment for assessing the compromises and bargaining that constitute and accompany representative processes.

The Landscape of Representation

How did Pitkin sketch and catalogue the various contradictory meanings of representation? She famously captures the enigmatic nature of representation in a metaphor. She envisions the concept of representation as “a rather complicated, convoluted, three-dimensional structure in the middle of a dark enclosure.” Political theorists provide only “flash-bulb photographs of the structure taken from different angles” (10). In other words, political theorists approach the concept of representation with necessarily limited and partial perspectives. According to Pitkin’s metaphor, political theorists are unable to “see” simultaneously the whole underlying structure of representation. What Pitkin’s metaphor does not stress, though, is how her understanding of “language as action” suggests that the three-dimensional structure can shift, grow, or shrink with common usages.

In particular, Pitkin clarifies the meaning of representation by differentiating four different views of representation. They are formalistic representation, descriptive representation, symbolic representation , and substantive representation . Each view highlights distinctive features of representation and thereby different parameters for identifying and evaluating representation.

For instance, formalistic representation examines the process of authorization and accountability. Formalistic representation considers how a representative comes to obtain his standing, status, position, or office, as well as the institutional mechanisms that encourage responsiveness to the represented. According to this view, institutional procedures, rules, and norms structure the actions of a representative. They determine how a representative can and does act. Using this view of representation, a person becomes a representative simply in virtue of having a certain job title or office. The formalistic view emphasizes the institutional procedures by which an agent acquires the authority to act.

Interestingly, Pitkin denies that formalistic representation provides any standards for assessing the actions of a representative. Formalistic representation is a kind of normative black hole. A person either has the authority to act or she does not. Of course, one can assess a representative by whether her authority was legitimately obtained or whether she exceeded her legitimate authority. But Pitkin denies that formalistic representation provides any standards for assessing how well a representative behaves. Formalistic representation is a “transaction that takes place at the outset, before the actual representing begins” (39). In this way, Pitkin downplays the ways that representatives can alter and expand their institutional authority. Consequently, her analysis does not provide any standards for assessing violations of accountability, let alone for manipulating authorization devices. Ironically, the view of representation most closely tied to accountability offers no ethical criteria for judging the performance of the representative.

Pitkin’s second view of representation, descriptive representation , focuses on the resemblance or correspondence between the representative and the represented. Of course, what should correspond can vary: Descriptive representation can focus on whether representatives’ experiences, identities, perspectives, and interests are similar to those of the represented. It is, as Anne Phillips famously described, focused on “a politics of presence” that examines who is literally participating in political processes. So, descriptive representation can refer to having representatives from urban and rural areas as well as having representatives who belong to historically marginalized groups.

Pitkin helpfully enumerates various metaphors used to describe the nature of this resemblance. Legislatures can be a picture, a mirror, a portrait, a map, a blueprint, a miniature, or even a sample of the citizenry body as a whole. Each of these different metaphors provides different criteria for judging the correspondence between the represented and the representative. For instance, one might judge a map by whether the resemblance allows one to navigate more effectively while one could judge a portrait by its ability to capture the model aesthetically. Despite such variations, Pitkin maintains that the proper way of evaluating descriptive representation is the accuracy of the correspondence or resemblance between the representative and represented. When we evaluate descriptive representatives, we judge them by whether they adequately look like or share relevant opinions, experiences, and interests of those they represent.

In her discussion of descriptive representation, Pitkin provocatively claims that increasing descriptive representation is likely to decrease accountability to that group. Pitkin based her claim on A. Phillip Griffith’s and Richard Wollheim’s provocative argument (1960) that although lunatics might be the best descriptive representatives of other lunatics, it is not desirable to send lunatics to the legislature. For Pitkin, assessing representation in accordance with the accuracy of the resemblance between representatives and represented distracts attention away from the importance of what representatives do. So judging representatives by whether they “look like” the represented weakens judging them by how well representatives advance their interests and opinions. These controversial claims made by Pitkin sparked an entire empirical and theoretical literature about whether and how descriptive representation of marginalized groups matter. According to Anne Phillips, Pitkin’s The Concept of Representation was both an “inspiration and foil” to the normative arguments used to justify increasing the representation of women in legislatures and decision-making assemblies. Phillips explained, “It was inspiration because it forced us to think more carefully about the meanings we were attributing to ‘underrepresentation.’ It was also, however, foil because it seemed so discouragingly critical of descriptive representation. It figured, therefore, as the position that had to be argued down” (2012, 513).

The third view of representation, symbolic representation , captures the ways that a representative “stands for” the represented. To help clarify this concept, consider the example of a king. The presence of a king can occasion certain patriotic emotional responses toward the constitutional monarchy. The king embodies the political significance of the kingdom as a whole. Such emotional responses reflect an implicit consent toward a king’s authority. For this reason, a king is more likely “to stand for” the country during a highly ceremonial function, such as a coronation, than during highly partisan politics. According to Pitkin, the reaction of the represented is constitutive of symbolic representation. In particular, what matters is whether a person feels represented. Such feelings will depend importantly on the attitudes and beliefs of the represented. For Pitkin, the representative is merely a passive vehicle for these emotional responses. The feelings generated by the king are like those generated by a flag.

Understood in this way, a “real” representative cannot and should not rely on propaganda or coercion to generate consent (109). Pitkin firmly differentiates accepting and following a leader from accepting the leader as a symbol of the nation. Because the latter relies on the self-understandings of citizens, it cannot easily be coerced. Such coercion would change the meaning of the representative for the represented. Pitkin acknowledges that symbolic representation often rests “on emotional, affective, irrational psychological responses rather than on rationally justifiable criteria” (100); however, she denies that representatives should actively try to shape the represented’s beliefs and identities (110). To do so would be evidence of fascist representation, not of liberal representation that respects the autonomy of the represented.

Here Pitkin’s discussion of symbolic representation appears in conflict with recent theoretical work on representation. For example, Michael Saward (2006) endorses understanding representation as a kind of claim-making. He argues that we should not understand representatives as responding to their constituents’ interests and preferences; rather, their claim-making is responsible for shaping the identities, preferences, and interests of the represented. Saward stresses how representatives “read in” interests as opposed to “read[ing] off” the interests of their constituents (2010, 310). While Saward rejects Pitkin’s framework for presuming that the represented have a “given, transparent, and relatively stable” set of interests, Pitkin could respond that dissolving the distinction between the representative and the represented is dangerous to the degree that it undermines the autonomy of the represented. It also possibly overestimates the autonomy of representatives.

The final and arguably most important view of representation, what Pitkin calls substantive representation , investigates the activities of representatives. Substantive representation refers to the behavior of acting on behalf of, in the interest of, as an agent of, or as a substitute for the represented. For Pitkin, the paradoxical requirement for being both present and not present “is precisely what appears in the mandate and independence theorists’ conflicting views on the meaning of representation” ( Pitkin 1968 , 41). The mandate–independence controversy focuses on the question, “Ought a representative to do what his constituents want, or what he thinks best?” Mandate theorists endorse a “delegate” vision of representation in which the representative is bound by the preferences of constituents. In contrast, mandate theorists endorse a “trustee” conception of representation according to which representatives should act in accordance to what they consider to be constituents’ best interests. Because interests do not necessarily align with preferences, Pitkin concludes that these standards for judging the performance of representatives’ activities are sometimes irreconcilable. Under certain circumstances, a representative will violate the standards of representation, no matter how he or she acts.

How do these various views of representation provide the theoretical vocabulary for describing and understanding democratic representative processes? If one adopts a formalistic view of representation, empirical political scientists and political theorists studying democracy focus on the institutional procedures used to authorize representatives and hold them accountable. Symbolic representation concentrates on the emotional reaction of those being represented. For example, political scientists who study symbolic representation investigate whether democratic citizens feel represented by their individual representatives, interest groups, their political parties, or formal political institutions. In contrast, descriptive representation examines whether those participating in representative processes sufficiently resemble those being represented. Here what matters is whether the representatives adequately “mirror” or “correspond” to those being represented. Substantive representation critically evaluates democratic representative processes by the criteria of whose preferences and whose interests are advanced. Together Pitkin’s various views of representation provide the conceptual framework for investigating both empirically and theoretically democratic behavior.

