Synthese (2021) 199:6875–6895

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03097-5

Why go for a computation-based approach to cognitive

representation

Dimitri Coelho Mollo1

Received: 28 July 2020 / Accepted: 20 February 2021 / Published online: 11 March 2021
© The Author(s) 2021

Abstract
An influential view in (philosophy of) cognitive science is that computation in cogni-
tive systems is semantic, conceptually depending on representation: to compute is to
manipulate representations. I argue that accepting the non-semantic teleomechanistic
view of computation lays the ground for a promising alternative strategy, in which
computation helps to explain and naturalise representation, rather than the other way
around. I show that this computation-based approach to representation presents six
decisive advantages over the semantic view. I claim that it can improve the two most
influential current theories of representation, teleosemantics and structural representa-
tion, by providing them with precious tools to tackle some of their main shortcomings.
In addition, the computation-based approach opens up interesting new theoretical paths
for the project of naturalising representation, in which teleology plays a role in indi-
viduating computations, but not representations.

Keywords Representation in cognitive science · Computation · Mechanism ·

Teleological functions · Structural representation · Teleosemantics · Indeterminacy
of content

1 Introduction

A long-lived and fruitful approach to understanding cognition and intelligence is to

see cognitive systems as performing computations over representational states. The
basic idea is that, at least for many complex tasks, organisms behave appropriately and
intelligently partly because they have internal states—representations—that stand-in
for things in the body and world. Representations pose conditions on how the world
is, was, will or should be for them to be accurate or satisfied: these conditions of

B Dimitri Coelho Mollo

dimitri.coelhomollo@hu-berlin.de

1 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Exzellenzcluster Science of Intelligence & Berlin School of Mind

and Brain & Institut für Philosophie, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany

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satisfaction are representational contents. Representational states are operated on by

cognitive systems by means of computational rules in a way consistent with their con-
tents. If the system is working correctly, the resulting representations—for instance
motor commands—are the appropriate ones for the task at hand, as they follow from
adequate computational processing of accurate (enough) representations. This allows
surrogative reasoning: using a surrogate to think, reason, or process information about
something else (Swoyer 1991). Instead of directly manipulating the world, with all
the risks that this entails, organisms can first exploit internal surrogates to draw con-
clusions, integrate information, simulate and evaluate behavioural strategies, etc.—all
that before trying something out in a world often intolerant of mistakes.
Its influence and fruitfulness notwithstanding, alternatives to the computational-re-
presentational framework have been proposed, ranging from varieties of eliminativism,
fictionalism, and deflationism about representation (Churchland 1981; Hutto and Myin
2013; Sprevak 2013; Coelho Mollo, forthcoming), to varieties of subjectivism and
perspectivalism about computation (Searle 1992; Schweizer 2016; Dewhurst 2018a),
to alternative frameworks for understanding cognition in general (Gibson 1979; Varela
et al. 1991; Thompson 2007). This paper will have little to say about the ongoing debate
between those in favour of representationalism and computationalism about cognition,
and those that oppose these ideas partially or fully. My focus is on issues internal to
the representational-computational camp, and especially on the project of accounting
for the nature and role of representation, which lies at its philosophical centre. More
specifically, I will be concerned exclusively with cognitive representation—the notion
of representation most relevant to the cognitive sciences—which is typically ascribed
to subpersonal states and processes in cognitive systems.1
If representation and computation are to be notions that lie at the foundations of
the study of cognition and intelligence, it is widely held that we must offer naturalis-
tic, scientifically-acceptable accounts of both notions. Otherwise the risk remains that
the representational-computational research programme in the cognitive sciences is
grounded on scientifically problematic notions, causing the whole theoretical edifice
eventually to crumble.2 Consequently, the twin projects of naturalising representa-
tion and naturalising computation have occupied philosophers for the past forty years
or so. Interestingly, naturalistic theories of representation, with few exceptions (e.g.
(Cummins 1989; Milkowski 2013; Egan 2014)), have given little attention to the ways
in which computation may help shed light on representation. Quite on the contrary,
the tendency has been to see representation as helping account for computation, with
computation taken essentially to involve the manipulation of representational states.
This semantic approach to computation has been dubbed the ‘received view’ by Spre-
vak (2010), which the Fodorian slogan ‘no computation without representation’ nicely
captures. Part of the reason for the neglect of computation may originate from the fact

1 I will often talk of representation simpliciter in what follows, even though by this I refer only to cognitive
representation.
2 Some are less exercised by this worry, holding that the scientific fruitfulness of representation and com-
putation are sufficient to assure us of their scientific respectability (Burge 2010; Rescorla 2013). Although
these are indeed good evidential grounds for their respectability, the history of science is rich in examples of
similarly explanatorily useful notions that turned out to be misguided. Trying to get additional guarantees
is thus a commendable pursuit.

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that alternatives to the semantic view tend to be very liberal in bestowing computational
nature on physical systems—making them of little explanatory use.
I suggest that abandoning the influential semantic view of computation in favour of
a robust teleology-based view is a promising strategy for theories of representation.
The best such theory currently on offer is the teleomechanistic view, which reserves an
important role for teleology in accounting for computation (Piccinini 2015; Milkowski
2013; Coelho Mollo 2018). Appealing to teleology in making sense of computation
within a theory of representation, I argue, has much to recommend it, insofar as it makes
theories of representation more solid, whilst doing justice to the currently widespread
belief that teleology is, in some way or another, important for representation. I sug-
gest that instead of explaining computation by means of representation, as per the
semantic view, we should do exactly the opposite: explaining representation by means
of computation—a theoretical path adumbrated by computational mechanists such as
Piccinini and Milkowski. Instead of Fodor’s, we should endorse Milkowski’s (2013,
p. 166) dictum: ‘there is no representation without computation’.
In this paper, I will lay out in detail some of the crucial advantages that a
computation-based account offers for shedding light on cognitive representation, espe-
cially once we subscribe to the teleomechanistic view of computation. My aim here
is not to offer a full-fledged computation-based theory of representation, but rather to
outline the shape that such accounts may take. Some accounts are best seen as improve-
ments over extant theories of representation, but the computation-based approach also
opens the way to novel strategies for naturalising representation. In this paper, I will
remain neutral on the best way to go between these two options: my aim is to show why
we should go for a computation-based approach to representation in general, upending
the received picture, rather than argue for one specific account of representation.
Here is how I will proceed in what follows. In Sect. 2 I briefly review the motivations
and main shortcomings of the currently most influential approaches to representation:
teleosemantics, and structural representation. In Sect. 3, I propose that theories of
representation should abandon the semantic view of computation and rather endorse a
teleo-based view, such as the teleomechanistic account. In Sect. 4, I argue that placing
a robust, teleo-based theory of computation at the basis of theories of representa-
tion presents six distinctive advantages, yielding accounts of cognitive representation
more capable of confronting some of the weighty hurdles that lie in the path of the
naturalisation project.

