The formal conception of computation (FCC) holds that computational processes are not sensitive to semantic properties. FCC is popular, but it faces well-known difficulties. Accordingly, authors such as Block and Peacocke pursue a ?semantically-laden? alternative, according to which computation can be sensitive to semantics. I argue that computation is insensitive to semantics within a wide range of computational systems, including any system with ?derived? rather than ?original? intentionality. FCC yields the correct verdict for these systems. I conclude that there is (...) only one promising strategy for semantically-laden theorists: identify special computational systems that help generate their own semantic properties, and then show that computation within those systems is semantically-laden. Unfortunately, the few existing discussions that pursue this strategy are problematic. (shrink)

Computationalism has been the mainstream view of cognition for decades. There are periodic reports of its demise, but they are greatly exaggerated. This essay surveys some recent literature on computationalism. It concludes that computationalism is a family of theories about the mechanisms of cognition. The main relevant evidence for testing it comes from neuroscience, though psychology and AI are relevant too. Computationalism comes in many versions, which continue to guide competing research programs in philosophy of mind as well as psychology (...) and neuroscience. Although our understanding of computationalism has deepened in recent years, much work in this area remains to be done. (shrink)

According to pancomputationalism, everything is a computing system. In this paper, I distinguish between different varieties of pancomputationalism. I find that although some varieties are more plausible than others, only the strongest variety is relevant to the philosophy of mind, but only the most trivial varieties are true. As a side effect of this exercise, I offer a clarified distinction between computational modelling and computational explanation.<br><br>.

Over the past thirty years, it is been common to hear the mind likened to a digital computer. This essay is concerned with a particular philosophical view that holds that the mind literally is a digital computer (in a specific sense of “computer” to be developed), and that thought literally is a kind of computation. This view—which will be called the “Computational Theory of Mind” (CTM)—is thus to be distinguished from other and broader attempts to connect the mind with computation, (...) including (a) various enterprises at modeling features of the mind using computational modeling techniques, and (b) employing some feature or features of production-model computers (such as the stored program concept, or the distinction between hardware and software) merely as a guiding metaphor for understanding some feature of the mind. This entry is therefore concerned solely with the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) proposed by Hilary Putnam [1961] and developed most notably for philosophers by Jerry Fodor [1975, 1980, 1987, 1993]. The senses of ‘computer’ and ‘computation’ employed here are technical; the main tasks of this entry will therefore be to elucidate: (a) the technical sense of ‘computation’ that is at issue, (b) the ways in which it is claimed to be applicable to the mind, (c) the philosophical problems this understanding of the mind is claimed to solve, and (d) the major criticisms that have accrued to this view. (shrink)

Some philosophers have conflated functionalism and computationalism. I reconstruct how this came about and uncover two assumptions that made the conflation possible. They are the assumptions that (i) psychological functional analyses are computational descriptions and (ii) everything may be described as performing computations. I argue that, if we want to improve our understanding of both the metaphysics of mental states and the functional relations between them, we should reject these assumptions. # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

To account for the explanatory role representations play in cognitive science, Egan’s deflationary account introduces a distinction between cognitive and mathematical contents. According to that account, only the latter are genuine explanatory posits of cognitive-scientific theories, as they represent the arguments and values cognitive devices need to represent to compute. Here, I argue that the deflationary account suffers from two important problems, whose roots trace back to the introduction of mathematical contents. First, I will argue that mathematical contents do not (...) satisfy important and widely accepted desiderata all theories of content are called to satisfy, such as content determinacy and naturalism. Secondly, I will claim that there are cases in which mathematical contents cannot play the explanatory role the deflationary account claims they play, proposing an empirical counterexample. Lastly, I will conclude the paper highlighting two important implications of my arguments, concerning recent theoretical proposals to naturalize representations via physical computation, and the popular predictive processing theory of cognition. (shrink)

