Our response takes advantage of the wide-ranging commentary to clarify some aspects of our original proposal and augment others. We argue against the generative critics of our coevolutionary program for the language sciences, defend the use of close-to-surface models as minimizing cross-linguistic data distortion, and stress the growing role of stochastic simulations in making generalized historical accounts testable. These methods lead the search for general principles away from idealized representations and towards selective processes. Putting cultural evolution central in understanding language (...) diversity makes learning fundamental in the cognition of language: increasingly powerful models of general learning, paired with channelled caregiver input, seem set to manage language acquisition without recourse to any innate “universal grammar.” Understanding why human language has no clear parallels in the animal world requires a cross-species perspective: crucial ingredients are vocal learning (for which there are clear non-primate parallels) and an intention-attributing cognitive infrastructure that provides a universal base for language evolution. We conclude by situating linguistic diversity within a broader trend towards understanding human cognition through the study of variation in, for example, human genetics, neurocognition, and psycholinguistic processing. (shrink)

Talk of linguistic universals has given cognitive scientists the impression that languages are all built to a common pattern. In fact, there are vanishingly few universals of language in the direct sense that all languages exhibit them. Instead, diversity can be found at almost every level of linguistic organization. This fundamentally changes the object of enquiry from a cognitive science perspective. This target article summarizes decades of cross-linguistic work by typologists and descriptive linguists, showing just how few and unprofound the (...) universal characteristics of language are, once we honestly confront the diversity offered to us by the world's 6,000 to 8,000 languages. After surveying the various uses of “universal,” we illustrate the ways languages vary radically in sound, meaning, and syntactic organization, and then we examine in more detail the core grammatical machinery of recursion, constituency, and grammatical relations. Although there are significant recurrent patterns in organization, these are better explained as stable engineering solutions satisfying multiple design constraints, reflecting both cultural-historical factors and the constraints of human cognition.Linguistic diversity then becomes the crucial datum for cognitive science: we are the only species with a communication system that is fundamentally variable at all levels. Recognizing the true extent of structural diversity in human language opens up exciting new research directions for cognitive scientists, offering thousands of different natural experiments given by different languages, with new opportunities for dialogue with biological paradigms concerned with change and diversity, and confronting us with the extraordinary plasticity of the highest human skills. (shrink)

Near the beginning of the Cratylus (385e-387d) Plato's Socrates argues, against his friend Hermogenes, that the standards of correctness for our use of names in speech are in no way up to us. Yet this conclusion should strike us, at least initially, as bizarre. After all, how could it not be up to us whether to call our children by the names of our parents, or whether to call dogs “dogs“? My aim in this paper will be to show that, (...) although Plato's argument does not succeed in establishing this apparently bizarre conclusion, it may well succeed in establishing an equally momentous conclusion: that the standards of correctness for our use of concepts in thought are in no way up to us. (shrink)

In LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Jerry Fodor argues that concept learning of any kind—even for complex concepts—is simply impossible. In order to avoid the conclusion that all concepts, primitive and complex, are innate, he argues that concept acquisition depends on purely noncognitive biological processes. In this paper, we show (1) that Fodor fails to establish that concept learning is impossible, (2) that his own biological account of concept acquisition is unworkable, and (3) that there are in fact (...) many promising general models for explaining how concepts are learned. (shrink)

Attempts to apply the mathematical tools of dynamical systems theory to cognition in a systematic way has been well under way since the early 90s and has been recognised as a “third contender” to computationalist and connectionist approaches :441–463, 1996). Nevertheless, it was also realised that such an application will not lead to a solid paradigm as straightforwardly as was initially hoped. In this paper I explicate a method for assessing such proposals by drawing upon Lakatos’s Criticism and the growth (...) of knowledge, Cambridge University Press, London, pp 91–195, 1970) methodology of scientific research programs. MSRP focuses on the heuristics of a particular field and gauges the model/theory building stratagems by reference to theoretical and empirical progress, on the one hand, and the continuity and the autonomy of the way the field’s heuristic generates its series of models/theories, on the other. The requirement of continuity and autonomy afford distinct senses of ad hoc-ness, which serve as an effective tool to detect various subtleties which may otherwise be missed: the present approach identifies shortcomings missed by Chemero’s radical embodied cognitive science and falsifies Chemero’s claim that the methodological powers of his model-based account is on a par with computationalism. In general, I claim that MSRP is relevant to current methodological issues in cognitive science and can supplement debates regarding “local” assessments of methodologies, such as that between mechanical versus covering-law explanations. MSRP must at least be viewed as a necessary constraint for any methodological considerations in cognitive science. (shrink)

