Beyond black dots and nutritious things: A solution to the indeterminacy problem

Abstract

The indeterminacy problem is one of the most prominent objections against naturalistic theories of content. In this essay, I present this difficulty and argue that extant accounts are unable to solve it. Then, I develop a particular version of teleosemantics, which I call “explanation‐based teleosemantics,” and show how this outstanding problem can be addressed within the framework of a powerful naturalistic theory.