2 Representation: between teleology and resemblance

Perhaps the main challenge to theories of representation is to identify a set of nat-

ural relations between internal states and processes and external entities such that
those internal states and processes come to be endowed with fairly determinate and
explanatorily useful contents. The quest for determinacy of content is closely related
to another central issue for theories of representation: making space for misrepre-
sentation. A significant notion of misrepresentation seems to be possible only when
representations have fairly determinate contents. If a representation represents all sorts
of different entities, it becomes unclear when it is correct or adequate, and when it is an

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instance of representational error, or misrepresentation. A further aim is to show how

physical vehicles can play distinctively representational roles, which Ramsey (2007)
calls the ‘job description challenge’. Determinacy of content and misrepresentation
have commanded the attention of most of the philosophical literature on cognitive
representation.
In this section, I will argue that the three most promising naturalistic theories of
representation currently on offer—producer- and consumer-based teleosemantics, and
structural representation—illustrate a metatheoretical problem with the traditional
approach to naturalising representation. Either traditional naturalistic theories appeal
to teleology in fixing content so as to try and secure determinate contents and the possi-
bility of misrepresentation, and in consequence incur in problems with teleology itself
and its coarse-grainedness; or they eschew appeal to teleology, but then end up being
overly liberal in their bestowal of representational status and contents, jeopardising
the explanatory role of the notion and the possibility of misrepresentation.

2.1 Teleological theories of representation

Teleological, or teleo-based theories of representation, appeal to teleology in fixing

representational status and/or content. Teleology refers, roughly, to what something
is for, to its function, purpose or aim, and it is typically cashed out naturalistically
in terms of the grounds for the past selection of a trait or entity by some selection
process—natural selection being an important, though non-exclusive such selective
process (Garson 2019). What something is for, in this sense, is its teleofunction.
Traits of biological organisms are clear examples: hearts have the teleofunction, the
purpose, of pumping blood since it is because past instances of the type pumped blood
that hearts contributed to the survival and inclusive fitness of organisms having them.
This led in turn to hearts persisting across time: they have been selected for because
they pump blood.3 Teleology embodies a weak form of normativity: an entity that
fails to fulfil its teleofunction—e.g. a heart that fails to pump blood adequately, or at
all—malfunctions.
There are two main families of teleo-based theories of representation, both of
which remain popular to this day. Producer-based teleosemantics, or teleoinforma-
tional semantics, focuses on the information carried by representations, typically
determined by the worldly entities that they carry information about, or correlate with
(Dretske 1988; Neander 2017). The guiding idea is that the content of a representation
are those conditions that the representation has the teleofunction to carry information
about (or be correlated with). For instance, a cognitive (sub)system may have the
teleofunction to produce representations that carry information about the presence of
food, whereby the representations it produces have the content food present or some
such.
3 In the case of possible future artificial cognitive systems—should real, ‘strong’ artificial intelligence
ever be achieved—the kinds of factors relevant for bestowing teleological functions on them will almost
certainly be mind-dependent and distinct from the factors underpinning natural teleology, being dependent
either directly on intentions, ideas, and purposes of designers and users; or indirectly, in the likely case that
such systems will be the result of artificial processes that may or may not mimic the natural processes that
led to the evolution of cognitive systems and intelligent organisms.

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Consumer-based teleosemantics, often referred to simply as teleosemantics, focuses

instead on what the teleofunctions of the (sub)systems that use representations are (Mil-
likan 1984, 2017). Roughly, on this picture the content of a representation consists in
the conditions that led the system using the representation to fulfil its teleofunction.
If what caused the selection of a certain system is that it responded to certain repre-
sentations in such a way as to bring the containing organism to ingest food, then the
condition that led the system to selective success was the presence of food—whereby
the representations it consumes have the content food present or some such.
Although in some cases the content ascriptions that follow from the two families of
theories cohere, they often do not.4 At any rate, both have prima facie the tools to yield
determinate contents and make space for misrepresentation. Teleology helps fix the
content of representations, discarding those candidate contents that are not grounded in
natural teleology. Since it involves a weak form of normativity, the appeal to teleology
makes misrepresentation possible. A token representation produced or consumed in
ways that are at odds with the teleofunctions of its producers and/or consumers is a
misrepresentation, insofar as it has been produced or consumed by systems that fail,
in that instance at least, to fulfil their teleofunctions.
Appeal to teleology in theories of representation has been met with important
challenges.
An influential objection is the functional indeterminacy challenge. In a nutshell,
the objection purports to show that teleology fails to yield sufficiently determinate
representational contents, being unable to cut contents finely enough (Fodor 1990).
Dedicated neural circuitry in toads generates snapping of their tongues when they
detect small moving dark spots in their visual fields.5 Given that in toads’ usual habitat
small moving dark spots happen to be edible insects, this circuitry has been plausibly
selected by evolution given its adaptive value. At least three different contents, insect
present, food present, and moving dark spotpresent, can lead to selective success,
given the environments where frogs live and thrive. In consequence, teleology per se
cannot decide between these different content ascriptions, leading to indeterminacy
of content.
A more general objection to appeals to teleology in accounting for representation is
due to Cummins (1996) and Burge (2010). They point out that natural teleology con-
cerns only behavioural success, since it is this kind of success that leads to selection.
Behavioural success, they argue, is separate, and sometimes in conflict with, represen-
tational success—representational accuracy may often be too costly to be adaptive.
Teleology cannot thereby play a role in theories of representation, for what generates
appropriate behaviour need not represent the world correctly. Teleological theories
run together two types of correctness, behavioural and representational, that are inde-
pendent of one another, and although they may coincide in some cases, they need not
so do. There are reasons to be suspicious of Burge’s (2010) objection, insofar as his
attack is arguably successful against an overly simplistic version of teleosemantics

4 Famous cases of divergent content ascriptions include (toy versions of) magnetotactic bacteria, so-called
bug-detectors in toads, and imaginary cases such as Pietroski’s (1992) kimus.
5 This is largely a toy example. See Neander (2017) for a more biologically precise one, although analogous
in its consequences.