The Gestalt psychologists adopted a set of positions on mind-body issues that seem like an odd mix. They sought to combine a version of naturalism and physiological reductionism with an insistence on the reality of the phenomenal and the attribution of meanings to objects as natural characteristics. After reviewing basic positions in contemporary philosophy of mind, we examine the Gestalt position, characterizing it m terms of phenomenal realism and programmatic reductionism. We then distinguish Gestalt philosophy of mind from instrumentalism and (...) computational functionalism, and examine Gestalt attributions of meaning and value to perceived objects. Finally, we consider a metatheoretical moral from Gestalt theory, which commends the search for commensurate description of mental phenomena and their physiological counterparts. (shrink)

The article investigates characteristics of legal concepts as found in academic articles, focusing upon the knowledge base of legal experts. It is a cognitively oriented study of one of the semiotic basics of communication for academic legal purposes. The purpose is to study the structure of knowledge elements connected to the concept of “Criminal liability of corporations” from US law in and across individual experts in order to look for individual differences and similarities. The central concern is to investigate the (...) conditions for the observable efficiency of semiosis in academic discourse. In a first basic section I discuss aspects relevant for a cognitively oriented study of academic discourse. The empirical part of the article consists of an analysis of text passages from two articles in American law journals. The results of the study support the assumption that high efficiency and precision of semiosis is due rather to the use of specific cognitive processing skills than to total identity of cognitive structures across individual experts. (shrink)

Following Gilbert Ryle’s arguments, many philosophers took it for granted that someone knows how to do something just in case they have the ability to do it. Within the last couple decades, new intellectualists have challenged this longstanding anti-intellectualist assumption. Their central contention is that mere abilities aren’t on the same rational, epistemic level as know how. My goal is to intellectualize know how without over-intellectualizing it. Intelligent behavior is characteristically flexible or responsive to novelty, and the distinctive feature of (...) creatures who exhibit flexible behavior is their capacity to learn. As it turns out, Ryle already identified a core characteristic of learning shared widely across the animal kingdom from the lowly rat to the top athlete. Taking my cues from Ryle, I argue that know how is successful performance resulting from self-regulated abilities. To regulate an ability is to be disposed to adjust to error and respond to feedback. While regulating sophisticated human abilities often requires propositional knowledge, in many simpler cases it does not. I focus on the navigational know how of rats and honeybees. Although they possess know how, whether they possess propositional knowledge is at best an open question. (shrink)

Following Gilbert Ryle’s arguments, many philosophers took it for granted that someone knows how to do something just in case they have the ability to do it. Within the last couple decades, new intellectualists have challenged this longstanding anti-intellectualist assumption. Their central contention is that mere abilities aren’t on the same rational, epistemic level as know how. My goal is to intellectualize know how without over-intellectualizing it. Intelligent behavior is characteristically flexible or responsive to novelty, and the distinctive feature of (...) creatures who exhibit flexible behavior is their capacity to learn. As it turns out, Ryle already identified a core characteristic of learning shared widely across the animal kingdom from the lowly rat to the top athlete. Taking my cues from Ryle, I argue that know how is successful performance resulting from self-regulated abilities. To regulate an ability is to be disposed to adjust to error and respond to feedback. While regulating sophisticated human abilities often requires propositional knowledge, in many simpler cases it does not. I focus on the navigational know how of rats and honeybees. Although they possess know how, whether they possess propositional knowledge is at best an open question. (shrink)