Following Pitkin, democratic theorists should not try to reconcile the paradoxical nature of representation since the concept of representation works properly when the autonomy of the representative is adequately balanced by the autonomy of the represented. If the representative has all the power, the system is dictatorial. If the represented have all the power, representatives are merely the mouthpieces for the mob. Pitkin wants autonomy for both. Preserving the paradoxical elements of representation is necessary for democratic representation to the extent that it safeguards both citizens and representatives. Pitkin’s analysis constrains the proper behavior of democratic representatives because they must act in ways that protect the capacity of the represented to hold them accountable. Of course, as Pitkin notes, the proper balance will depend importantly on the interests, issues, and capacities at stake in a particular democracy. Pitkin’s theoretical framework for understanding democratic representation allows for the possibility that the meaning of representation can change. But it requires preserving humans’ ability to understand and create new political practices consistent with the problems they face. Pitkin’s theoretical claim that the meaning of representation depends on its use suggests that democratic possibilities are partially created by how we understand and employ language of democratic representation.

Some contemporary political theorists resist Pitkin’s understanding of representation as a paradox. Some pose alternative “common meanings.” For instance, Andrew Rehfeld argues that the concept of representation is not paradoxical because representation can be identified “simply by reference to a relevant audience accepting a person as such” (2006, 1). Others reject Pitkin’s terminology, especially the language of interests, because it leads us to irresolvable disputes. We are highly unlikely to agree about what people’s interests are ( Celis et al. 2014 ).

Perhaps the paradoxical elements of representation could be reduced if we understood how the different views of representation fit together. If Pitkin only had given us a lexical ordering for the different views, for example, symbolic representation trumps formalistic representation, her work would provide clearer tools for assessing representative processes. Unfortunately, Pitkin never offers such an explanation. At times, she implies that the concept of representation is unified. At other times, she emphasizes the tensions among these different views. Once again, Pitkin leaves the task of putting together the various pieces of representation to us.

Limitations of The Concept of Representation

Despite its theoretical resiliency and adaptability, Pitkin’s analysis of representation might strike some as out of date. Her analysis of political representation centers on electoral relationships and frames them primarily as principal–agent problems. Such an understanding of representation is valuable to the extent that it allows constituents to settle conflicts about the proper behavior of representatives by appealing to procedural solutions. After all, elections enable constituents to both vote in and vote out their public officials. Electoral representation can simultaneously establish the legitimacy of democratic authority and create institutional incentives for governments to be responsive to citizens. Unfortunately, not all political institutions link authorization to accountability. By not recognizing how mechanisms of accountability differ significantly from those of authorization, Pitkin focuses almost exclusively on methods of authorization, specifically elections.

Moreover, political representation can often occur outside of electoral relationships ( Warren and Castiglione 2004 ). After all, no one votes for Amnesty International to speak on the behalf of the tortured. Similarly, it is misleading to think of interest groups such as American Association of Retired People as authorized by the votes of their members. As Ruth Grant and Robert Keohane (2005) claim, authorization mechanisms are often decoupled from accountability mechanisms in the international arena. By depicting representation as a principal–agent relationship, Pitkin downplays the importance of horizontal accountability ( O’Donnell 1998 )—that is, the liberal and republican components of polyarchies that allow state agencies to monitor and enforce law violations. Instead of understanding freedom as protected by the autonomy of constituents, civil and political liberties might be better protected by representative institutions with networks of agencies that enforce the rule of law. Conceiving representation as a principal–agent problem also downplays the important role of surrogate accountability-holders ( Rubenstein 2007 ) who sanction agents on the behalf of those affected by their actions. Pitkin also overlooks how representative relationships can be mediated by multi-leveled vertical relationships, for example, bureaucracies.

All of these omissions reveal a significant limitation of Pitkin’s work for understanding representation and more specifically for analyzing democratic representation: Pitkin’s analysis of accountability and its relationship to representation is woefully underdeveloped. Pitkin implicitly assumes that elections provide sufficient accountability and responsiveness to democratic citizens to guarantee their autonomy. One explanation for this assumption is that Pitkin does not consider the accountability view of representation to be “an important strand in the literature of representation” (55). Perhaps this devaluation of accountability results from the lack of any single theorist who analyzes the importance of accountability in any sustained and systematic fashion, as Thomas Hobbes did for authorization. Regardless of the reason, Pitkin perceives accountability theories as only a response and a corrective to poor authorization mechanisms. She claims that accountability theorists simply identify a representative as someone who will have to answer to another for what he does. Accountability is, therefore, a matter of responsibility and answerability. It places “new and special” obligations onto the representative.

Insightfully, Pitkin notes that we often develop our theories of democratic representative government by juxtaposing them to other (non-democratic) forms of government. Given this approach to understanding democratic representation, it is no surprise that competitive elections often emerge as “the answer” to the question, “how should representative processes be structured?” As David Plotke (1997) noted, definitions of democracy are deeply influenced by ideological commitments. During the Cold War, Joseph Schumpeter’s definition of democracy as competitive elections was useful partly because it could differentiate Western liberal democracies from Eastern European socialist countries that often identified themselves as “people’s democracies.” Pitkin’s observation about the fact that our intuitions about representative democracy can change is partially instructive because democratic representative forms of governance can share certain institutional features with non-democratic representative ones.

Recall that Pitkin maintained that formal mechanisms of authorization and accountability do not provide standards for evaluating the performance of individual representatives. They only determine whether the representative is properly authorized. Pitkin’s methodology calls for making political judgments about the appropriate standards of representation, the interests of the represented that should guide and constrain their representatives’ behavior, the necessary capacities for functioning within certain institutional setting, and the nature of the issues at stake within a particular context. The proper political language for describing and evaluating representative processes is significantly contingent upon the political norms and practices within a particular setting.

Nevertheless, Pitkin recognizes special obligations of representatives and that accountability mechanisms can justifiably constrain representatives’ behavior. For Pitkin, “genuine representation exists only where there are such controls—accountability to the represented” (57). To the degree that elections can serve to reinforce an intolerant majority’s power against minorities, or even serve merely to reinforce the power of the state, then having elections would be insufficient for both formalistic representation and democratic representation.

Pitkin does acknowledge “other forms” of accountability besides elections, yet she does not investigate how these alternative forms might influence our understanding of accountability. For instance, she never differentiates accountability mechanisms designed “to give an account of,” from accountability mechanisms designed “to hold to account” (55). In this way, she conflates transparency mechanisms with sanctioning ones. Nor does Pitkin adequately theorize the etymological distinctions between accountability that provides control and accountability that provides self-correction. Pitkin’s too-brief discussion of accountability ignores the possible paradoxical elements within it. For example, she does not explore the tensions between responsiveness and sanctioning that can arise when constituents’ interests conflict with their expressed preferences. Pitkin’s analysis of accountability is further limited by its failure to consider the inability of accountability mechanisms to generate “good enough” choices to engage and reflect citizens’ political commitments. Thus, Pitkin does not adequately tie accountability to the proper activity of representatives.

Pitkin herself provides a partial explanation for why her lack of attention to accountability is a problem. In her discussion of the uneasy relationship between democracy and representation, Pitkin warned that efforts to democratize the representative system have consistently led to representation supplanting democracy instead of serving it. “Our governors have become a self-perpetuating elite that rules or rather, administers, passive or private masses of people. The representatives act not as agents of people but simply instead of them” (2004, 339). Being a substitute is insufficient for genuine representation, according to Pitkin. Drawing on Hannah Arendt, Pitkin argues that “genuine representation” is possible “where the centralized large scale, necessarily abstract representative system is based in a lively participatory, concrete direct democracy at the local level” (2004, 340). The lively local political life allows people to learn and shape the meaning of democratic citizenship so that individual self-interest becomes consistent with public interests.

Because of the importance that Pitkin places on self-understandings, she rejects thinking about the choice of political commitments (or of representatives) as “a choice between two foods” (1968, 211). Politics should not be conceived as simply a matter of determining which preference produces the most satisfaction. For citizens’ self-understandings of their political commitments and their political practices influence the amount of satisfaction they derive from political processes. As a result, one cannot calculate political priorities as easily as a shopping list.

