Millikan and Her Critics

When one thinks of the philosophers who have done the most to articulate and develop the naturalistic program in the theory of mind and language, a handful of names immediately come to mind: Jerry Fodor, Fred Dretske, Daniel Dennett, Patricia and Paul Churchland… and Ruth Millikan. Millikan is the only one of the aforementioned lacking a volume in the Philosophers and Their Critics series, and that now changes with the publication of Millikan and Her Critics.

Millikan’s body of work is impressive for its originality, scope, and coherence, with her focus on the proper functions of our cognitive and linguistic mechanisms as the unifying thread. Besides her meticulously worked-out theory of mind and language, she has made important contributions to philosophy of biology, epistemology and metaphysics. This volume contains thirteen new papers on the work of Ruth Millikan, by a wide range of leading philosophers, along with Milllikan’s replies to each.