Vernacularism is the view that logical forms are fundamentally assigned to natural language expressions, and are only derivatively assigned to anything else, e.g., propositions, mental representations, expressions of symbolic logic, etc. In this paper, we argue that Vernacularism is not as plausible as it first appears because of non-sentential speech. More specifically, there are argument-premises, meant by speakers of non-sentences, for which no natural language paraphrase is readily available in the language used by the speaker and the hearer. The speaker (...) can intend this proposition and the hearer can recover it (and its logical form). Since they cannot, by hypothesis, be doing this by using a sentence of their shared language, the proposition-meant has its logical form non-derivatively, which falsifies Vernacularism. We conclude the paper with a brief review of the debate on incomplete definite descriptions in which Vernacularism is assumed as a suppressed premise. (shrink)

More laws obtain in the world,it appears, than just those of microphysics –e.g. laws of genetics, perceptual psychology,economics. This paper assumes there indeedare laws in the special sciences, and notjust scrambled versions of microphysical laws. Yet the objects which obey them are composedwholly of microparticles. How can themicroparticles in such an object lawfully domore than what is required of them by the lawsof microphysics? Are there additional laws formicroparticles – which seems to violate closureof microphysics – or is the ``more'' (...) acoincidental outcome of microphysics itself? This paper argues that the appearance ofviolation is illusory, and the worry aboutcoincidence misleading. We cannot expect tounderstand the special sciences at the level ofthe microparticles. (shrink)

A mutation alters the hemoglobin in some members of a species of antelope, and as a result the members fare better at high altitudes than their conspecifics do; so high-altitude foraging areas become open to them that are closed to their conspecifics; they thrive, reproduce at a greater rate, and the gene for altered hemoglobin spreads further through the gene pool of the species. That sounds like a classic example (owed to Karen Neander, 1995) of a causal chain traced by (...) evolutionary biology. But a view now nearly universal among philosophers maintains that such biological causation is always shadowed, perhaps even rivaled, by causation on a different level.1 That the subgroup of antelopes forages in areas closed to the conspecifics is a state of affairs embodied or realized, notes this view, in certain movements and state changes done by certain physical microparticles—untold billions of microparticles and movements, but a finite and determinate (more on this below) collection nevertheless. That the subgroup reproduces at a greater rate is likewise realized by a huge collection of microparticle movements, a different collection. And the microparticle happenings comprised in the first collection are causally responsible, strictly in accordance with the laws of microphysics, for the microparticle happenings in the second. Biological causation is always shadowed, perhaps even rivaled, by causation on the level of microphysics. The view I mean is general: any case of causing uncovered by any of the special sciences can be recaptured at the level of microphysics. This view is I think what most philosophers mean by “physicalism”; in any case, “physicalism” is the label I shall use. Physicalism comes in two forms. Modest physicalism holds that any causal transaction reported by the special sciences can be retraced by microphysics.2 Hegemonic physicalism holds that retracing such a transaction at the level of.. (shrink)

The implicit content indicating location associated with “raining” and other weather predicates is a definite description meaning “the location occupied by x,” where the individual variable “x” can be referential or bound. This position has deleterious consequences for certain varieties of radical contextualism.

It is generally accepted that, in the cognitive and neural sciences, there are both computational and mechanistic explanations. We ask how computational explanations can integrate into the mechanistic hierarchy. The problem stems from the fact that implementation and mechanistic relations have different forms. The implementation relation, from the states of an abstract computational system to the physical, implementing states is a homomorphism mapping relation. The mechanistic relation, however, is that of part/whole; the explaining features in a mechanistic explanation are the (...) components of the explanandum phenomenon and their causal organization. Moreover, each component in one level of mechanism is constituted and explained by components of an underlying level of mechanism. Hence, it seems, computational variables and functions cannot be mechanistically explained by the medium-dependent states and properties that implement them. How then, do the computational and the implementational integrate to create the mechanistic hierarchy? After explicating the general problem, we further demonstrate it through a concrete example, of reinforcement learning, in the cognitive and neural sciences. We then examine two possible solutions. On one solution, the mechanistic hierarchy embeds at the same levels computational and implementational properties. This picture fits with the view that computational explanations are mechanistic sketches. On the other solution, there are two separate hierarchies, one computational and another implementational, which are related by the implementation relation. This picture fits with the view that computational explanations are functional and autonomous explanations. It is less clear how these solutions fit with the view that computational explanations are full-fledged mechanistic explanations. Finally, we argue that both pictures are consistent with the reinforcement learning example, but that scientific practice does not align with the view that computational models are merely mechanistic sketches. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that the success of the connectionist program in cognitive science would threaten folk psychology. I articulate and defend a "minimalist" construal of folk psychology that comports well with empirical evidence on the folk understanding of belief and is compatible with even the most radical developments in cognitive science.