Pitkin also rejects using competitive economic market terminology to understand political representation. Such a way of understanding representation is likely to treat political issues as “questions of knowledge, to which it is possible to find correct, objectively valid answers” (212). The representative becomes an expert and the opinions of constituents become “irrelevant.” So if we treat politics as merely a mathematical question concerning the aggregation of existing preferences or as a scientific question about efficient methods of preference satisfaction, Pitkin concludes that the democratic commitment to “counting noses in the constituency” will appear “foolish” (212). Democracy comes to be seen as an obstacle to good representation. Pitkin’s understanding of the paradox of representation means that being the most efficient or capable at satisfying preferences won’t necessarily improve the normative value of the representative’s actions. Such efficiencies might improve a representative’s capacity to act and thereby the legitimacy of her authority, but representation involves more than that.

Throughout her career, Hanna Pitkin was drawn to paradoxes. In contrast to those who approach a paradox in order to offer some way to reconcile contradictory meanings or avoid the appearance of inconsistency, Pitkin highlighted the paradoxical elements of our conceptual language. She insisted that the theoretical complexities and moral nuances of political life require representation to remain a puzzle. Filtering through the everyday usages of the concept, Pitkin also reveals how the meaning of representation changes with use. Pitkin breathes life into the conceptual meaning of representation.

Pitkin, though, sketches the semantic landscape of a concept without providing a normative map about how we should navigate that landscape. She rejects absolutist principles and perfectionism. Humans must create the new directions and practices of representation themselves. This approach to political theory is best reflected in her response to the question, “Can democracy be saved?”: “I am old; it is up to you” (2004, 342).

This approach to political theory allows for humans to disagree deeply about political questions and their answers. For Pitkin, there are multiple ways of representing and having a legitimate state. The point of political theory is not to reach consensus about these ideas but to foster mutual understanding. If we continue to rely on representative processes to settle disputes among citizens, The Concept of Representation will help us understand the limitations and problems with those processes. In particular, Pitkin emphasizes the problem with adopting a limited and partial view of the concept of representation.

Still, Pitkin’s approach to surveying the meaning of political concepts might give us pause: evaluations of representative processes are likely to diverge if society disagrees too drastically about what good representation, let alone good democratic representation, means. Pitkin’s desire to make interests, preferences, and processes adaptable to various circumstances opens up that possibility that normative understandings can be strengthened or weakened by political practices. When confronted with deep disagreements and mutual misunderstandings, Pitkin recommends asking more questions, such as whose interests and well-being are served by existing representative processes. Such questions will hopefully generate new representative practices and the conceptual language necessary to better negotiate political conflicts. In the end, Pitkin challenges us to adopt various ways of viewing our political concepts and to critically question the function of certain political concepts within its political environment.

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For one answer to this question, see Dovi 2008 .

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representation noun 1

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What does the noun representation mean?

There are 19 meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun representation , three of which are labelled obsolete. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.

representation has developed meanings and uses in subjects including

How common is the noun representation ?

How is the noun representation pronounced, british english, u.s. english, where does the noun representation come from.

Earliest known use

Middle English

The earliest known use of the noun representation is in the Middle English period (1150—1500).

OED's earliest evidence for representation is from around 1450, in St. Elizabeth of Spalbeck .

representation is of multiple origins. Either (i) a borrowing from French. Or (ii) a borrowing from Latin.

Etymons: French representation ; Latin repraesentātiōn- , repraesentātiō .

Nearby entries

• reprehensory, adj. 1576–1825
• repremiation, n. 1611
• represent, n. a1500–1635
• represent, v.¹ c1390–
• re-present, v.² 1564–
• representable, adj. & n. 1630–
• representamen, n. 1677–
• representance, n. 1565–
• representant, n. 1622–
• representant, adj. 1851–82
• representation, n.¹ c1450–
• re-presentation, n.² 1805–
• representational, adj. 1850–
• representationalism, n. 1846–
• representationalist, adj. & n. 1846–
• representationary, adj. 1856–
• representationism, n. 1842–
• representationist, n. & adj. 1842–
• representation theory, n. 1928–
• representative, adj. & n. a1475–
• representative fraction, n. 1860–

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Meaning & use

Pronunciation, compounds & derived words, entry history for representation, n.¹.

representation, n.¹ was revised in December 2009.

representation, n.¹ was last modified in March 2024.

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Revisions and additions of this kind were last incorporated into representation, n.¹ in March 2024.

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Factsheet for representation, n.¹, browse entry.

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[ rep-ri- zent ]

verb (used with object)

In this painting the cat represents evil and the bird, good.

Synonyms: exemplify

to represent musical sounds by notes.

He represents the company in Boston.

to represent one's government in a foreign country.

He represents Chicago's third Congressional district.

The painting represents him as a man 22 years old.

Synonyms: delineate

• to present or picture to the mind.
• to present in words; set forth; describe; state.

The article represented the dictator as a benevolent despot.

• to set forth clearly or earnestly with a view to influencing opinion or action or making protest.
• to present, produce, or perform, as on a stage.

Synonyms: portray

a genus represented by two species.

The llama of the New World represents the camel of the Old World.

verb (used without object)

• to protest; make representations against.

The gang members always represent when they see one another.

/ ˌrɛprɪˈzɛnt /

our tent represents home to us when we go camping

• to act as a substitute or proxy (for)

an MP represents his constituency

letters represent the sounds of speech

romanticism in music is represented by Beethoven

• to present an image of through the medium of a picture or sculpture; portray
• to bring clearly before the mind
• to set forth in words; state or explain

he represented her as a saint

• to act out the part of on stage; portray
• to perform or produce (a play); stage

Discover More

Derived forms.

• ˌrepreˌsentaˈbility , noun
• ˌrepreˈsentable , adjective

Other Words From

• repre·senta·ble adjective
• repre·senta·bili·ty noun
• nonrep·re·senta·ble adjective
• prerep·re·sent verb (used with object)
• unrep·re·senta·ble adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of represent 1

Example Sentences

A second round of more than 30 grants is in the works, representing over $2 million more.

Heliocene represents the moment when another life form figured out a way to tap into the potential of the sun, and adopts a name for our epoch that better centers humans within the spheres that hold us.

The suit was filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press attorneys, who are representing the Blade in the case.

He said the city manager invited him to be on a review panel in October to represent the LGBTQ community in Oceanside but hasn’t heard back on details.

Each column represents a different castle, while each row is a strategy, with the strongest performers on top and the weakest on the bottom.

More to the point, Huckabee has a natural appeal to a party that has come to represent the bulk of working class white voters.

Republicans loathe public sector unions—unless they represent cops or firefighters.

This year will represent the 20th anniversary of the first Running of the Santas.

For example, 51 percent of North Carolinians voted that year for a Democrat to represent them in Congress.

In their elitism and sense of entitlement, they represent much of what liberals are supposed to despise.

Little girls perhaps represent the attractive function of adornment: they like to be thought pretty.

A child's attempt to represent a man appears commonly to begin by drawing a sort of circle for the front view of the head.

The arrows represent the flow of money from each of these four categories to the others.

In the diagram the horizontal arrows represent such mere banking operations, not true circulation.

On the other hand, the arrows along the sides of the triangle represent actual circulation.

Related Words

How to Use representation in a Sentence

Representation.

• The letters of the alphabet are representations of sounds.
• Each state has equal representation in the Senate.

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Mental Representation

The notion of a “mental representation” is, arguably, in the first instance a theoretical construct of cognitive science. As such, it is a basic concept of the Computational Theory of Mind, according to which cognitive states and processes are constituted by the occurrence, transformation and storage (in the mind/brain) of information-bearing structures (representations) of one kind or another.