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only.6 At any rate, challenges in the same spirit, that is, that cast doubt on whether
appeal to selection processes are appropriate to helping account for representation
(and computation) are worth keeping in mind, and keeping at bay (see Sect. 4.4).

2.2 Non-teleological theories of representation

Such objections are partly responsible for motivating theorists to try and come up
with theories of representation that do not appeal to teleology. Such theories, with few
exceptions, have lost popularity in the past few decades, which have been marked by
a dominance of teleo-based views—as well as of a less optimistic attitude towards
theories of representation in general (Godfrey-Smith 2006). Important examples
of non-teleological theories include causal-informational semantics (Dretske 1981;
Fodor 1987; Usher 2001), structural representation (Cummins 1989; Ramsey 2007;
Isaac 2012), and content pragmatism (Egan 2014; Coelho Mollo 2020b). Content
pragmatism rejects the naturalisation project, and thus I will not discuss it further.
Causal-informational semantics has been largely abandoned, since it has proved to
have serious problems with indeterminacy of content, falling victim to the disjunction
problem ((Fodor 1984); but see Usher (2001) for an improved version of the view). An
additional ground for its decline is the fact that a teleo-based alternative to it, which
keeps much of its spirit, is far superior, namely producer-based teleosemantics. For
these reasons, I will mostly be concerned with the non-teleological theory of represen-
tation that has enjoyed most attention in the past few years: structural representation.
Structural representation is a sophisticated version of resemblance theories of repre-
sentation. It holds that a large factor in determining representational status and content
is that representations and what they represent share relational structure. For instance,
the spatial relations between points on a map are similar to the spatial relations between
locations in the city mapped. Sharing relational structure, or structural resemblance, is
seen as crucial for something to stand in for something else, that is, to play a represen-
tational role. It is because two structures share all or part of their relational structures
that one can be used in the place of the other in reasoning or cognitive processing—as
I can use a map to plan my future movements when visiting a new city. Content is
partly, if not fully, determined by the relevant structural resemblance relation. Several
proposals exist as to how to understand structural resemblance precisely, typically hav-
ing recourse to different kinds of mapping relation, or morphisms, between structures,
such as isomorphism and homomorphism.
The central difficulty for structural representation theories is their liberality. Struc-
tural resemblance relations are notoriously easy to come by, and difficult to constrain
in principled ways (McLendon 1955; Shea 2013). A problematic consequence of lib-
erality is that representational status is bestowed on an enormous amount of vehicles,
watering down the explanatory purchase of appeal to representation. Furthermore,
resemblance relations are reflexive and symmetrical, while representation relations are
not, suggesting that the former are the wrong tools to understand the latter (Goodman
1976). Finally, liberality also infects content determination: since any representa-
tional vehicle stands in structural resemblance relations to a large amount of things
6 I thank an anonymous referee for pressing me on this point.

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in the world, its contents, barring further constraining factors, will be wildly non-
unique.7 Explanation of appropriate behaviour in terms of content, and of inappropriate
behaviour in terms of misrepresentation, thus risks losing much of its distinctive value,
since representations will have disjunctive contents that include both task-appropriate
and task-inappropriate contents. This makes appeal to content largely uninteresting,
and moreover picking and choosing the appropriate contents out of the disjunction
begs the questions that accounts of content are meant to answer.
Some authors add further requirements to constrain the preferred morphism and
avoid liberality, including being generated by a causal process originating from what
is represented (Isaac 2012), and being the one relevant for the use that the represen-
tation is put to by the system (Ramsey 2007; Shea 2014). Many teleo-based theories
also make space for structural representation, adding a teleological constraint to the
content-determining structural resemblance relation (Millikan 2004; Neander 2017;
Shea 2018; Gladziejewski and Milkowski 2017).
It is not my aim to assess whether and to what extent these additions to the basic
idea underlying structural representation are successful. I wish only to bring to the
fore a metatheoretical problem in existing attempts at naturalising representation. For
it seems that we either have to appeal to natural teleology in accounting for represen-
tational status and content, thus having trouble with functional indeterminacy; or, if
we reject appeal to teleology, we end up with overly liberal theories of representation,
making appeal to the notion explanatorily uninteresting. In what follows, I wish to sug-
gest one way of moving forward, building on insights by Milkowski (2013); Piccinini
(2015). Namely, that a promising way to go is to appeal to teleology in individuating
computation, in addition to or in alternative to, appealing to teleology in individuating
representation and content.

3 Teleology in computation

According to the semantic view of computation, which until recently was dominant
especially within philosophy of mind and cognitive science, physical computation
presupposes representation: computation essentially involves the transformation of
states with representational content (Sprevak 2010). Including a semantic constraint
in a theory of computation is widely seen as a necessary move in order to curb pan-
computationalism, that is, the claim that everything computes one or more functions
(limited pancomputationalism), or that everything computes any function (unlimited
pancomputationalism). Pancomputationalism, especially of the unlimited sort, jeop-
ardises the explanatory role of computation in the computer and cognitive sciences,
insofar as it makes the notion apply overly liberally, and in ways that are at odds
with scientific practice (Piccinini 2015, chap. 4). Imposing a semantic constraint on
computation is a promising strategy to avoid pancomputationalism. Since plausibly
relatively few systems are representational, the set of computational systems will at

7 Cummins (1996) is a proponent of structural representation who bites this bullet: he claims that content
is non-unique, but tries to save the explanatory power of representation by appeal to a teleological theory
of representational targets.