Externalism about the mind holds that the explanation of our representational capacities requires appeal to mental states that are individuated by reference to features of the environment. Externalists claim that ‘narrow’ taxonomies cannot account for important features of psychological explanation. I argue that this claim is false, and offer a general argument for preferring narrow taxonomies in psychology.

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.

Richard Heersmink argues that self‐narratives are distributed across embodied organisms and their environment, given that their building blocks, autobiographical memories, are distributed. This argument faces two problems. First, it commits a fallacy of composition. Second, it relies on Marya Schechtman's narrative self‐constitution view, which is incompatible with the distributed cognition framework. To solve these problems, this article develops an alternative account of self‐narratives. On this account, we actively connect distributed autobiographical memories through distributed conversational and textual self‐narrative practices. This account (...) enhances our understanding of the memory–narrative nexus and has implications for philosophical conceptions of self. (shrink)

It might be thought that vagueness precludes the possibility of classical conceptual analysis and, thus, that the classical or definitional view of the nature of complex concepts is incorrect. The present paper argues that classical analysis can be had for concepts expressed by vague language since (1) all of the general theories of vagueness are compatible with the thesis that all complex concepts have classical analyses and also that (2) the meaning of vague expressions can be analyzed by having the (...) degree of vagueness of a given analysandum be mapped onto the vagueness of an analysans. (shrink)

Traditional arguments against the identification of the language of thought with natural language assume a picture of natural language which is largely inconsistent with that suggested by contemporary linguistic theory. This has led certain philosophers and linguists to suggest that this identification is not as implausible as it once seemed. In this paper, I discuss the prospects for such an identification in light of these developments in linguistic theory. I raise a new challenge against the identification thesis: the existence of (...) ungrammatical but acceptable expressions seems to require a gap between thought and language. I consider what must be the case in order for this objection to be dealt with. (shrink)

Language has long been a problem‐case for subsymbolic theories of mind. The reason for this is obvious: Language seems essentially symbolic. However, recent work has developed a potential solution to this problem, arguing that linguistic symbols are public objects which augment a fundamentally subsymbolic mind, rather than components of cognitive symbol‐processing. I shall argue that this strategy cannot work, on the grounds that human language acquisition consists in projecting linguistic structure onto environmental entities, rather than extracting this structure from them.

Generative grammarians typically advocate for a rationalist understanding of language acquisition, according to which the structure of a developed language faculty reflects innate guidance rather than environmental influence. This proposal is developed in developmental linguistics by triggering models of language acquisition. Opposing this tradition, various theorists have advocated for empiricist views of language acquisition, according to which the structure of a developed linguistic competence reflects the linguistic environment in which this competence developed. On this picture, linguistic development is accounted for (...) by general statistical learning mechanisms. In this article I shall precisify the debate, provide a clearer picture of what is at stake, and show why an intermediate picture is needed. (shrink)

It has become increasingly common to talk about the second person in the theory of mind debate. While theory theory and simulation theory are described as third person and first person accounts respectively, a second person account suggests itself as a viable, though wrongfully neglected third option. In this paper I argue that this way of framing the debate is misleading. Although defenders of second person accounts make use of the vocabulary of the theory of mind debate, they understand some (...) of the core expressions in a different way. I will illustrate this claim by focusing on Reddy’s and Gallagher’s accounts and argue that these authors use the notions of knowing and of understanding other minds differently than traditionally assumed. As a consequence, second person accounts thus conceived do not directly address the questions that gave rise to the theory of mind debate. They invite us, however, to critically reflect upon the way the debate has been set up. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence, and the cognitivist view of mind on which it is based, represent the last stage of the rationalist tradition in philosophy. This tradition begins when Socrates assumes that intelligence is based on principles and when Plato adds the requirement that these principles must be strict rules, not based on taken-for-granted background understanding. This philosophical position, refined by Hobbes, Descartes and Leibniz, is finally converted into a research program by Herbert Simon and Allen Newell. That research program is now (...) in trouble, so we must return to its source and question Socrates' assumption that intelligence consists in solving problems by following rules, and that one acquires the necessary rules by abstracting them from specific cases. A phenomenological description of skill acquisition suggests that the acquisition of expertise moves in just the opposite direction: from abstract rules to particular cases. This description of expertise accounts for the difficulties that have confronted AI for the last decade. (shrink)