However, on the assumption that a representation is an object with semantic properties (content, reference, truth-conditions, truth-value, etc.), a mental representation may be more broadly construed as a mental object with semantic properties. As such, mental representations (and the states and processes that involve them) need not be understood only in cognitive/computational terms. On this broader construal, mental representation is a philosophical topic with roots in antiquity and a rich history and literature predating the recent “cognitive revolution,” and which continues to be of interest in pure philosophy. Though most contemporary philosophers of mind acknowledge the relevance and importance of cognitive science, they vary in their degree of engagement with its literature, methods and results; and there remain, for many, issues concerning the representational properties of the mind that can be addressed independently of the computational hypothesis.

Though the term ‘Representational Theory of Mind’ is sometimes used almost interchangeably with ‘Computational Theory of Mind’, I will use it here to refer to any theory that postulates the existence of semantically evaluable mental objects, including philosophy’s stock-in-trade mentalia – thoughts, concepts, percepts, ideas, impressions, notions, rules, schemas, images, phantasms, etc. – as well as the various sorts of “subpersonal” representations postulated by cognitive science. Representational theories may thus be contrasted with theories, such as those of Baker (1995), Collins (1987), Dennett (1987), Gibson (1966, 1979), Reid (1764/1997), Stich (1983) and Thau (2002), which deny the existence of such things.

1. The Representational Theory of Mind

2. propositional attitudes.

• 3. Conceptual and Nonconceptual Representation

4. Representationalism and Phenomenalism

6. content determination, 7. internalism and externalism, 8. the computational theory of mind, 9. thought and language, other internet resources, related entries.

The Representational Theory of Mind (RTM) (which goes back at least to Aristotle) takes as its starting point commonsense mental states, such as thoughts, beliefs, desires, perceptions and imagings. Such states are said to have “intentionality” – they are about or refer to things, and may be evaluated with respect to properties like consistency, truth, appropriateness and accuracy. (For example, the thought that cousins are not related is inconsistent, the belief that Elvis is dead is true, the desire to eat the moon is inappropriate, a visual experience of a ripe strawberry as red is accurate, an imaging of George Washington with dreadlocks is inaccurate.)

RTM defines such intentional mental states as relations to mental representations, and explains the intentionality of the former in terms of the semantic properties of the latter. For example, to believe that Elvis is dead is to be appropriately related to a mental representation whose propositional content is that Elvis is dead . (The desire that Elvis be dead, the fear that he is dead, the regret that he is dead, etc., involve different relations to the same mental representation.) To perceive a strawberry is, on the representational view, to have a sensory experience of some kind which is appropriately related to (e.g., caused by) the strawberry.

RTM also understands mental processes such as thinking, reasoning and imagining as sequences of intentional mental states. For example, to imagine the moon rising over a mountain is, inter alia , to entertain a series of mental images of the moon (and a mountain). To infer a proposition q from the propositions p and if p then q is ( inter alia ) to have a sequence of thoughts of the form p , if p then q , q .

Contemporary philosophers of mind have typically supposed (or at least hoped ) that the mind can be naturalized – i.e., that all mental facts have explanations in the terms of natural science. This assumption is shared within cognitive science, which attempts to provide accounts of mental states and processes in terms (ultimately) of features of the brain and central nervous system. In the course of doing so, the various sub-disciplines of cognitive science (including cognitive and computational psychology and cognitive and computational neuroscience) postulate a number of different kinds of structures and processes, many of which are not directly implicated by mental states and processes as commonsensically conceived. There remains, however, a shared commitment to the idea that mental states and processes are to be explained in terms of mental representations.

In philosophy, recent debates about mental representation have centered around the existence of propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.) and the determination of their contents (how they come to be about what they are about), and the existence of phenomenal properties and their relation to the content of thought and perceptual experience. Within cognitive science itself, the philosophically relevant debates have been focused on the computational architecture of the brain and central nervous system, and the compatibility of scientific and commonsense accounts of mentality.

Intentional Realists such as Dretske (e.g., 1988) and Fodor (e.g., 1987) note that the generalizations we apply in everyday life in predicting and explaining each other’s behavior (often collectively referred to as “folk psychology”) are both remarkably successful and indispensable. What a person believes, doubts, desires, fears, etc. is a highly reliable indicator of what that person will do; and we have no other way of making sense of each other’s behavior than by ascribing such states and applying the relevant generalizations. We are thus committed to the basic truth of commonsense psychology and, hence, to the existence of the states its generalizations refer to. (Some realists, such as Fodor, also hold that commonsense psychology will be vindicated by cognitive science, given that propositional attitudes can be construed as computational relations to mental representations.)

Intentional Eliminativists , such as Churchland, (perhaps) Dennett and (at one time) Stich argue that no such things as propositional attitudes (and their constituent representational states) are implicated by the successful explanation and prediction of our mental lives and behavior. Churchland (1981) denies that the generalizations of commonsense propositional-attitude psychology are true. He argues that folk psychology is a theory of the mind with a long history of failure and decline, and that it resists incorporation into the framework of modern scientific theories (including cognitive psychology). As such, it is comparable to alchemy and phlogiston theory, and ought to suffer a comparable fate. Commonsense psychology is false , and the states (and representations) it postulates simply don’t exist. (It should be noted that Churchland is not an eliminativist about mental representation tout court . See, e.g., Churchland 1989.)

Dennett (1987a) grants that the generalizations of commonsense psychology are true and indispensable, but denies that this is sufficient reason to believe in the entities they appear to refer to. He argues that to give an intentional explanation of a system’s behavior is merely to adopt the “intentional stance” toward it. If the strategy of assigning contentful states to a system and predicting and explaining its behavior (on the assumption that it is rational – i.e., that it behaves as it should, given the propositional attitudes it should have, given its environment) is successful, then the system is intentional, and the propositional-attitude generalizations we apply to it are true. But there is nothing more to having a propositional attitude than this. (See Dennett 1987a: 29.)

Though he has been taken to be thus claiming that intentional explanations should be construed instrumentally, Dennett (1991) insists that he is a “moderate” realist about propositional attitudes, since he believes that the patterns in the behavior and behavioral dispositions of a system on the basis of which we (truly) attribute intentional states to it are objectively real. In the event that there are two or more explanatorily adequate but substantially different systems of intentional ascriptions to an individual, however, Dennett claims there is no fact of the matter about what the individual believes (1987b, 1991). This does suggest an irrealism at least with respect to the sorts of things Fodor and Dretske take beliefs to be; though it is not the view that there is simply nothing in the world that makes intentional explanations true.

(Davidson 1973, 1974 and Lewis 1974 also defend the view that what it is to have a propositional attitude is just to be interpretable in a particular way. It is, however, not entirely clear whether they intend their views to imply irrealism about propositional attitudes.)

Stich (1983) argues that cognitive psychology does not (or, in any case, should not) taxonomize mental states by their semantic properties at all, since attribution of psychological states by content is sensitive to factors that render it problematic in the context of a scientific psychology. Cognitive psychology seeks causal explanations of behavior and cognition, and the causal powers of a mental state are determined by its intrinsic “structural” or “syntactic” properties. The semantic properties of a mental state, however, are determined by its extrinsic properties – e.g., its history, environmental or intramental relations. Hence, such properties cannot figure in causal-scientific explanations of behavior. (Fodor 1994 and Dretske 1988 are realist attempts to come to grips with some of these problems.) Stich proposes a syntactic theory of the mind, on which the semantic properties of mental states play no explanatory role. (Stich has since changed his views on a number of these issues. See Stich 1996.)

3. Conceptual and Non-Conceptual Representation

It is a traditional assumption among realists about mental representations that representational states come in two basic varieties (cf. Boghossian 1995). There are those, such as thoughts, that are composed of concepts and have no phenomenal (“what-it’s-like”) features (“qualia”), and those, such as sensations, which have phenomenal features but no conceptual constituents. (Nonconceptual content is usually defined as a kind of content that states of a creature lacking concepts might nonetheless have. [ 1 ] ) On this taxonomy, mental states can represent either in a way analogous to expressions of natural languages or in a way analogous to drawings, paintings, maps, photographs or movies. Perceptual states such as seeing that something is blue, are sometimes thought of as hybrid states, consisting of, for example, a non-conceptual sensory experience and a belief, or some more integrated compound of conceptual and non-conceptual elements. (There is an extensive literature on the representational content of perceptual experience. See the entry on the contents of perception .)

