[1]
If we want to avoid reification of the “vehicles”, we might look at it them as time-slices in a complex, internal chain of events, i.e., of dynamic inner processes modifying a subject’s global dispositions.
[2]
It might be said that this understanding of representation is plausible for paradigmatic cases of representation, like the representation of material objects, but that it is less clear whether it is also fit to capture cases that differ strongly from those paradigms, like the representation of abstract “objects”.
A similar worry, which has been pointed out to me by an anonymous reviewer, concerns cases of fictional representations, e.g., future events. For this specific example, she/he suggests that we allow for the causal chain to be reversed. This would make the representandum part of the final event. However, this solution applies only to those cases of fictional representation where the representandum does not yet exist, but leaves the majority of cases of fictional representation inexplicable.
[3]
I will, inspired by O’Brien’s terminology, keep refering to the representandum as the represented object. The term “object” is thereby used in a very wide sense and not intended to be restricted to single material objects. What exactly can take the place of an object in O’Brien’s story of representation is yet to be determined.
[4]
This question presupposes that the established representation is actually correct and not a case of misrepresentation.
[5]
The threat lurking in the background is, of course, eliminative materialism (cf. Churchland 1981).
[6]
Remember that this kind of property is even referred to as “not determined by the intrinsic properties of the brain” (O’Brien this collection, p. 2).
[7]
A third relation that one might want to look at when “taking apart” the triadic relation of representation is the relation between interpretation and represented object.
[8]
I owe this point to an anonymous reviewer.