Perception, Knowledge, Reasons, and Representation

Fred Dretske is widely regarded as one of the most innovative, formative, and influential naturalist philosophers of our time. His work remains groundbreaking for naturalistic approaches across numerous areas of contemporary philosophy. He ingeniously integrated his naturalized philosophy of mind with his naturalistic epistemology to illuminate perception, knowledge, and consciousness, as well as the elements of rational action—understood as behavior caused by reasons, that is, by information-bearing internal states operating according to their representational content. Among other contributions, Dretske progressively brought to light the complex interdependencies between problems of immediate consciousness and non-epistemic perception; between mental states and semantic content; between phenomenal and conceptual states; between communication and belief; between information and truth; between awareness and knowledge of both the external, actual world and our internal world; between self-knowledge and first-person authority; and between states of affairs and properties, among many others. Moreover, the lucidity, sobriety, vividness, and unpretentious openness of Dretske’s philosophical prose has left a deep mark on many contemporary philosophers. In this collective volume, renowned critics from diverse philosophical backgrounds discuss Dretske’s lifework in major original essays. The foundations of this collection were laid at the 6th International Lauener Symposium and Lauener Award for an Outstanding Œuvre in Analytical Philosophy, which was posthumously awarded to Professor Fred Dretske. This edited volume will serve as a valuable resource for philosophers from various disciplines and, among others, for cognitive scientists, AI and computer scientists, information scientists, psychologists, linguists, biologists, neuroscientists, and historians of science.