Disagreement over non-conceptual representation concerns the existence and nature of phenomenal properties, the role they play in determining the contents of sensory representations, and which kinds of properties can be represented by non-conceptual states. Dennett (1988), for example, denies that there are such things as qualia at all (as they are standardly construed); while Brandom (2002), McDowell (1994), Rey (1991) and Sellars (1956) deny that they are needed to explain the content of sensory experience. Among those who accept that experiences have phenomenal content, some (Dretske, Lycan, Tye) argue that it is reducible to a kind of intentional content, while others (Block, Loar, Peacocke) argue that it is irreducible. (See the discussion in the next section.) A further debate concerns the non-conceptual representability of high-level properties such as kind properties and moral properties. (See, e.g., Dretske 1995 and Siegel 2010, and the entry on the contents of perception.)

Some historical discussions of the representational properties of mind (e.g., Aristotle De Anima , Locke 1689/1975, Hume 1739/1978) seem to assume that nonconceptual representations – percepts (“impressions”), images (“ideas”) and the like – are the only (or at least the main) kinds of mental representations, and that the mind represents the world in virtue of being in states that resemble things in it. On such a view, all representational states have their content in virtue of their sensory phenomenal features. Powerful arguments, however, focusing on the lack of generality (Berkeley Principles of Human Knowledge ), ambiguity (Wittgenstein 1953) and non-compositionality (Fodor 1981d) of sensory and imagistic representations, as well as their unsuitability to function as logical (Frege 1918/1997, Geach 1957) or mathematical (Frege 1884/1953) concepts, and the symmetry of resemblance (Goodman 1976), convinced philosophers that no theory of mind can get by with only nonconceptual representations construed in this way. (For more discussion, see the entry on nonconceputal mental content .)

There has also been dissent from the traditional claim that conceptual representations (thoughts, beliefs) lack phenomenology. Chalmers (1996), Flanagan (1992), Goldman (1993), Horgan and Tienson (2002), Jackendoff (1987), Levine (1993, 1995, 2001), McGinn (1991a), Pitt (2004, 2009, 2011, 2013), Searle (1992), Siewert (1998, 2011) and Strawson (1994, 2010), claim that purely conceptual (conscious) representational states themselves have a proprietary kind of phenomenology. This view – bread and butter, it should be said, among historical and contemporary Phenomenologists – has been gaining momentum of late among analytic philosophers of mind. (See, e.g., the essays in Bayne and Montague 2011 and Kriegel 2013, and Chudnoff 2015, Farkas 2008a, Kriegel 2011, Mendelovici 2018, Montague 2016.) If this claim is correct, the question of what role phenomenology plays in the determination of representational content re-arises for conceptual representation; and the eliminativist ambitions of Sellars, Brandom, Rey, et al. would meet a new obstacle. It would also raise prima facie problems for reductive representationalism, as well as for reductive naturalistic theories of intentional content, and externalism in general.

The view that there is a proprietary phenomenology of conscious thought – a cognitive ( conceptual , propositional ) phenomenology – claims that there is something it’s like to occurrently, consciously think a thought (entertain a propositional content), which is as different from other kinds of phenomenology (visual, auditory, etc.) as they are from each other. Opinions diverge, however, with respect to the role such phenomenology plays in determining the contents of conceptual/propositional representations. Some (e.g., Siewert) claim that it plays no such role. Others (e.g., Horgan and Tienson, Strawson) hold that it determines only “narrow” contents, further, “broad” contents being determined by extrinsic relations to represented objects and properties. Still others (e.g., Farkas 2008b, Pitt) argue that it is the only kind of conceptual content, insisting on a sharp distinction between content (sense) and reference. There is also disagreement about whether or not cognitive phenomenology determines but is distinct from conceptual/propositional content (e.g., Pitt 2004) or is identical to it (e.g., Pitt 2009).

Outstanding challenges for this thesis include unconscious thought (which seems to entail the existence of unconscious phenomenology, on this view), indexical concepts (whose content is standardly taken to be referentially individuated; see Pitt 2013 for an attempt to address this challenge), and nominal concepts (concepts expressed by utterances of names, likewise standardly referentially individuated).

See the entries on consciousness and intentionality and phenomenal intentionality for further discussion.

Among realists about non-conceptual representations, the central division is between representationalists (also called “representationists” and “intentionalists”) – e.g., Dretske (1995), Harman (1990), Leeds (1993), Lycan (1987, 1996), Rey (1991), Thau (2002), Tye (1995, 2000, 2009) – and phenomenalists (also called “phenomenists”) – e.g., Block (1996, 2003), Chalmers (1996, 2004), Evans (1982), Loar (2003a, 2003b), Peacocke (1983, 1989, 1992, 2001), Raffman (1995), Shoemaker (1990). Representationalists claim that the phenomenal content of a non-conceptual representation – i.e., its phenomenal character – is reducible to a kind of intentional content, naturalistically construed (à la Dretske). On this view, phenomenal contents are extrinsic properties represented by non-conceptual representations. In contrast, phenomenalists claim that the phenomenal content of a non-conceptual mental representation is identical to its intrinsic phenomenal properties.

The representationalist thesis is often formulated as the claim that phenomenal properties are representational or intentional. However, this formulation is ambiguous between a reductive and a non-reductive claim (though the term ‘representationalism’ is most often used for the reductive claim. See Chalmers 2004a). As a reductive claim, it means that the phenomenal content of an experience, the properties that characterize what it is like to have it (i.e., qualia ), are certain extrinsic properties it represents. For example, the blueness one might mention in describing one’s experience (perceptual representation) of a clear sky at noon is a property of the sky, not of one’s experience of it. Blueness is relevant to the characterization of one’s experience because one’s experience represents it, not because one’s experience instantiates it. An experience of the sky no more instantiates blueness than a thought that snow is cold instantiates coldness. On this view, the phenomenal content of sensory experience is explained as its representation of extrinsic properties. (See Byrne and Tye 2006, Dretske 1995, Harman 1990, Lycan 1987, 1996 and Tye 2014, 2015 for elaboration and defense of this “qualia externalism.” See Thompson 2008 and Pitt 2017 for objections to this account.) (See also the entry on representational theories of consciousness .)

As a non-reductive claim, it means that the phenomenal content of an experience is its intrinsic subjective phenomenal properties, which are themselves representational. One’s experience of the sky represents its color by instantiating phenomenal blueness. Among phenomenalists there is disagreement over whether non-conceptual representation requires complex structuring of phenomenal properties (Block and Peacocke, op. cit., Robinson 1994) or not (Loar 2003b). So-called “Ganzfeld” experiences, in which, for example, the visual field is completely taken up with a uniform experience of a single color, are a standard test case: Do Ganzfeld experiences represent anything? (It may be that doubts about the representationality of such experiences are simply a consequence of the fact that (outside of the laboratory) we never encounter things that would produce them. Supposing we routinely did (and especially if we had names for them), it seems unlikely such skepticism would arise.)

Most (reductive) representationalists are motivated by the conviction that one or another naturalistic explanation of intentionality (see the next section) is, in broad outline, correct, and by the desire to complete the naturalization of the mental by applying such theories to the problem of phenomenality. (Needless to say, many phenomenalists are just as eager to naturalize the phenomenal – though not in the same way.)

The main argument for representationalism appeals to the transparency of experience (cf. Tye 2000: 45–51). The properties that characterize what it’s like to have a sensory experience are presented in experience as properties of objects perceived: in attempting to attend to an experience, one seems to “see through it” to the objects and properties it is experiences of . [ 2 ] They are not presented as properties of the experience itself. If nonetheless they were properties of the experience, perception would be massively deceptive. But perception is not massively deceptive. In veridical perception, these properties are locally instantiated; in illusion and hallucination, they are not. On this view, introspection is indirect perception: one comes to know what phenomenal features one’s experience has by coming to know what objective features it represents. (Cf. also Dretske 1996, 1999.)