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most be identical with, but more likely a subset of, the set of representational systems.
Few physical systems will thereby count as computational under the semantic view.
Appealing to semantics in accounting for computation comes with a price. First,
the success of the account depends on the success of an independent theory of repre-
sentation, and one that cannot rely on computation, on pain of circularity (Piccinini
2015, pp. 33–34). 8 Second, the semantic view only succeeds in avoiding pancompu-
tationalism and doing justice to scientific practice, two of its central aims, if the theory
of representation it relies on is not overly liberal in its turn,9 and if it individuates as
computational (and non-computational) those physical systems that the computer and
cognitive sciences take to be such. The latter is particularly troubling for the semantic
view, since arguably many systems considered to be computational by the computer
sciences do not seem to have a semantics, at least not of the externalist kind most
relevant to cognitive representation. Third, the semantic view precludes what can be
a promising avenue to explore in making sense of cognitive representation, namely
basing it on physical computation.10
Until recently, the main alternatives to the semantic view were non-semantic views
based on mappings between abstract computational states and rules, and causal tran-
sitions between physical states and processes (Chalmers 2011). To compute, on this
view, is to have a causal structure onto which an abstract computational description—in
terms of functions from input types to output types—can be mapped. Causal mapping
views admittedly suffer from problems relating to limited pancomputationalism. Since
nearly every physical system has internal causal structure, it follows that nearly all
physical systems compute at least one function, and typically more than one. Pro-
ponents of the view argue that limited pancomputationalism does not endanger the
explanatory power of the notion of computation. I take this strategy to be misguided.
First, by connecting computation too closely to causal structure, causal mapping views
fail to give the notion of computation a distinctive explanatory role over and above that
already granted to the notion of causal structure (Milkowski 2013). Moreover, limited
pancomputationalism is more pernicious than they take it to be, as it flies in the face of
the explanatory practices of the computational and cognitive sciences, which regard
computational systems as a rather small subset of existing systems. Finally, since
causal structures, as such, do not involve any sort of normativity, causal accounts
cannot make space for an objective notion of miscomputation.
In the past years, a more compelling non-semantic view has been proposed: the
teleomechanistic view (Milkowski 2013; Piccinini 2015; Coelho Mollo 2018). The
theory makes use of the influential neo-mechanistic framework of scientific explana-
tion to try and shed light on the nature of physical computation. Importantly, it reserves
a central role for teleology in the individuation of computational systems. In the rest
of this paper, I will argue that endorsing the teleomechanistic view of computation
leads to many valuable advantages for theories of representation. A brief presentation
of the teleomechanistic view will suffice for my purposes.
8 Perhaps more promising are views that see representation and computation as mutually co-defining, such
as Ramsey (2007).
9 Theories that tend toward panrepresentationalism, such as Cummins’ (1996), are therefore of no help.
10 See Piccinini (2015) for further shortcomings of semantic views, and Shagrir (2018) for a recent partial
defence.

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According to the neo-mechanistic approach to scientific explanation, a mecha-

nism consists of the entities, their activities (what they do), and their organisation
that are responsible for a certain phenomenon (Illari and Williamson 2012). Given
a phenomenon to be explained, explanation proceeds by decomposing the system
into the components, their organisation, and their causal roles that explain how the
phenomenon comes about or is maintained across time. Mechanisms are thereby indi-
viduated by the phenomena they explain, and comprise only those components and
causal roles that are relevant to the explanation of the phenomenon at hand. Some
mechanisms may also have teleofunctions: there may be some function(s) they are
supposed to perform due to design or selection processes. They are teleomechanisms.
Artefacts, and biological mechanisms such as hearts, are good examples of teleomech-
anisms.
The teleomechanistic view of physical computation applies the central aspects of
mechanistic philosophy to try and shed light on the nature of computational systems
in the world (rather than in mathematical theory). According to the view, computa-
tional systems are mechanisms with the teleofunction to compute, where computing
is understood as the manipulation of vehicles according to rules sensitive only to some
dimensions of variation of the physical vehicles, that is, their degrees of freedom. A
rule, in its turn, is a mapping from input-types (and possibly types of internal states) to
(types of internal states and) output-types—where the types are individuated in terms
of the structural and/or functional organisation of the mechanism.
The appeal to teleology plays (at least) a triple role in the account. First, it reveals a
privileged phenomenon, namely a teleological function, that guides the individuation
and decomposition of the mechanism into its components and their activities. Second,
it helps avoid pancomputationalism of any sort, since plausibly relatively few systems
possess teleofunctions of any kind—clear cases being biological traits and artefacts—
and even fewer possess the teleofunction to perform computations—plausibly only
designed computers and, if computational theories of cognition are correct, cognitive
systems. Third, it makes space for miscomputation, since computational systems can
compute functions other than the ones it is their teleofunction to compute, therefore
miscomputing.11 For instance, a system may have the teleofunction to compute a
certain function f from inputs to outputs—given selection history or design—but due
to a defect or overload, may in some circumstances compute function g instead. Given
that the system, in such instances, fails to compute the function it is its teleofunction
to compute, it miscomputes.
Defending the teleomechanistic view of computation is beyond the scope of this
paper. Suffice it to say here that elsewhere the view has been compellingly shown
to be descriptively and explanatorily adequate (Milkowski 2013; Piccinini 2015).
Importantly, it individuates computation without making recourse to representation.
Computations may take place over representational vehicles, but need not: compu-
tation does not depend essentially on representation. Being robust, non-trivial, and
non-semantic, such a view of computation opens the path to exploring the idea that
cognitive representation can be partly accounted for in terms of computation, rather
11 They may also malfunction more catastrophically, failing to compute any function at all. Although this
is a case of malfunction, it is not a case of miscomputation, since no computation takes place. See Tucker
(2018) for a detailed and compelling account of miscomputation for the mechanistic view.

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than the other way around. While the teleomechanistic view of computation can plau-
sibly be seen as having recently overthrown semantic accounts as the current ’received
view’, apart from the few exceptions mentioned (i.e., Milkowski 2013; Piccinini 2015)
this development has not been recognised as potentially producing important down-
stream ripples that may considerably affect accounts of cognitive representation. The
rest of this paper is dedicated to examining some of these ripples.

4 Representation and computational teleology

The teleomechanistic view of physical computation offers a solid non-semantic basis

that theories of cognitive representation—within the computational-representational
framework—can make use of. More generally, having a theory of representation rely
on a teleological theory of computation presents many advantages. I will here explore
six of the most central ones, occasionally putting them in connection with current
theories. My contention is that the computation-based approach to representation is
promising in at least two ways: it can modify extant theories of representation such that
they are better able to tackle their main shortcomings; and it can suggest compelling
theories of representation importantly at odds with current approaches. The rest of this
paper will be dedicated to showing why this is so.

