[This is an earlier (1997), much longer and more detailed version of my entry on LOTH in the _Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy_] The Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) is an empirical thesis about thought and thinking. For their explication, it postulates a physically realized system of representations that have a combinatorial syntax (and semantics) such that operations on representations are causally sensitive only to the syntactic properties of representations. According to LOTH, thought is, roughly, the tokening of a representation that (...) has a syntactic (constituent) structure with an appropriate semantics. Thinking thus consists in syntactic operations defined over representations. Most of the arguments for LOTH derive their strength from their ability to explain certain empirical phenomena like productivity, systematicity of thought and thinking. (shrink)

El papel de las emociones en los procesos de toma de decisiones racionales es un hecho demostrado. Al mismo tiempo, el paradigma de la mente extensa resulta útil en el planteamiento de los mecanismos cognitivos implícitos en la ciencia moderna, una e-ciencia altamente computerizada y robotizada, con múltiples elementos procedentes de la Inteligencia Artificial. Por ello, el análisis de modos eficientes de interacción entre seres humanos y entidades artificiales pasa por el estudio de las emociones sintéticas, desde la idea de (...) los robots sociales o los entornos afectivos. El presente artículo analiza estos fenómenos y plantea una pionera propuesta de desarrollo de las investigaciones en esta área. (shrink)

I focus on and criticize John Searle's argument against a classical computational view of the mind according to which the attribution of syntax is observer relative (in Searle, Rediscovery of Mind, MIT Press, 1992). Searle's argument is interesting inasmuch as it differs from his previous and more well-known argument that syntax is not sufficient for semantics. This argument aims to undercut even the syntax as something that exists only in the eye of the beholder. I show that Searle's argument rests (...) on premises that go unsupported. (shrink)

In a series of publications, Robert Stalnaker and Hartry Field have undertaken a dispute about what is the correct way to explain intentionality naturalistically. Field wishes to assimilate mental intentionality to linguistic intentionality and to explain both kinds of intentionality using Tarskian truth theory plus the causal theory of reference. Stalnaker wishes to subsume mental intentionality under the notion of indication and to explain it on the model of measurement theory, leaving linguistic intentionality to be explained derivatively. I attempt to (...) adjudicate their dispute, paying particular attention to the question whether Tarskian truth theory has a role to play in explaining intentionality naturalistically. ;The first half of the dissertation examines Tarski's theory. I argue that Field and Stalnaker are incorrect when they agree that Tarski's reduction of the notion of truth is defective and I explain Tarski's 'structural' notion of truth. In the second half of the dissertation, I argue that Stalnaker's criticisms of Field mostly do not stand up to scrutiny, but that Field's theory is unsatisfactory nonetheless; I also argue that certain criticisms of Stalnaker do more damage than he thinks. I conclude that neither has solved 'the problem of intentionality', but that Stalnaker is right that truth theory as such will not have a role in the correct solution. (shrink)

Much of the contemporary research in cognitive psychology presupposes an information processing or computational model of human cognitive processes. On this view cognitive states are characterized as relations to internally inscribed representations. Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn have argued that those representations have a combinatorial syntax and a compositional semantics, and Fodor has argued that the individuation of representations according to semantic type corresponds, roughly, to individuation according to syntactic type. ;I investigate whether this computational model requires us to appeal, (...) directly or indirectly, to the semantic properties of representations when we explain cognitive behavior. I first discuss the requirements of scientific explanation in general, and the constraints of "materialism" and "physicalism" in particular. Then I outline how it is possible for semantic entities to be involved in cognitive explanations, and how Fodor and Pylyshyn think they are involved in explanations on the computational model. I consider whether, given the computational model, references to representations are necessary to explain cognitive processes or whether references to representations can be eliminated in favor or references to uninterpreted formulae. Finally I criticize the argument, suggested by both Fodor and Pylyshyn, that it is our ability to respond to nonnomic or nonprojectable properties of stimuli that requires explanation in terms of the semantic properties of representations. (shrink)

In this paper the issue of drawing inferences about biological cognitive systems on the basis of connectionist simulations is addressed. In particular, the justification of inferences based on connectionist models trained using the backpropagation learning algorithm is examined. First it is noted that a justification commonly found in the philosophical literature is inapplicable. Then some general issues are raised about the relationships between models and biological systems. A way of conceiving the role of hidden units in connectionist networks is then (...) introduced. This, in combination with an assumption about the way evolution goes about solving problems, is then used to suggest a means of justifying inferences about biological systems based on connectionist research. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have by and large neglected technology. In this book, I have tried to do something about this lacuna by analyzing a few aspects of technical artifacts from a philosophical angle. The project was part of the research program "The Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts" based at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Technical artifacts are both plain physical objects and objects that have been purposefully made for a purpose; which is to say they have a physical (...) structure and a technical function. As a result, they belong equally in a purely physical conceptualisation of the world "in which human intentions and goals seem to have no place" and in an intentional conceptualisation, which is used to describe and understand people and their mental lives. My main goal was to find out how these two philosophically very different aspects of artifacts are related to one another. To achieve this goal, I looked at two contexts in which these aspects are regularly brought together in a systematic fashion. First, the context of design; design can be characterized as a transition from a desired function or goal to a physical structure. In particular, I have studied and analyzed the role of functional decomposition in design processes. The second context is the explanation of how artifacts are able to fulfill their technical function in virtue of their specific physical structure. The result of this part of the project is a general account of such explanations. (shrink)

The "anthropology of moral life", or "moral anthropology", is an approach to moral philosophy which I take to have been initiated by Peter Strawson, and developed, independently and in different ways, by David Wiggins and Daniel Dennett. I take the respective moral anthropologies of Wiggins and Dennett to be complementary, and I propose to synthesize them within a Dennettian framework. The framework involves the definition of a "rationally acceptable language". Descriptions and accounts stated in that language are ontologically interpreted in (...) the light of Dennett's ontology, and the knowledge claims made in the language are assessed in the light of his epistemology, which I take to include a "thesis of anthropocentricity". That thesis, also propounded by Wiggins, confers a vindicatory character to those philosophical accounts to which it is directly related. Thus, both Wiggins' and Dennett's respective moral anthropologies have a strong vindicatory character in regard to common moral life. Moral anthropology shows how the dispositional constitution of the human species "underdetermines" the standards of correctness by reference to which we morally assess conduct, sentiments and judgments, including judgments about what is "morally meaningful". Wiggins' moral anthropology proposes a largely Humean theory of human nature, as well as an insightful description of morality, and of the "unforsakeable" concerns, motives, purposes, needs, aspirations and expectations that are attached to it, and which as such vindicate it. Dennett's moral anthropology proposes an evolutionary theory of human nature, and relates it to a compatibilist account of moral responsibility, free will, and moral decision-making. Regarding the latter, Dennett emphasizes, given our predicament as limited but committed beings, the importance of deliberation-stopping maxims, which I take to play in his moral anthropology a role similar to that. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I examine three philosophically important concepts that play a foundational role in developmental psychology: theory, representation, and belief. I describe different ways in which the concepts have been understood and present reasons why a developmental psychologist, or a philosopher attuned to cognitive development, should prefer one understanding of these concepts over another.