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Are plants representational systems?
Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of historical, philosophical and religious studies.
2024 (English)In: Philosophy of plant cognition: interdisciplinary perspectives / [ed] Gabriele Ferretti; Peter Schulte; Markus Wild, Routledge, 2024, p. 55-82Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

It is a standard assumption in philosophy of mind and cognitive science that many animals are representational systems: they possess states that represent the world as being a certain way, and that can thus be true or false, correct or incorrect, satisfied or unsatisfied. This raises an interesting question that has recently attracted considerable attention: do some plants qualify as representational systems, too? This chapter will begin by arguing that we should adopt a thoroughly gradualist picture of representation, where an organism's degree of “representationality” is determined (roughly speaking) by the complexity of the information processing underlying its cognitive and behavioral capacities. On this basis, the chapter examines some prominent empirical arguments that have recently been advanced in favor of the thesis that plants are representational systems and argues that they are unsuccessful. However, it will also be suggested that there are some studies that might actually provide support for ascribing a certain degree of representationality to plants, albeit one that is well below the degree that would justify characterizing them as representational systems simpliciter.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2024. p. 55-82
National Category
Philosophy Botany
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-229314DOI: 10.4324/9781003393375-5ISI: 001346887700004Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85202420264ISBN: 9781040120378 (electronic)ISBN: 9781032493510 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-229314DiVA, id: diva2:1898200
Available from: 2024-09-17 Created: 2024-09-17 Last updated: 2025-04-24Bibliographically approved

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Schulte, Peter

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