4.1 Naturalistic credentials

A first motivation in favour of computation-based accounts is that the scientific status

of computation seems to be less controversial than that of representation, and the
prospects for its direct naturalisation seem rosier. Representation is essentially defined
by a property that is not easy to make sense of by recourse to the natural sciences. The
property of being about something else, of being directed toward something else—
aboutness, intentionality—seems importantly different from the kinds of properties at
work in basic science, and particularly difficult to explain in naturalistic terms. While
significant progress has been made on the naturalisation of representation, the lack of
consensus that persists despite decades of focused philosophical work attests to the
difficulty of the project.
Computation, on the other hand, is a notion that came to theoretical maturity as
already importantly tied to mechanisation (albeit of a purely abstract sort), in the
form of the Turing machine, and later on of concretely implementable computational
architectures. Its relations to properties and processes amenable to mechanical expla-
nation are much more direct if compared to representation. Using computation as an
important stepping stone to account for representation therefore suggests itself as a
promising theoretical move. For if computation can be more easily naturalised, we
can use it as a starting point for a naturalistic theory of representation.
In light of these considerations, it is curious that most philosophical work in the
area tended to start with representation, rather than computation. There is much to be
said about the reasons for this, but I would like to mention three tentative ones. First,
representation was recognised as central to explaining cognition and intelligence very

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early in the history of philosophy, starting at least with Plato (e.g. in the Theaete-
tus); while recognition of the importance of computation came much later, Hobbes
being a precursor of the explosion in interest that took place in the second half of
the twentieth century, following advances in the theoretical and practical understand-
ing of computational systems. Second, computation is appealed to in helping explain
how representations are transformed in task-appropriate ways, with representation’s
aboutness taken to play the lion’s share of explaining successful behaviour. Third, as
hinted above, the predominant views of computation until recently were extremely
liberal and of little explanatory use if not properly constrained, and representation,
being already a central part of theories of cognition and intelligence, suggested itself
as the natural choice to curb that pernicious liberality.
The teleomechanistic view of computation allows us to do away with this latter
motivation for the semantic view. The former two, on their hand, do not justify the
semantic view, but merely shed light on the mostly historical grounds for its apparent
intuitiveness. They should therefore be weighed against the considerations I brought
to bear above in favour of starting with computation instead, which I take to shift the
balance toward the computation-based approach. Be as it may, the foregoing line of
reasoning is suggestive, but far from decisive. Stronger reasons, I believe, come from
the considerations that follow.

4.2 Causal relevance and explanation

Giving pride of place to the notion of computation in a theory of representation

helps to account for the causal powers of representational vehicles, courtesy of a
theory of computational implementation. This has been often seen as the main (if not
the only) contribution that the notion of computation makes to the computational-
representational framework in the cognitive sciences (Fodor 1975; Haugeland 1981):
appeal to computation helps to explain how physical vehicles can behave in ways
that respect semantic and rationality constraints, such as preserving truth in deductive
arguments, being responsive to practical reasons, or playing good chess. The physical
vehicles must be so regimented as to follow computational rules that mirror to a relevant
extent semantic or rationality constraints, thus being able to work as representational
vehicles, that is, the physical states that carry representational content. Representa-
tional vehicles are causally efficacious in virtue of their physical properties. Theories
of computational implementation build a bridge between the somewhat abstract level
of the computational individuation of a system, and the details of the causally effi-
cacious physical processes that realise, or implement, the computations it performs.
Computation, in this way, connects semantic, causally inefficacious properties with
physical, causally efficacious ones. Thereby—the accepted picture goes—cognition
and intelligence can be physically explained.
This may seem to be an advantage that the teleomechanistic view of computa-
tion, in contrast to other non-semantic views, cannot have, since the factors relevant
for determining teleological functions are causally inert, being historical rather than

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occurrent.12 Since the teleomechanistic view builds causally inert factors into its con-
ditions of individuation for computation, one may worry that it cannot provide the
desired bridge between representational and causal explanation. In this central respect,
therefore, the foregoing view may seem to be inferior to its competitors.
Such a worry, I believe, trades on a failure to distinguish individuation from imple-
mentation, a distinction that has played an important role in debates about mental
causation. While individuative properties need not be causally efficacious, implemen-
tational properties do.
Computation, under the teleomechanistic view, is a kind that is partly individuated
by historical properties. This makes it so that two physically identical systems—
with identical causal powers—may differ in computational nature if one has the
teleofunction to compute—a historical property—and the other does not. However,
individuation conditions, if they successfully apply to entities in the world, pick out
physical systems that possess causal powers. Computational individuation picks out
those physical systems that implement computations, insofar as they have the appropri-
ate occurrent and historical properties. The implementing systems have causal powers,
and a subset of these causal powers must be such that they fulfil the appropriate parts
of the individuation conditions of computation, namely the systematic transformation
of inputs into outputs.
Therefore, the teleomechanistic view, as other theories of computation, does not
threaten the role of computation in connecting semantic properties with physical,
causally efficacious ones via computational implementation. For the mechanistic view
appeals to teleology in the individuation of computational systems and computational
functions, and not in order to account for computational implementation, which is
purely mechanistic (Coelho Mollo 2018; Tucker 2018).13
The fact that the causal powers of computational systems hinge on their occurrent,
implementational properties, does not make the appeal to teleology idle. For teleology
helps to individuate those physical systems that are computational to start with, and
thereby that implement physical computations by means of some of their causal prop-
erties. Without such a demanding individuation condition, a theory of computation is
forced to embrace pancomputationalism—given the ubiquity of causal relations—with
all the accompanying problems (see Sect. 4.3 below).14
In some cases, such as in structural representation, the causal powers of repre-
sentational states may be more directly explained in terms of representations being
computational structures that stand in structural mapping relations to representational
contents. Here, computational structure captures a central part of what it is for phys-
ical states and processes to represent, helping explain how they generate appropriate

12 Appealing to non-etiological theories of teleological function, as Piccinini (2015) recommends, does

not avoid the problem, given that, as Garson (2019) compellingly argues, such theories make covert appeal
to historical factors.
13 For a detailed analysis of the relationships between computation and implementation in the mechanistic
view, see Elber-Dorozko and Shagrir (2019). I endorse what they call the ‘separate hierarchies’ view.
14 Dewhurst (2018a) is a good illustration of this problem: by eschewing appeal to teleology, he has to
accept pancomputationalism. This leads to problems with the explanatory value of computation, which
Dewhurst tries to tackle by appeal to epistemic perspectives. See Coelho Mollo (2020a) for criticism of
Dewhurst’s view.