Can animals think? In this paper I address the proposal that many animals, including insects such as honeybees, have genuine thoughts. I consider one prominent version of this view that claims that honeybees can represent and process information about their environments in a way that satisfies the main hallmarks of human conceptual thought. I shall argue, however, that this view fails to provide convincing grounds for accepting that animals possess concepts. More precisely, I suggest that two important aspects of conceptual (...) thought, viz., concept individuation and the generality constraint, are not satisfied. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett's distinction between personal and subpersonal explanations was fundamental in establishing the philosophical foundations of cognitive science. Since it was first introduced in 1969, the personal/subpersonal distinction has been adapted to fit different approaches to the mind. In one example of this, the ‘Pittsburgh school’ of philosophers attempted to map Dennett's distinction onto their own distinction between the ‘space of reasons’ and the ‘space of causes’. A second example can be found in much contemporary philosophy of psychology, where Dennett's (...) distinction has been presumed to be equivalent to Stephen Stich's distinction between doxastic and subdoxastic states. Both these interpretations of the personal/subpersonal distinction, and also Dennett's own philosophical views of the mind, go beyond the personal/subpersonal distinction itself. They each involve supplementing the distinction between personal and subpersonal explanations with metaphysical claims about the relationship between the two kinds of explanation and the entities they posit. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, by combining eliminativist and fictionalist approaches toward the sub-personal representational posits of predictive processing, we arrive at an empirically robust and yet metaphysically innocuous cognitive scientific framework. I begin the paper by providing a non-representational account of the five key posits of predictive processing. Then, I motivate a fictionalist approach toward the remaining indispensable representational posits of predictive processing, and explain how representation can play an epistemologically indispensable role within predictive processing explanations without thereby (...) requiring that representation metaphysically exists. Finally, I outline four consequences of accepting this approach and explain why they are beneficial: we arrive at a victory for metaphysical eliminativism in the ‘representation wars’; my account fits with extant empirical practice; my account provides guidance for future research; and, my account provides the beginnings of a response to Mark Sprevak’s IBE problem for fictionalist approaches toward sub-personal representation. (shrink)

Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in the idea that natural language enhances and extends our cognitive capabilities. Supporters of embodied cognition have been particularly interested in the way in which language may provide a solution to the problem of abstract concepts. Toward this end, some have emphasized the way in which language may act as form of cognitive scaffolding and others have emphasized the potential importance of language-based distributional information. This essay defends a version of the (...) cognitive enhancement thesis that integrates and builds on both of these proposals. I argue that the embodied representations associated with language processing serve as a supplementary medium for conceptual processing. The acquisition of a natural language provides a means of extending our cognitive reach by giving us access to an internalized combinatorial symbol system that augments and supports the context-sensitive embodied representational systems that exist independently of language. (shrink)

John searle has recently claimed to have dissolved what daniel dennett calls 'hume's problem'--The question whether the explanation of behavior by appeal to mental representations can be done without circularity or infinite regress. Searle argues that a careful analysis of the concept of an intentional state shows that mental representations do not require intentional "homunculi" to explain how intentional states have their contents, And, Hence dennett's worry is groundless. I argue that searle's conceptual analysis of intentional states, Even if correct, (...) Provides no clue of an answer to the worry underlying hume's problem. (shrink)

