... of the teleological theory of representationover the causal theory may encourage us to try to extend it to the case of mental representation, that is, to the attitudinalstates of subjects of ... as theyseem to be: appearances can deceive. There is a danger, how-ever, of magnifying this truism into a doctrine of cosmic sig-nificance by talking of ‘Appearance’ and ‘Reality’ as if theywere ... asingle state of affairs, S, which is the cause of a given beliefB. For, in virtue of the transitivity of causation, if a state of affairs, S1, causes another state of affairs, S2, and S2in...