A weak version of the life-mind continuity thesis entails that every living system also has a basic mind (with a non-representational form of intentionality). The strong version entails that the same concepts that are sufficient to explain basic minds (with non-representational states) are also central to understanding non-basic minds (with representational states). We argue that recent work on the free energy principle supports the following claims with respect to the life-mind continuity thesis: (i) there is a strong continuity between life (...) and mind; (ii) all living systems can be described as if they had representational states; (iii) the ’as-if representationality’ entailed by the free energy principle is central to understanding both basic forms of intentionality and intentionality in non-basic minds. In addition to this, we argue that the free energy principle also renders realism about computation and representation compatible with a strong life-mind continuity thesis (although the free energy principle does not entail computational and representational realism). In particular, we show how representationality proper can be grounded in ’as-if representationality’. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe seminal work of David Marr, popularized in his classic work Vision, continues to exert a major influence on both cognitive science and philosophy. The interpretation of his work also co...

Introduction: representationalismMost theorists of cognition endorse some version of representationalism, which I will understand as the view that the human mind is an information-using system, and that human cognitive capacities are representational capacities. Of course, notions such as ‘representation’ and ‘information-using’ are terms of art that require explication. As a first pass, representations are “mediating states of an intelligent system that carry information” (Markman and Dietrich 2001, p. 471). They have two important features: (1) they are physically realized, and so (...) have causal powers; (2) they are intentional, in other words, they have meaning or representational content. This presumes a distinction between a representational vehicle—a physical state or structure that has causal powers and is responsible for producing behavior—and its content. Consider the following characterization of a device that computes the addition functionReaders will recognize the similarity t. (shrink)

Annotated bibliography of works on externalism and internalism in the philosophy of mind.

In the literature on the nature and role of cognitive representation, three positions are taken across the conceptual landscape: robust realism, primitivism, and eliminativism. Recently, a fourth alternative that tries to avoid the shortcomings of traditional views has been proposed: content pragmatism. My aim is to defend pragmatism about content against some recent objections moved against the view. According to these objections, content pragmatism fails to capture the role played by representation in the cognitive sciences; and/or is an unstable view (...) that ends up collapsing into one of the traditional alternatives. I argue that those arguments fail. I show that content pragmatism has as much claim to descriptive adequacy as the traditional theories. Moreover, I defend the robustness of the view by arguing that it does not collapse into any of the traditional positions. Content pragmatism therefore offers a valid and coherent account of the nature of representational content. (shrink)

The computational theory of mind construes the mind as an information-processor and cognitive capacities as essentially representational capacities. Proponents of the view claim a central role for representational content in computational models of these capacities. In this paper I argue that the standard view of the role of representational content in computational models is mistaken; I argue that representational content is to be understood as a gloss on the computational characterization of a cognitive process.Keywords: Computation; Representational content; Cognitive capacities; Explanation.

I review a widely accepted argument to the conclusion that the contents of our beliefs, desires and other mental states cannot be causally efficacious in a classical computational model of the mind. I reply that this argument rests essentially on an assumption about the nature of neural structure that we have no good scientific reason to accept. I conclude that computationalism is compatible with wide semantic causal efficacy, and suggest how the computational model might be modified to accommodate this possibility.

The paper considers our ordinary mentalistic discourse in relation to what we should expect from any genuine science of the mind. A meta-scientific eliminativism is commended and distinguished from the more familiar eliminativism of Skinner and the Churchlands. Meta-scientific eliminativism views folk psychology qua folksy as unsuited to offer insight into the structure of cognition, although it might otherwise be indispensable for our social commerce and self-understanding. This position flows from a general thesis that scientific advance is marked by an (...) eschewal of folk understanding. The latter half of the paper argues that, contrary to the received view, Chomsky's review of Skinner offers not just an argument against Skinner's eliminativism, but, more centrally, one in favour of the second eliminativism. (shrink)

The received view is that computational states are individuated at least in part by their semantic properties. I offer an alternative, according to which computational states are individuated by their functional properties. Functional properties are specified by a mechanistic explanation without appealing to any semantic properties. The primary purpose of this paper is to formulate the alternative view of computational individuation, point out that it supports a robust notion of computational explanation, and defend it on the grounds of how computational (...) states are individuated within computability theory and computer science. A secondary purpose is to show that existing arguments for the semantic view are defective. (shrink)