One of the main dividing lines within the debate on the problem of consciousness comes between representationalist separatism and phenomenalist inseparatism. According to the former, representational mental states are possible in the absence of phenomenal consciousness, and furthermore, an adequate naturalistic theory of representation is necessary and sufficient for the explanation of phenomenal consciousness. According to the later, phenomenal consciousness is necessary for the existence and the explanation of any representational state and, indeed, of any mental state. Several arguments have (...) tried to offer support to this inseparatist thesis. Those proposed by Galen Strawson and John Searle summarize this kind of argument, which is based on the introduction of implicit premises. In addition to this failure, inseparatism faces the problems of its empirical inoperativeness and inadequacy, as well as its lack of phylogenetic verisimilitude. (shrink)

The papers in this special issue make important contributions to a longstanding debate about how we should conceive of and explain mental phenomena. In other words, they make a case about the best philosophical paradigm for cognitive science. The two main competing approaches, hotly debated for several decades, are representationalism and enactivism. However, recent developments in disciplines such as machine learning and computational neuroscience have fostered a proliferation of intermediate approaches, leading to the emergence of completely new positions, in particular (...) the Predictive Processing approach. Here, we will consider the different approaches discussed in this volume. (shrink)

Polanyi and Transhumanism both place technologies in pivotal roles in bringing about Homo sapiens ’ species transitions. The question is asked whether Polanyi’s emphasis on the role of technology in Homo sapiens’ rise out of mute beasthood indicates that he might have been inclined to embrace the Transhumanist vision of Homo sapiens’ technological evolution into a postbiological, techno-cyber species. To answer this question, some of the core commitments of both Transhumanism and Polanyi’s postcritical philosophy are examined, especially as they bear (...) on Homo sapiens’ species transitions. The conclusion reached is that rather than being the next step dictated by the inner logic of Polanyi’s thought, Transhumanism is actually the final conclusion of epistemological ideals he spent most of his career denouncing. (shrink)

Relativism and contextualism have been suggested as candidate semantics for “knowledge” sentences. I argue that relativism faces a problem concerning the preservation of beliefs in memory. Contextualism has been argued to face a similar problem. I argue that contextualists, unlike relativists, can respond to the concern. The overall upshot is that contextualism is superior to relativism in at least one important respect.

On a traditional or default view of the grasping or understanding of a singular proposition by an individual, it is assumed to be a unitary or holistic activity. However, naturalistic views of cognition plausibly could analyze propositional thinking in terms of more than one distinctive functional stage of cognitive processing, suggesting at least the potential legitimacy of a non-unitary analysis of propositional grasping. We outline a novel dual-component view of this kind, and show that it is well supported by current (...) cognitive science research. (shrink)

Token physicalism is often viewed as a modest and unproblematic physicalist commitment, as contrasted with type physicalism. This paper argues that the prevalence of functional individuation in biology creates serious problems for token physicalism, because the latter requires that biological entities can be individuated physically and without reference to biological functioning. After characterizing the main philosophical roles for token physicalism, I describe the distinctive uses of functional individuation in models of biological processes. I then introduce some requirements on token identity (...) claims that arise from a position on individuation and identity known as sortalism. An examination of biological examples shows that these sortalist requirements cannot be plausibly met due to differences between individuation by functional biological criteria and by physical criteria. Even without assuming sortalism, token physicalism faces the more basic problem of excluding functionally irrelevant detail from the individuation of biological tokens. I close by suggesting that the philosophical roles for token identity are better fulfilled by a notion of token composition, which promotes a hierarchical picture of individuality. (shrink)

The sciences occasionally generate discoveries that undermine their own assumptions. Two such discoveries are characterized here: the discovery of apophenia by cognitive psychology and the discovery that physical systems cannot be locally bounded within quantum theory. It is shown that such discoveries have a common structure and that this common structure is an instance of Priest’s well-known Inclosure Schema. This demonstrates that science itself is dialetheic: it generates limit paradoxes. How science proceeds despite this fact is briefly discussed, as is (...) the connection between our results and the realism-antirealism debate. We conclude by suggesting a position of epistemic modesty. (shrink)

