Representations seem to play a major role in many neuroscientific explanations. Philosophers have long attempted to properly define what it means for a neural state to be a representation of a specific content. Teleosemantic theories of content which characterize representations, in part, by appealing to a historical notion of function, are often regarded as our best path towards an account of neural representations. This paper points to the anti-representationalist consequences of these accounts. I argue that assuming such teleosemantic views will deprive representations of their explanatory role in computational explanations. My argument rests on the claim that many explanations in cognitive neuroscience are entirely independent of any historical considerations. In making this claim, I will also offer an adapted version of the famous Swampperson thought experiment, which is better suited to discussions of subpersonal neural representations.

表征似乎在许多神经科学解释中发挥着重要作用。长期以来，哲学家们一直试图正确地定义神经状态作为特定内容的表示意味着什么。通过诉诸历史的功能概念，表征表征的内容的目的语义理论通常被认为是我们解释神经表征的最佳途径。本文指出了这些账户的反再现主义后果。我认为，假设这种远程语义观点将剥夺它们在计算解释中的解释作用的表示。我的论点是基于这样一种说法，即认知神经科学中的许多解释完全是不考虑任何历史因素。在提出这一主张时，我还将提供著名的 Swampperson 思想实验的改编版本，它更适合讨论亚个人神经表征。