This book discusses the two main construals of the explanatory goals of semantic theories. The first, externalist conception, understands semantic theories in terms of a hermeneutic and interpretive explanatory project. The second, internalist conception, understands semantic theories in terms of the psychological mechanisms in virtue of which meanings are generated. It is argued that a fruitful scientific explanation is one that aims to uncover the underlying mechanisms in virtue of which the observable phenomena are made possible, and that a scientific (...) semantics should be doing just that. If this is the case, then a scientific semantics is unlikely to be externalist, for reasons having to do with the subject matter and form of externalist theories. It is argued that semantics construed hermeneutically is nevertheless a valuable explanatory project. (shrink)

Recently, Horsman et al. have proposed a new framework, Abstraction/Representation theory, for understanding and evaluating claims about unconventional or non-standard computation. Among its attractive features, the theory in particular implies a novel account of what is means to be a computer. After expounding on this account, I compare it with other accounts of concrete computation, finding that it does not quite fit in the standard categorization: while it is most similar to some semantic accounts, it is not itself a semantic (...) account. Then I evaluate it according to the six desiderata for accounts of concrete computation proposed by Piccinini. Finding that it does not clearly satisfy some of them, I propose a modification, which I call Agential AR theory, that does, yielding an account that could be a serious competitor to other leading account of concrete computation. (shrink)

Externalist theories in natural language semantics have become the orthodoxy since Kripke is widely thought to have refuted descriptive theories involving internal cognitive representation of meaning. This shift may be seen in developments in philosophy of language of the 1970s – the direct reference “revolution against Frege”. I consider Fodor’s heretical thought that something has gone “awfully wrong” in this philosophical consensus, perhaps confirming Chomsky’s view that the whole field of philosophical semantics is “utterly wrongheaded” and “crazy” by virtue of (...) its non-naturalist assumptions and “methodological dualism.” Kripke acknowledges that he was led to his views by his “natural intuition”. Accordingly, I take up the aetiological question Chomsky poses, suggesting that we may go beyond the usual analysis of those doctrines that have been assumed too uncritically “to ask why they seem so compelling”. I suggest that the externalist orthodoxy is a kind of cognitive illusion seen elsewhere in philosophy and cognitive science. (shrink)

Kirjoitus tarkastelee kahta jännitteessä olevaa näkemystä mielestä, komputationalismia ja eksternalismia. Komputationalismin mukaan mielen toiminta on mahdollista kuvata yksikäsitteisistä askeleista muodostuvana laskentana. Eksternalismin mukaan mielen toimintaa ei ole kuitenkaan mahdollista ymmärtää ottamatta huomioon niitä merkitysrelaatioita, joita mielellä on maailmaan. Näiden kahden näkemyksen välillä on selvä jännite: eksternalismin korostamat merkitysrelaatiot eivät voi luonteensa vuoksi olla komputationaalisen kuvaukseen sisältyviä ominaisuuksia. Vertailemalla Jerry Fodorin ja René Descartesin näkemyksiä esitän, että mahdollisuudet komputationalismin ja eksternalismin yhteensovittamiseen riippuvat suuresti siitä, minkälaisen laajemman teoreettisen hierarkian osiksi komputationalismi ja (...) eksternalismi käsitetään. Kiinnitän huomiota myös siihen, että eksternalismin tueksi tavallisesti esitetty ajatuskoe, Hilary Putnamin nk. kaksoismaa-ajatuskoe, näyttää riippuvan huomattavasti arkisemmasta ajattelun ilmiöstä kuin on esitetty. Esitän Descartesin käsittävän teoreettisesti keskeisimmäksi tasoksi kognitiivisten relaatioiden tason, ja täten alistavan muut teoreettisen kuvauksen tasot mielestä näiden ensisijaisten suhteiden toteumiksi. Fodorilaisessa näkemyksessä komputationaalinen kuvaus nähdään ensisijaisena, jolloin ongelmallisesti muut kuvaukset joudutaan selittämään pikemmin tuon komputationaalisen kuvauksen laajennuksina. Tämän näkökulmaeron ymmärtäminen auttaa myös näkemään, miten Descartesin näkemys kykenee sovittamaan komputationalismin että eksternalismin osaksi yhtä näkemystä. Kiinnitän huomiota erityisesti siihen, että mielen toiminnan ymmärtäminen yksityiskohtaisen mekaniikan tai laajojen relaatioiden tasolla on välttämättä riippuvaista siitä laajemmasta teoreettista viitekehyksestä, joka meillä ajattelun luonteesta on. Tässä hankkeessa perinteisen metafysiikan tärkeyttä ei tulisi aliarvioida. (shrink)