There is a prevalent notion among cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind that computers are merely formal symbol manipulators, performing the actions they do solely on the basis of the syntactic properties of the symbols they manipulate. This view of computers has allowed some philosophers to divorce semantics from computational explanations. Semantic content, then, becomes something one adds to computational explanations to get psychological explanations. Other philosophers, such as Stephen Stich, have taken a stronger view, advocating doing away with semantics (...) entirely. This paper argues that a correct account of computation requires us to attribute content to computational processes in order to explain which functions are being computed. This entails that computational psychology must countenance mental representations. Since anti-semantic positions are incompatible with computational psychology thus construed, they ought to be rejected. Lastly, I argue that in an important sense, computers are not formal symbol manipulators. (shrink)

Advocates of dynamic systems have suggested that higher mental processes are based on continuous representations. In order to evaluate this claim, we first define the concept of representation, and rigorously distinguish between discrete representations and continuous representations. We also explore two important bases of representational content. Then, we present seven arguments that discrete representations are necessary for any system that must discriminate between two or more states. It follows that higher mental processes require discrete representations. We also argue that discrete (...) representations are more influenced by conceptual role than continuous representations. We end by arguing that the presence of discrete representations in cognitive systems entails that computationalism (i.e., the view that the mind is a computational device) is true, and that cognitive science should embrace representational pluralism. (shrink)

Social constructionism is a broad position that emphasizes the importance of human social processes in psychology. These processes are generally associated with language and the ability to construct stories that conform to the emergent rules of "language games". This view allows one to espouse a variety of critical postures with regard to realist commitments within the social and behavioural sciences, ranging from outright relativism to a more moderate respect for the "barrier" that linguistic descriptions can place between us and reality. (...) This paper first outlines some possible social construction-ist viewpoints and then goes on to show how each of them conforms to the basic principles of information theory. After establishing this relation the paper then argues that this leads to a great deal of commonality between social construction-ist positions and the baseline aims of cognitive science. Finally, the paper argues that, if information theory is held in common, this both suggests future research collaborations and helps to "mop up" some of the arguments surrounding realist commitments. (shrink)

Causal reasoning is one of our most central cognitive competencies, enabling us to adapt to our world. Causal knowledge allows us to predict future events, or diagnose the causes of observed facts. We plan actions and solve problems using knowledge about cause-effect relations. Without our ability to discover and empirically test causal theories, we would not have made progress in various empirical sciences. In the past decades, the important role of causal knowledge has been discovered in many areas of cognitive (...) psychology. Despite the ubiquity of causal reasoning, textbooks of cognitive psychology have neglected this growing field. The goal of The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning is to fill this gap. The handbook brings together the leading researchers in the field of causal reasoning and offers state-of-the-art presentations of theories and research. It provides introductions of competing theories of causal reasoning, and discusses its role in various cognitive functions and domains. The final section presents research from neighboring fields. 1. Causal Reasoning: An Introduction Michael R. Waldmann Part I: Theories of Causal Cognition 2. Associative Accounts of Causal Cognition Mike E. Le Pelley, Oren Griffiths, and Tom Beesley 3. Rules of Causal Judgment: Mapping Statistical Information Onto Causal Beliefs José C. Perales, Andrés Catena, Antonio Cándido, and Antonio Maldonado 4. The Inferential Reasoning Theory of Causal Learning: Toward a Multi- Process Propositional Account Yannick Boddez, Jan De Houwer, and Tom Beckers 5. Causal Invariance as an Essential Constraint for Creating a Causal Representation of the World: Generalizing the Invariance of Causal Power Patricia W. Cheng and Hongjing Lu 6. The Acquisition and Use of Causal Structure Knowledge Benjamin Margolin Rottman 7. Formalizing Prior Knowledge in Causal Induction Thomas L. Griffiths 8. Causal Mechanisms Samuel G. B. Johnson and Woo-kyoung Ahn 9. Force Dynamics and Causation Phillip Wolff and Robert Thorstad 10. Mental Models and Causation P. N. Johnson- Laird and Sangeet S. Khemlani 11. Pseudocontingencies Klaus Fiedler and Florian Kutzner 12. Singular Causation David Danks 13. Cognitive Neuroscience of Causal Reasoning Joachim T. Operskalski and Aron K. Barbey Part II: Basic Cognitive Functions 14. Visual Impressions of Causality Peter White 15. Goal-Directed Actions Bernhard Hommel 16. Planning and Control Magda Osman 17. Reinforcement Learning and Causal Models Samuel J. Gershman 18. Causation and the Probability of Causal Conditionals David E. Over 19. Causal Models and Conditional Reasoning Mike Oaksford and Nick Chater 20. Concepts as Causal Models: Categorization Bob Rehder 21. Concepts as Causal Models: Induction Bob Rehder 22. Causal Explanation Tania Lombrozo and Nadya Vasilyeva 23. Diagnostic Reasoning Björn Meder and Ralf Mayrhofer 24. Inferring Causal Relations by Analogy Keith J. Holyoak and Hee-Seung Lee 25. Causal Argument Ulrike Hahn, Roland Bluhm, and Frank Zenker 26. Causality in Decision- Making York Hagmayer and Philip M. Fernbach Part III: Domains of Causal Reasoning 27. Intuitive Theories Tobias Gerstenberg and Joshua B. Tenenbaum 28. Space, Time, and Causality Marc J. Buehner 29. Causation in Legal and Moral Reasoning David A. Lagnado and Tobias Gerstenberg 30. The Role of Causal Knowledge in Reasoning About Mental Disorders Woo-kyoung Ahn, Nancy S. Kim, and Matthew S. Lebowitz 31. Causality and Causal Reasoning in Natural Language Torgrim Solstad and Oliver Bott 32. Social Attribution and Explanation Denis Hilton Part IV: Development, Phylogeny, and Culture 33. The Development of Causal Reasoning Paul Muentener and Elizabeth Bonawitz 34. Causal Reasoning in Non-Human Animals Christian Schloegl and Julia Fischer 35. Causal Cognition and Culture Andrea Bender, Sieghard Beller, and Douglas L. Medin. (shrink)