In order to account for the intuitive differences between conceptual and sensory representations, representationalists appeal to structural or functional properties. Dretske (1995), for example, distinguishes experiences and thoughts on the basis of the origin and nature of their functions: an experience of a property P is a state of a system whose evolved function is to indicate the presence of P in the environment; a thought representing the property P , on the other hand, is a state of a system whose assigned (learned) function is to calibrate the output of the experiential system. Rey (1991) takes both thoughts and experiences to be relations to sentences in the language of thought, and distinguishes them on the basis of (the functional roles of) such sentences’ constituent predicates. Lycan (1987, 1996) distinguishes them in terms of their functional-computational profiles. Tye (2000) distinguishes them in terms of their functional roles and the intrinsic structure of their vehicles: thoughts are representations in a language-like medium, whereas experiences are image-like representations consisting of “symbol-filled arrays.” (Cf. the account of mental images in Tye 1991.)

Phenomenalists tend to make use of the same sorts of features (function, intrinsic structure) in explaining some of the intuitive differences between thoughts and experiences; but they do not suppose that such features exhaust the differences between phenomenal and non-phenomenal representations. For the phenomenalist, it is the phenomenal properties of experiences – qualia themselves – that constitute the fundamental difference between experience and thought. Peacocke (1992), for example, develops the notion of a perceptual “scenario” (an assignment of phenomenal properties to coordinates of a three-dimensional egocentric space), whose content is “correct” (a semantic property) if in the corresponding “scene” (the portion of the external world represented by the scenario) properties are distributed as their phenomenal analogues are in the scenario.

Another sort of representation appealed to by some phenomenalists (e.g., Chalmers (2003), Block (2003)) is what Chalmers calls a “pure phenomenal concept.” A phenomenal concept in general is a concept whose denotation is a phenomenal property, and it may be discursive (‘the color of ripe bananas’), demonstrative (‘ this color’; Loar 1990/96)), or even more direct. On Chalmers’s view, a pure phenomenal concept is (something like) a conceptual/phenomenal hybrid consisting of a phenomenological “sample” (an image or an occurrent sensation) integrated with (or functioning as) a conceptual component (see also Balog 1999 and Papineau 2002). Phenomenal concepts are postulated to account for the apparent fact (among others) that, as McGinn (1991b) puts it, “you cannot form [introspective] concepts of conscious properties unless you yourself instantiate those properties.” One cannot have a phenomenal concept of a phenomenal property P , and, hence, phenomenal beliefs about P , without having experience of P , because P itself is (in some way) constitutive of the concept of P . (Cf. Jackson 1982, 1986 and Nagel 1974.) (The so-called “ phenomenal concept strategy” puts pure phenomenal concepts to use in defending the Knowledge Argument against physicalism. See Loar 1990/96, Chalmers 2004a. Alter and Walter 2007 is an excellent collection of essays on phenomenal concepts. See Conee 1994 and Pitt 2019 for skeptical responses to this strategy.)

Though imagery has played an important role in the history of philosophy of mind, the important contemporary literature on it is primarily psychological. (Tye 1991 and McGinn 2004 are notable recent exceptions.) In a series of psychological experiments done in the 1970s (summarized in Kosslyn 1980 and Shepard and Cooper 1982), subjects’ response time in tasks involving mental manipulation and examination of presented figures was found to vary in proportion to the spatial properties (size, orientation, etc.) of the figures presented. The question of how these experimental results are to be explained kindled a lively debate on the nature of imagery and imagination.

Kosslyn (1980) claims that the results suggest that the tasks were accomplished via the examination and manipulation of mental representations that themselves have spatial properties – i.e., pictorial representations, or images . Others, principally Pylyshyn (1979, 1981a, 1981b, 2003), argue that the empirical facts can be explained in terms exclusively of discursive , or propositional representations and cognitive processes defined over them. (Pylyshyn takes such representations to be sentences in a language of thought.)

The idea that pictorial representations are literally pictures in the head is not taken seriously by proponents of the pictorial view of imagery (see, e.g., Kosslyn and Pomerantz 1977). The claim is, rather, that mental images represent in a way that is relevantly like the way pictures represent. (Attention has been focused on visual imagery – hence the designation ‘pictorial’; though of course there may be imagery in other modalities – auditory, olfactory, etc. – as well. See O’Callaghan 2007 for discussion of auditory imagery.)

The distinction between pictorial and discursive representation can be characterized in terms of the distinction between analog and digital representation (Goodman 1976). This distinction has itself been variously understood (Fodor & Pylyshyn 1981, Goodman 1976, Haugeland 1981, Lewis 1971, McGinn 1989), though a widely accepted construal is that analog representation is continuous (i.e., in virtue of continuously variable properties of the representation), while digital representation is discrete (i.e., in virtue of properties a representation either has or doesn’t have) (Dretske 1981). (An analog/digital distinction may also be made with respect to cognitive processes . (Block 1983.)) On this understanding of the analog/digital distinction, imagistic representations, which represent in virtue of properties that may vary continuously (such as being more or less bright, loud, vivid, etc.), would be analog, while conceptual representations, whose properties do not vary continuously (a thought cannot be more or less about Elvis: either it is or it is not) would be digital.

It might be supposed that the pictorial/discursive distinction is best made in terms of the phenomenal/non-phenomenal distinction, but it is not obvious that this is the case. For one thing, there may be non-phenomenal properties of representations that vary continuously. Moreover, there are ways of understanding pictorial representation that presuppose neither phenomenality nor analogicity. According to Kosslyn (1980, 1982, 1983), a mental representation is “quasi-pictorial” when every part of the representation corresponds to a part of the object represented, and relative distances between parts of the object represented are preserved among the parts of the representation. But distances between parts of a representation can be defined functionally rather than spatially – for example, in terms of the number of discrete computational steps required to combine stored information about them. (Cf. Rey 1981.)

Tye (1991) proposes a view of images on which they are hybrid representations, consisting both of pictorial and discursive elements. On Tye’s account, images are “(labeled) interpreted symbol-filled arrays.” The symbols represent discursively, while their arrangement in arrays has representational significance (the location of each “cell” in the array represents a specific viewer-centered 2-D location on the surface of the imagined object).

See the entry on mental imagery for further discussion.

The contents of mental representations are typically taken to be abstract objects (properties, relations, propositions, sets, etc.). A pressing question, especially for the naturalist, is how mental representations come to have their contents. Here the issue is not how to naturalize content (abstract objects can’t be naturalized), but, rather, how to specify naturalistic content-determining relations between mental representations and the abstract objects they express. There are two basic types of contemporary naturalistic theories of content-determination and causal-informational and functional . [ 3 ]

Causal-informational theories (Dretske 1981, 1988, 1995) hold that the content of a mental representation is grounded in the information it carries about what does (Devitt 1996) or would (Fodor 1987, 1990a) cause it to occur. [ 4 ] There is, however, widespread agreement that causal-informational relations are not sufficient to determine the content of mental representations. Such relations are common, but representation is not. Tree trunks, smoke, thermostats and ringing telephones carry information about what they are causally related to, but they do not represent (in the relevant sense) what they carry information about. A mental representation can be caused by something it does not represent, and can represent something that has not caused it, whereas nothing can be caused by something that doesn’t cause it.

The main attempts to specify what makes a causal-informational state a mental representation are Asymmetric Dependency Theories (e.g., Fodor 1987, 1990a, 1994) and Teleological Theories (Dretske 1988, 1995, Fodor 1990b, Millikan 1984, Neander 2017, Papineau 1987). The Asymmetric Dependency Theory distinguishes merely informational relations from representational relations on the basis of their higher-order relations to each other: informational relations depend upon representational relations, but not vice versa. For example, if tokens of a mental state type are reliably caused by horses, cows-on-dark-nights, zebras-in-the-mist and Great Danes, then they carry information about horses, etc. If, however, such tokens are caused by cows-on-dark-nights, etc. because they were caused by horses, but not vice versa, then they represent horses (or the property horse ).

According to Teleological Theories, representational relations are those a representation-producing mechanism has the selected (by evolution or learning) function of establishing. For example, zebra-caused horse-representations do not mean zebra , because the mechanism by which such tokens are produced has the selected function of indicating horses, not zebras. The horse-representation-producing mechanism that responds to zebras is malfunctioning .

See the entries on teleological theories of mental content and causal theories of mental content .