In their constructive reviews, Frances Egan, Randy Gallistel and Steven Gross have raised some important problems for the account of content advanced by Nicholas Shea in Representation in Cognitive Science. Here the author addresses their main challenges. Egan argues that the account includes an unrecognised pragmatic element; and that it makes contents explanatorily otiose. Gallistel raises questions about homomorphism and correlational information. Gross puts the account to work to resolve a dispute about probabilistic contents in perception, but argues that a (...) question remains about whether probabilities are found in the content or instead in the manner of representation. (shrink)

Steve Stich used to be an eliminativist. As far as I can tell, he renounced eliminativism about the time that he moved from the west to the east pole.1 Stich was right to reject eliminativism, though I am not convinced that he rejected it for the right reasons. Stich 1983 contains a comprehensive attack on representational content, a central feature of both folk psychology and the Representational Theory of Mind, the leading philosophical construal of scientific psychology. Stich’s current position on (...) the role of content in psychological explanation is not entirely clear. One of my aims in this chapter is simply to invite Stich to clarify his views on representational content; the question that forms the title of this chapter is therefore addressed directly to Stich. I begin by sketching his original anti-content argument. I then trace some later developments in his thinking about content. I argue that content does play an important role in scientific psychology, for precisely the reasons that Stich identified in his original argument against content. I conclude with some general remarks on eliminativism. (shrink)

The project of treating knowledge as an empirical object of study has gained popularity in recent naturalistic epistemology. It is argued here that the assumption that such an object of study exists is in tension with other central elements of naturalistic philosophy. Two hypotheses are considered. In the first, “knowledge” is hypothesized to refer to mental states causally responsible for the behaviour of cognitive agents. Here, the relational character of truth creates a problem. In the second hypothesis “knowledge” is hypothesized (...) to refer to mental states causally responsible for the evolutionarily successful behaviour of cognitive agents. Here, the problem lies in the fact that evolution by natural selection is not necessarily conducive to truth. The result does not necessarily amount to eliminativism, however, since the naturalist may consistently reject the condition of truth that lies behind these problems. (shrink)

This text aims at presenting a general characterization of the act of perceiving a particular object, in a framework in which perception is conceived of as a mental and cognitive faculty having specific functions that other faculties such as imagination and memory do not possess. I introduce the problem of determining the occurrence of singular perception of a physical object, as opposed to the occurrence of other mental states or attitudes. I propose that clarifying this occurrence problem requires making explicit (...) the conditions of perceptual competence/faculty so as to explain the occurrence of each perceptual performance on the basis of the use of this competence. I argue then for a direct relational model according to which the singular perception of an object depends on a competence of connecting the perceiver directly with each target object. This model is compatible with a disjunctive approach to perception according to which each particular experience of an object corresponds either to a direct perceptual relation with this object or to the illusion of having the experience of this object. The arguments in favour of this relational model rest on the idea that the faculty of perception grounds the capacity to demonstratively identify physical objects. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr.

According to the semantic view of computation, computations cannot be individuated without invoking semantic properties. A traditional argument for the semantic view is what we shall refer to as the argument from the cognitive science practice. In its general form, this argument rests on the idea that, since cognitive scientists describe computations (in explanations and theories) in semantic terms, computations are individuated semantically. Although commonly invoked in the computational literature, the argument from the cognitive science practice has never been discussed (...) in detail. In this paper, we shall provide a critical reconstruction of this argument and an extensive analysis of its prospects, taking into account some ways of defending it that have never been explored so far. We shall argue that explanatory considerations support at best a weak version of the argument from the cognitive science practice, according to which semantic properties concur with formal syntactic properties in individuating computations in cognitive science, but not a strong version, according to which computation individuation in cognitive science is semantic as opposed to formal syntactic. (shrink)