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behaviour by means of working as surrogates to their contents (Swoyer 1991; O’Brien

2015). Importantly, a robust mechanistic theory of computation allows us to individu-
ate the causal powers of computational states and processes independently of a theory
of representation, thus paving the way, without the threat of liberality or circularity,
to basing the causal powers of representations on the causal powers of computations.

4.3 Liberality

A robust, non-liberal theory of physical computation, such as the teleomechanistic

view, can help constrain the states and processes in the world that are candidates for
representational status. In a theory of representation that takes seriously the compu-
tational part of the representational-computational framework, only those states and
processes that are part of computational mechanisms can count as representational.
This narrowing down of candidates for representational status is something that only
views that ascribe computations to an adequately limited set of physical systems
can offer. Moreover, the account of computation must be non-semantic, on pain of
being circular, or at least uninformative—if we individuate computation by means of
representation, appeal to computation is idle in narrowing down the domain of the
representational.
The teleomechanistic view is the only non-semantic account of computation that is
constrained in this way. Causal mapping accounts, the most sophisticated alternative
non-semantic view, lead (at least) to limited pancomputationalism. They fail to narrow
down candidates for representational status by means of appeal to computation, since
they ascribe computational nature to (almost) all systems. The teleomechanistic view,
on the other hand, poses demanding constraints on candidate representational states
and processes. Representational states and processes are a subset of computational
states and processes, and given that the latter are relatively rare, the claim has consid-
erable bite. Indeed, it excludes all those states and processes of the system that do not
contribute to its computational capacities from being candidates for representational
status.
In the case of biological cognitive systems, for instance, states and processes that
involve glia and blood vessels are not representations, since as far as we know they
do not play computational roles—even though they certainly play roles sustaining
the states and processes that do play such roles, in partial analogy to what fans and
batteries do in electronic computers. In a way true to the spirit of the computational-
representational approach to the cognitive sciences, computation helps capture those
properties of cognitive systems that are directly relevant to cognition and intelligent
behaviour.15
In brief, a robust, teleo-based theory of computation helps to delimit the set of phys-
ical vehicles that can play representational roles. This is a welcome addition to theories
of representation insofar as it helps to avoid the danger of being overly liberal about
15 There may be cognitive abilities that exploit in part non-computational processes, such as random
processes. The foregoing account does not rule this out, but rather focuses on those abilities, arguably the
majority, that either in part or fully employ computational processes. The account of computation at play
here is moreover general enough to encompass digital, analogical, and possibly other forms of computation,
such as neural computation (Piccinini and Bahar 2013).

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representational status. This is particularly important for structural representation theo-

ries, since the representational relation they rely on, namely mapping relations of some
sort, is overly unconstrained, risking to lead both to too many things being bestowed
representational status, and to radical indeterminacy of content. Endorsement of the
teleomechanistic view of computation contributes to avoiding these unwanted results
in at least two ways.
First, it constrains considerably the kinds of physical vehicles that can stand in the
content-constituting mapping relations that structural representation theories identify.
The teleomechanistic view individuates a relatively small subset of physical systems
that are computational, and only a subset thereof will acquire representational status:
those computational states and processes that stand in the relevant mapping relation to
worldly states of affairs. As should be clear, this is only part of the solution to liberality.
For it to succeed, it also requires that the overall theory of representation be able to
individuate to some precision the worldly states of affairs that are candidates for stand-
ing in the relevant mapping relations. Promising solutions to this issue have been put
forward by Ramsey (2007) and Shea (2018), who appeal to organismic embeddedness
and behavioural salience to help identify the candidate contents; and by Bielecka and
Milkowski (2020), who appeal to error detection mechanisms. Together, teleomech-
anistic computation and additional requirements such as these further constrain the
relevant content-fixing relation, attenuating the problems that structural representation
theories have with liberality.
Second, narrowing down the candidate vehicles for cognitive representations indi-
rectly contributes to meeting indeterminacy of content challenges. In light of the fact
that the theory of computation individuates the internal computational states and pro-
cesses of the cognitive system in ways independent from representational status, it
helps constrain the kinds of content that can be ascribed to such states and processes.
Given the computational profile of such states, how they interface with other com-
putational states and sensory and motor surfaces, only some contents are compatible
with the computational workings of the system, many others being implausible inso-
far as they clash with—or fit rather unnaturally—the computational profile of the
vehicles. Admittedly, these constraints by themselves are insufficient to solve content
indeterminacy problems, but they help, and given the difficulties involved, any help is
welcome.

4.4 Objections to teleo-based representation do not apply

It is possible to do justice to the insight that representation is in some way tied to natural
teleology, as per teleo-based views of representation, whilst avoiding having to view
the connection as directly tied to content determination. Instead, teleological consid-
erations may come into play exclusively in the individuation of physical computation,
generating theories that are teleo-based, insofar as they depend on a teleo-based notion
of computation, but that do not use teleology to determine content. This can be helpful
for preserving a role for teleology in accounting for representation, while avoiding
the main lines of objection against teleo-based views. As I show below, appealing to

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teleology to individuate computation is not liable to the central kinds of objections