Functional theories (Block 1986, Harman 1973), hold that the content of a mental representation is determined, at least in part, by its (causal, computational, inferential) relations to other mental representations. They differ on whether relata should include all other mental representations or only some of them, and on whether to include external states of affairs. The view that the content of a mental representation is determined by its inferential/computational relations with all other representations is holism ; the view it is determined by relations to only some other mental states is localism (or molecularism ). (The non-functional view that the content of a mental state depends on none of its relations to other mental states is atomism .) Functional theories that recognize no content-determining external relata have been called solipsistic (Harman 1987). Some theorists posit distinct roles for internal and external connections, the former determining semantic properties analogous to sense, the latter determining semantic properties analogous to reference (McGinn 1982, Sterelny 1989).

(Reductive) representationalists (Dretske, Lycan, Tye) usually take one or another of these theories to provide an explanation of the (non-conceptual) content of experiential states. They thus tend to be externalists (see the next section) about phenomenological as well as conceptual content. Phenomenalists and non-reductive representationalists (Block, Chalmers, Loar, Peacocke, Siewert), on the other hand, take it that the representational content of such states is (at least in part) determined by their intrinsic phenomenal properties. Further, those who advocate a phenomenally-based approach to conceptual content (Horgan and Tienson, Kriegel, Loar, Pitt, Searle, Siewert) also seem to be committed to internalist individuation of the content (if not the reference) of such states.

Persistent indeterminacy problems with causal-informational-teleological theories of content determination have motivated a growing number of (analytic) philosophers to seek a different approach, grounded not in external relations of representational states but in their intrinsic phenomenal properties. This approach has come to be known as the “Phenomenal Intentionality Research Program” (Kriegel 2013), or, simply “Phenomenal Intentionality.” These philosophers (including Bourget, Kriegel, Loar, Mendelovici, Montague, Pitt, Searle, Smithies (2012, 2013a and b, 2019), Strawson and Siewert), argue that causal-informational-teleological relations cannot yield the fine-grained, determinate content conceptual and perceptual representations possess, and that such content can only be delivered by phenomenal character. The cognitive phenomenology thesis (discussed above) is an important component of this overall approach.

Generally, those who, like informational theorists, think relations to one’s (natural or social) environment are (at least partially) determinative of the content of mental representations are externalists , or anti-individualists (e.g., Burge 1979, 1986b, 2010, McGinn 1977), whereas those who, like some proponents of functional theories, think representational content is determined by an individual’s intrinsic properties alone, are internalists (or individualists ; cf. Putnam 1975, Fodor 1981c). [ 5 ]

This issue is widely taken to be of central importance, since psychological explanation, whether commonsense or scientific, is supposed to be both causal and content-based. (Beliefs and desires cause the behaviors they do because they have the contents they do. For example, the desire that one have a beer and the beliefs that there is beer in the refrigerator and that the refrigerator is in the kitchen may explain one’s getting up and going to the kitchen.) If, however, a mental representation’s having a particular content is due to factors extrinsic to it, it is unclear how its having that content could determine its causal powers, which, arguably, must be intrinsic (see Stich 1983, Fodor 1982, 1987, 1994). Some who accept the standard arguments for externalism have argued that internal factors determine a component of the content of a mental representation. They say that mental representations have both “narrow” content (determined by intrinsic factors) and “wide” or “broad” content (determined by narrow content plus extrinsic factors). (This distinction may be applied to the sub-personal representations of cognitive science as well as to those of commonsense psychology. See von Eckardt 1993: 189.)

Narrow content has been variously construed. Putnam (1975), Fodor (1982: 114; 1994: 39ff), and Block (1986: 627ff), for example, seem to understand it as something like de dicto content (i.e., Fregean sense , or perhaps character , à la Kaplan 1989). On this construal, narrow content is context-independent and directly expressible. Fodor (1987) and Block (1986), however, have also characterized narrow content as radically inexpressible . On this construal, narrow content is a kind of proto-content, or content-determinant, and can be specified only indirectly, via specifications of context/wide-content pairings. On both construals, narrow contents are characterized as functions from context to (wide) content. The narrow content of a representation is determined by properties intrinsic to it or its possessor, such as its syntactic structure or its intramental computational or inferential role.

Burge (1986b) has argued that causation-based worries about externalist individuation of psychological content, and the introduction of the narrow notion, are misguided. Fodor (1994, 1998) has more recently urged that a scientific psychology might not need narrow content in order to supply naturalistic (causal) explanations of human cognition and action, since the sorts of cases they were introduced to handle, viz., Twin-Earth cases and Frege cases, are either nomologically impossible or dismissible as exceptions to non-strict psychological laws.

On the most common versions of externalism, though intentional contents are externally determined, mental representations themselves, and the states they partly constitute, remain “in the head.” More radical versions are possible. One might maintain that since thoughts are individuated by their contents, and some thought contents are partially constituted by objects external to the mind, then some thoughts are partly constituted by objects external to the mind. On such a view, a singular thought – i.e., a thought about a particular object – literally contains the object it is about. It is “object-involving.” Such a thought (and the mind that thinks it) thus extend beyond the boundaries of the skull. (This appears to be the view articulated in McDowell 1986, on which there is “interpenetration” between the mind and the world.)

See the entries on externalism about mental content and narrow mental content .

Clark and Chalmers (1998) and Clark (2001, 2005, 2008) have argued that mental representations may exist entirely “outside the head.” On their view, which they call “active externalism,” cognitive processes (e.g., calculation) may be realized in external media (e.g., a calculator or pen and paper), and the “coupled system” of the individual mind and the external workspace ought to count as a cognitive system – a mind –in its own right. Symbolic representations on external media would thus count as mental representations.

Clark and Chalmers’s paper has inspired a burgeoning literature on extended, embodied and interactive cognition. (Menary 2010 is a recent collection of essays. See also the entry on embodied cognition .)

The leading contemporary version of the Representational Theory of Mind, the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM), claims that the brain is a kind of computer and that mental processes are computations. According to CTM, cognitive states are constituted by computational relations to mental representations of various kinds, and cognitive processes are sequences of such states.

CTM develops RTM by attempting to explain all psychological states and processes in terms of mental representation. In the course of constructing detailed empirical theories of human and other animal cognition, and developing models of cognitive processes implementable in artificial information processing systems, cognitive scientists have proposed a variety of types of mental representations. While some of these may be suited to be mental relata of commonsense psychological states, some – so-called “subpersonal” or “sub-doxastic” representations – are not. Though many philosophers believe that CTM can provide the best scientific explanations of cognition and behavior, there is disagreement over whether such explanations will vindicate the commonsense psychological explanations of prescientific RTM.

According to Stich’s (1983) Syntactic Theory of Mind, for example, computational theories of psychological states should concern themselves only with the formal properties of the objects those states are relations to. Commitment to the explanatory relevance of content , however, is for most cognitive scientists fundamental (Fodor 1981a, Pylyshyn 1984, Von Eckardt 1993). That mental processes are computations, that computations are rule-governed sequences of semantically evaluable objects , and that the rules apply to the symbols in virtue of their content, are central tenets of mainstream cognitive science.

Explanations in cognitive science appeal to a many different kinds of mental representation, including, for example, the “mental models” of Johnson-Laird 1983, the “retinal arrays,” “primal sketches” and “2½-D sketches” of Marr 1982, the “frames” of Minsky 1974, the “sub-symbolic” structures of Smolensky 1989, the “quasi-pictures” of Kosslyn 1980, and the “interpreted symbol-filled arrays” of Tye 1991 – in addition to representations that may be appropriate to the explanation of commonsense psychological states. Computational explanations have been offered of, among other mental phenomena, belief (Fodor 1975, 2008 Field 1978), visual perception (Marr 1982, Osherson, et al. 1990), rationality (Newell and Simon 1972, Fodor 1975, Johnson-Laird and Wason 1977), language learning and use (Chomsky 1965, Pinker 1989), and musical comprehension (Lerdahl and Jackendoff 1983).

A fundamental disagreement among proponents of CTM concerns the realization of personal-level representations (e.g., thoughts) and processes (e.g., inferences) in the brain. The central debate here is between proponents of Classical Architectures and proponents of Connectionist Architectures .

