Why is a Functionalist Analysis Needed at All?
An important broader, background theoretical issue will now be discussed. Though it is generally accepted that nomic covariation accounts of cognitive information are problematic in some of the major ways already discussed, merely replacing such an account with an alternative reflexive functionalist account would not, in and of itself, give any explanation as to precisely why–from a broadly epistemic point of view–nomic informational approaches are inadequate. For example, consider a hypothetical ideal world in which there always was a nomic relation between properties of worldly objects and properties of raw perceptual data, such as the red color of an object X in relation to some red-related stimulation patterns on the retinas of perceivers of the redness of X, in which world perception consequently was always veridical. In such a world, at least from an epistemic perspective, it seems that a nomic informational account of perceptual representation would be perfectly adequate, in t