In this book Martin Bunzl considers the prospects for a general and comprehensive account of explanation, given the variety of interests that prompt explanations in science. Bunzl argues that any successful account of explanation must deal with two very different contexts - one static and one dynamic. Traditionally, theories of explanation have been built for the former of these two contexts. That is to say, they are designed to show how it is that a 'finished' body of scientific knowledge can (...) be put to explanatory use. But finished sciences are few and far between. Real 'explanation' also occurs in a dynamical context in which questions are asked and answers are given as theories are in the process of being constructed. Here, Bunzl argues that attending to explanation produced under these dynamic circumstances undermines prominent features of the theory of explanation produced in the traditional static context. (shrink)

We make character trait attributions to predict and explain others’ behaviour. How should we understand character trait attribution in context across the domains of philosophy, folk psychology, developmental psychology, and evolutionary psychology? For example, how does trait attribution relate to our ability to attribute mental states to others, to ‘mindread’? This thesis uses philosophical methods and empirical data to argue for character trait attribution as a practice dependent upon our ability to mindread, which develops as a product of natural selection (...) acting on culture instead of genes. This analysis carves out trait attribution’s distinct place within an emerging complex and mature scholarship on pluralistic social cognition. (shrink)

How should accounts that stress the embodied, embedded and engaged character of human minds accommodate the role of rationality in human subjectivity? Drawing on Matthew Boyle’s contrast between ‘additive’ and ‘transformative’ conceptions of rationality, I argue that contemporary work on embodied cognition tends towards a problematic ‘additivism’ about the relationship between mature human capacities to think and act for reasons, and sensorimotor capacities to skillfully engage with salient features of the environment. Additivists view rational capacities to reason and reflect as (...) a distinct ‘layer’ or ‘storey’ of human cognition, with a normative structure that differs from that of the sensorimotor coping skills which support it. I argue that emphasizing the embodied and engaged character of human minds is better combined with a ‘transformative’ conception of rationality – one which holds that acquiring abilities to give and ask for reasons transforms the normative structure of our unreflective embodied dealings with the environment. And I argue that a transformative embodied cognitive science of human rationality is not only possible, but underway. Integrating existing work on embodied cognition with work on the cultural and developmental contexts that shape human minds suggests how human immersion in culture transforms the structure of sensorimotor engagements by bringing about the communicability and negotiability of the meanings to which those engagements attune us. (shrink)