The classicists (e.g., Turing 1950, Fodor 1975, 2000, 2003, 2008, Fodor and Pylyshyn 1988, Marr 1982, Newell and Simon 1976) hold that mental representations are symbolic structures, which typically have semantically evaluable constituents, and that mental processes are rule-governed manipulations of them that are sensitive to their constituent structure. The connectionists (e.g., McCulloch & Pitts 1943, Rumelhart 1989, Rumelhart and McClelland 1986, Smolensky 1988) hold that mental representations are realized by patterns of activation in a network of simple processors (“nodes”) and that mental processes consist of the spreading activation of such patterns. The nodes themselves are, typically, not taken to be semantically evaluable; nor do the patterns have semantically evaluable constituents. (Though there are versions of Connectionism – “localist” versions – on which individual nodes are taken to have semantic properties (e.g., Ballard 1986.) It is arguable, however, that localist theories are neither definitive nor representative of the connectionist program (Smolensky 1988, 1991, Chalmers 1993).)

Classicists are motivated (in part) by properties thought seems to share with language. Fodor’s Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) (Fodor 1975, 1987, 2008), according to which the system of mental symbols constituting the neural basis of thought is structured like a language, provides a well-worked-out version of the classical approach as applied to commonsense psychology. (Cf. also Marr 1982 for an application of classical approach in scientific psychology.) According to the LOTH, the potential infinity of complex representational mental states is generated from a finite stock of primitive representational states, in accordance with recursive formation rules. This combinatorial structure accounts for the properties of productivity and systematicity of the system of mental representations. As in the case of symbolic languages, including natural languages (though Fodor does not suppose either that the LOTH explains only linguistic capacities or that only verbal creatures have this sort of cognitive architecture), these properties of thought are explained by appeal to the content of the representational units and their combinability into contentful complexes. That is, the semantics of both language and thought is compositional : the content of a complex representation is determined by the contents of its constituents and their structural configuration. (See, e.g.,Fodor and Lepore 2002.)

Connectionists are motivated mainly by a consideration of the architecture of the brain, which apparently consists of layered networks of interconnected neurons. They argue that this sort of architecture is unsuited to carrying out classical serial computations. For one thing, processing in the brain is typically massively parallel. In addition, the elements whose manipulation drives computation in connectionist networks (principally, the connections between nodes) are neither semantically compositional nor semantically evaluable, as they are on the classical approach. This contrast with classical computationalism is often characterized by saying that representation is, with respect to computation, distributed as opposed to local : representation is local if it is computationally basic; and distributed if it is not. (Another way of putting this is to say that for classicists mental representations are computationally atomic , whereas for connectionists they are not.)

Moreover, connectionists argue that information processing as it occurs in connectionist networks more closely resembles some features of actual human cognitive functioning. For example, whereas on the classical view learning involves something like hypothesis formation and testing (Fodor 1981c), on the connectionist model it is a matter of evolving distribution of “weights” (strengths) on the connections between nodes, and typically does not involve the formulation of hypotheses regarding the identity conditions for the objects of knowledge. The connectionist network is “trained up” by repeated exposure to the objects it is to learn to distinguish; and, though networks typically require many more exposures to the objects than do humans, this seems to model at least one feature of this type of human learning quite well. (Cf. the sonar example in Churchland 1989.)

Further, degradation in the performance of such networks in response to damage is gradual, not sudden as in the case of a classical information processor, and hence more accurately models the loss of human cognitive function as it typically occurs in response to brain damage. It is also sometimes claimed that connectionist systems show the kind of flexibility in response to novel situations typical of human cognition – situations in which classical systems are relatively “brittle” or “fragile.”

Some philosophers have maintained that connectionism entails that there are no propositional attitudes. Ramsey, Stich and Garon (1990) have argued that if connectionist models of cognition are basically correct, then there are no discrete representational states as conceived in ordinary commonsense psychology and classical cognitive science. Others, however (e.g., Smolensky 1989), hold that certain types of higher-level patterns of activity in a neural network may be roughly identified with the representational states of commonsense psychology. Still others (e.g., Fodor & Pylyshyn 1988, Heil 1991, Horgan and Tienson 1996) argue that language-of-thought style representation is both necessary in general and realizable within connectionist architectures. (MacDonald & MacDonald 1995 collects the central contemporary papers in the classicist/connectionist debate, and provides useful introductory material as well. See also Von Eckardt 2005.)

Whereas Stich (1983) accepts that mental processes are computational, but denies that computations are sequences of mental representations, others accept the notion of mental representation, but deny that CTM provides the correct account of mental states and processes.

Van Gelder (1995) denies that psychological processes are computational. He argues that cognitive systems are dynamic , and that cognitive states are not relations to mental symbols, but quantifiable states of a complex system consisting of (in the case of human beings) a nervous system, a body and the environment in which they are embedded. Cognitive processes are not rule-governed sequences of discrete symbolic states, but continuous, evolving total states of dynamic systems determined by continuous, simultaneous and mutually determining states of the systems’ components. Representation in a dynamic system is essentially information-theoretic, though the bearers of information are not symbols, but state variables or parameters. (See also Port and Van Gelder 1995; Clark 1997a, 1997b, 2008.)

Horst (1996), on the other hand, argues that though computational models may be useful in scientific psychology, they are of no help in achieving a philosophical understanding of the intentionality of commonsense mental states. CTM attempts to reduce the intentionality of such states to the intentionality of the mental symbols they are relations to. But, Horst claims, the relevant notion of symbolic content is essentially bound up with the notions of convention and intention. So CTM involves itself in a vicious circularity: the very properties that are supposed to be reduced are (tacitly) appealed to in the reduction.

See the entries on the computational theory of mind and connectionism .

To say that a mental object has semantic properties is, paradigmatically, to say that it is about , or true or false of, an object or objects, or that it is true or false simpliciter . Suppose I think that democracy is dying. I am thinking about democracy, and if what I think of it (that it is dying) is true of it, then my thought is true. According to RTM such states are to be explained as relations between agents and mental representations. To think that democracy is dying is to token in some way a mental representation whose content is that democracy is dying. On this view, the semantic properties of mental states are the semantic properties of the representations they are relations to.

Linguistic acts seem to share such properties with mental states. Suppose I say that democracy is dying. I am talking about democracy, and if what I say of it (that it is dying) is true of it, then my utterance is true. Now, to say that democracy is dying is (in part) to utter a sentence that means that democracy is dying. Many philosophers have thought that the semantic properties of linguistic expressions are inherited from the intentional mental states they are conventionally used to express (Grice 1957, Fodor 1978, Schiffer1972/1988, Searle 1983). On this view, the semantic properties of linguistic expressions are the semantic properties of the representations that are the mental relata of the states they are conventionally used to express. Fodor has famously argued that these states themselves have a language-like structure. (See the entry on the language of thought hypothesis .)

(Others, however, e.g., Davidson (1975, 1982) have suggested that the kind of thought human beings are capable of is not possible without language, so that the dependency might be reversed, or somehow mutual (see also Sellars 1956). (But see Martin 1987 for a defense of the claim that thought is possible without language. See also Chisholm and Sellars 1958.) Schiffer (1987) subsequently despaired of the success of what he calls “Intention-Based Semantics.”)

It is also widely held that in addition to having such properties as reference, truth-conditions and truth – so-called extensional properties – expressions of natural languages also have intensional properties, in virtue of expressing properties or propositions – i.e., in virtue of having meanings or senses , where two expressions may have the same reference, truth-conditions or truth value, yet express different properties or propositions (Frege 1892/1997). If the semantic properties of natural-language expressions are inherited from the thoughts and concepts they express (or vice versa, or both), then an analogous distinction may be appropriate for mental representations.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Brad Armour-Garb, Mark Balaguer, Dave Chalmers, Jim Garson, John Heil, Jeff Poland, Bill Robinson, Galen Strawson, Adam Vinueza and (especially) Barbara Von Eckardt for comments on earlier versions of this entry.

Copyright © 2020 by David Pitt < dalanpitt @ gmail . com >

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