that have been raised against a similar appeal in individuating representation.
First, since computations are not individuated in terms of representation, the claim
that representational contents are finer-grained than what natural teleology can provide
is irrelevant. Second, computations, in contrast to representations, are individuated in
a relatively coarse-grained way, so that, even assuming that teleology is a rather blunt
tool with which to carve nature, no indeterminacy challenge analogous to the one that
confronts representation affects computation. Let me expand on this point.
If computations are considered to be a matter of performing logical or mathematical
functions, it may seem that similar indeterminacy problems appear. It is plausible
that natural teleology cannot distinguish between performance of (some) equivalent
logical or mathematical functions, since more than one such function maps equally
well onto causal goings-on in physical systems. As Shagrir (2001) and Sprevak (2010)
have shown, this is true of the basic logical functions performed by logic gates, the
most basic computational components: AND-gates and OR-gates, in isolation, are
functionally indistinguishable.
Even if this is true, it should not worry proponents of the teleomechanistic view
of computation. For according to influential versions of the view, computations are
input-output functions implemented by components of a mechanism. Input-output
functions are understood extensionally, in terms of transformations of physical quan-
tities (Dewhurst 2018b), or in terms of functional states and transitions revealed
by the functional decomposition of the system (Coelho Mollo 2018; Fresco and
Milkowski, forthcoming). Teleofunctions to perform physical or functional input-
output functions do not pose indeterminacy worries, since if two such functions
are physically/functionally equivalent, they count as the same function, regardless
of whether they can be mapped onto different logical or mathematical functions.16
Computations can therefore be individuated partly by teleology without this leading
to a multiplicity of individuated computations.
In brief, the indeterminacy problems that follow from appealing to teleology in indi-
viduating representations do not transpose to individuating computation by analogous
means. In contrast to the fine-grainedness of representational individuation—which
must (often) distinguish between co-extensional but distinct contents—computational
individuation is coarse-grained enough for teleology to carve the computational
domain adequately.
Furthermore, physical and functional states and processes are the kinds of states
to which selection processes are sensitive; selection processes being at the core of
the most promising family of theories of natural teleology, namely selected-effects
theories. There is thereby no potentially problematic gap between computational
correctness and behavioural success: computational systems have the computational
teleofunctions they do because they have been selected for, and they have been selected

16 This is an ontological, not an epistemological point. It may be challenging to discover which input-output
function a computational mechanism has the teleofunction to perform, given the epistemic opacity of past
selection processes, and the complexity of cognitive systems. However, this does not detract from the claim
that, if the foregoing view is correct, there is a fact of the matter about what teleofunctions a computational
system has. At any rate, recent developments in computational neuroscience provide reasons to be hopeful
(Kriegeskorte and Douglas 2018). I thank Rosa Cao for pressing me on this point.

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for because they contribute, often enough, to behavioural success. It seems extremely
implausible to claim that there can be no biological functions to perform input-output
functions of specific types, since this is arguably what most biological functions,
including non-computational ones, consist in (e.g. taking food as input and generat-
ing energy as output).17 In consequence, worries about a possible mismatch between
computational and behavioural success, in the spirit of Burge’s (2010) objection to
teleosemantics, do not affect teleo-based theories of computation.

4.5 Internal complexity

The non-semantic individuation of the internal computational structure of cognitive

systems that the teleomechanistic view offers also helps to address an additional, less
discussed difficulty that confronts teleo-based views of representation. As Cao (2012)
points out, teleosemantics seems ill-suited to capture the internal complexity involved
in bringing about cognitive capacities. The intermediate states between sensory input
and motor behaviour are, as cognitive psychology and neuroscience have shown,
extremely complex both in terms of the number of contributing internal states, and of
their interactions, which are marked by a plurality of dependence relations, feedback,
excitatory and inhibitory connections, degeneracy, and redundancy. This makes it so
that the causal nexus between initial representation producer—in most cases a sensory
surface—and the final representation consumer —typically responsible for generating
motor behaviour—is highly mediated.
Teleo-based theories of representation may pursue two basic strategies in trying
to accommodate this point, none of which is satisfying. On the one hand, focusing
only on the initial representation producer and the final representation consumer is
unlikely to vindicate the explanatory purchase of representational explanation in cog-
nitive science, as it fails to make sense of the role played by the intermediate vehicles
in bringing about complex and intelligent behaviour. Breaking down cognitive sys-
tems into their functional and mechanistic components, and shedding light on their
contributions to cognition and intelligence, is the main aim of cognitive science. A
theory of representation that is silent about intermediate vehicles is thereby inadequate
to the cognitive sciences.
On the other hand, recognising the complex organisation of internal producers
and consumers that cognitive science reveals makes appeal to selection processes
in determining the content of intermediate states implausible. Most of these states,
taken singly, make very limited and unspecific contributions to overall behaviour. In
consequence, ascription of content to these states cannot be of the externalist kind
relevant to the cognitive sciences. Their representational contributions to any instance
of behaviour—the representational functions they have been selected to perform—
plausibly do not involve entities external to the organism, but rather the proximal states
and processes that capture their direct, specific contributions to cognitive processing.
These states would thus have as their contents something along the lines of ‘upstream

17 The medium-independence of computation, however, does pose a challenge. See Coelho Mollo (2019)
for an extended treatment of this problem, and more generally for a defence of the idea that there are
teleofunctions to compute.

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cognitive subsystem in state x’ or ‘upstream neuron active’ (Cao 2012). However,

such contents are unlikely to justify appeal to representational explanation, insofar as
nothing seems to be lost in terms of explanatory power by shedding representational
talk, and appealing rather to causal interactions between cognitive subsystems and/or
between neural populations.
It may seen that a teleo-based notion of computation would share the same fate.
Given that teleofunctions to compute are similarly dependent on selection processes,
and since such processes care only about appropriate external behaviour, it seems
that internal components cannot possess specific computational teleofunctions for
reasons similar to the above.18 Most of the intermediate computational states and pro-
cesses in cognitive systems make very indirect and variable contributions to external
behaviour. Since natural teleology relies on processes sensitive only to appropriate
external behaviour, it becomes unclear how such intermediaries, and their computa-
tional functions, can be individuated by means of a teleo-based theory of computation.
Mechanistic and functional decomposition can come to the rescue. Although natural
teleology, at first glance, can only bestow teleofunctions to compute functions that go
from sensory input to motor output, functional and mechanistic decomposition help
distribute computational responsibility across intermediate states. Selection processes
settle on a complex algorithm or set of algorithms from sensory input to appropriate
motor output. In light of the teleofunction to carry out such complex algorithms, there
is a breakdown of the contributions that intermediate states and processes make to
the overall algorithm. In this way, the theory bestows computational teleofunctions
on mediating states and processes in light of the computational contributions they
make to the performance of the complex algorithm it is the teleofunction of the whole
system to compute. Do these intermediate teleofunctions help identify, in explanatorily
powerful ways, the computational contributions that intermediate states and processes
are supposed to make to cognition and intelligent behaviour?
In contrast to the case of representational individuation, the answer is positive. For
unlike the case of representation, the teleofunctions that intermediate computational
states and processes have—according to the teleomechanistic view of computation—
are to compute simpler input-output functions that together make up the complex
algorithm from sensory input to motor output performed by the whole system. The
teleomechanistic view bestows on intermediate subsystems the teleofunction to manip-
ulate in specific ways the inputs they receive—individuated non-semantically, in terms
of functional or physical states—and generate outputs to be fed to downstream com-
putational subsystems. These bestowals of computational function are explanatorily
powerful. They help explain how the system comes to implement the complicated algo-
rithm that leads from sensory input and internal states to behaviour by recognising
the small, partial computational contributions that intermediate states and processes
internal to the system make, and which together come to compose the overall function
that the whole system computes. While in the case of teleo-based theories of repre-
sentation, as Cao (2012) argues, we end up with content ascriptions that have little to
no explanatory purchase, the teleomechanistic view provides computational ascrip-
18 This damaging line of reasoning is not limited to teleo-based theories of computation that appeal to
selected-effects theories of teleology. Goal-based as well as design-based theories also rely on external
behaviour in order to bestow teleofunctions on systems, and thus would also be vulnerable to the problem.

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tions that play a distinctive explanatory role: they reveal the typically many-stepped,
richly-branched algorithm that leads from sensory stimulus to motor behaviour.
The difficulties of teleo-based views of representation in doing justice to internal
cognitive complexity are therefore not shared by the teleomechanistic view of compu-
tation. A theory of representation can exploit this feature in order to avoid the problem
of internal complexity, in at least two mutually-exclusive ways.
First, by relying on the teleomechanistic view of computation, a theory of represen-
tation may make use of the non-semantically individuated intermediate computational
states and processes, and the contributions they have the teleofunction to make to over-
all behaviour, to help distribute representational responsibility across the components
of the cognitive system. A theory of representation may be able to pick out a sub-
set of computationally-individuated states and processes that play representational
roles by standing in exploitable (and exploited) relations to salient features of the
environment—such as cognitive maps in entorhinal cortex (Moser et al. 2008).
Alternatively, theories of representation may reject representational ascription
to intermediate states and processes, while keeping allegiance to intermediate
computations and computational teleofunctions. On this view, the units on which rep-
resentations are bestowed are whole organisms, or at least whole brains, as Cao (2012)
suggests, since it is at this level of description that talk of external behaviour is justified,
and thereby appeal to selection processes takes a direct hold. This view is strongly revi-
sionary of mainstream cognitive science, since it rejects subpersonal representational
vehicles, and thereby subpersonal representational explanation. However, by means
of the teleomechanistic view of computation, it is sensitive to subpersonal explana-
tion cashed out in purely computational terms, thus following mainstream cognitive
science at least in its focus on the complex internal goings-on that lead to cognition
and intelligent behaviour.
Since my aim in this paper is to open up paths, rather than to tread them, I remain
neutral on which route is the most promising.

4.6 Misrepresentation and miscomputation

Finally, appealing to natural teleology in accounting for computation allows for a sort
of weak normativity already when it comes to computational workings. This can be
useful for a theory of representation insofar as it makes it possible to distinguish differ-
ent factors that may lead to inappropriate behaviour. In particular, it opens the way for
distinguishing cases in which misrepresentation depends on computational error, from
cases in which misrepresentation takes place despite the fact that the system correctly
follows its computational norms (i.e. fulfils its computational teleofunctions).
Applying this point to teleosemantics does not entail that separate selection
processes need be responsible for the representational and for the computational tele-
ofunctions of the system. It is compatible with the foregoing that the same kinds
of selective pressure led to both the representational and computational organisation
of the system—the former hinging on the latter. However, it does not follow that
there cannot be dissociations, that is, cases in which there is misrepresentation but
no miscomputation, and even, by a fluke, miscomputation without misrepresentation.

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For instance, if the environment is not the adequate one for the organism, the rela-
tions between internal states and world that are relevant for representational success
will not obtain, leading to misrepresentation. But this is compatible with the inter-
nal computational processes performing the correct computations, since under the
teleomechanistic view, the latter are non-semantic.
Moreover, attention to the role of (mis)computation in explaining behaviour can
decrease the scope and weight of representational explanation, thereby helping to avoid
overly liberal ascription of representational nature. For explanation of behavioural
inadequacy or error may be cashed out in terms of pure miscomputation in cases
in which the relevant computational states and processes lack representational sta-
tus. This is important to keep in check the temptation to overextend representational
explanation to cases, capacities, or systems for which the notion makes little to no
explanatory contribution—thus risking to make appeal to representation lose its dis-
tinctive explanatory power, and with it, its theoretical justification.19

5 Concluding remarks

In this paper, I have argued that theories of cognitive representation have much to gain
by paying more attention to the roles that computation can play in helping explain
representation. More strongly, I have argued that the influential semantic view of the
conceptual relations between representation and computation should be turned on its
head, in light of recent developments in philosophical accounts of computation in
physical systems: computation helps explain cognitive representation, rather than the
other way around. I have shown that this strategy holds much promise if theories of
representation rely on a robust, non-semantic, teleo-based theory of computation such
as the teleomechanistic account.
I have examined six advantages that theories of representation can reap by adopting
this approach: (a) starting from computation seems more justified, since computation
is arguably simpler or more primitive than representation, and has better naturalisation
prospects; (b) it helps to account for the causal powers of representations; while the
teleomechanistic view more specifically (c) helps to narrow down the states and pro-
cesses that are candidates for representational status, making more tractable problems
with liberality and, to a more limited extent, content indeterminacy; (d) it individuates
non-semantically the complex internal organisation of cognitive systems; and (e) it
makes space for useful distinctions between different sources of (behavioural) error;
all the while (f) avoiding the main lines of objection against appeal to teleology in
theories of representation. While I have not defended here a specific theory of repre-
sentation along these lines, I hope to have shown that it is a promising way to go for
theories of representation in general.

Acknowledgements I am indebted to Rosa Cao, Manolo Martinez, Nicholas Shea, Marc Artiga, Fernando
Martinez Manrique, Margherita Arcangeli, Michael Pauen, two anonymous referees, and audiences at
the EuroCogSci conference, and the workshop ‘Mental Representations in a Mechanical World’, both in
Bochum, Germany, in 2019, for valuable feedback on earlier versions of this material.

19 See Artiga (2016) for a recent defence of radical liberality about representational explanation, and about
representational status more generally.

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Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This research was funded by
the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence
Strategy—EXC 2002/1 “Science of Intelligence”—Project number 390523135.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which
permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence,
and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included
in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If
material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted
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