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  1. Philosophy of mind and cognitive science since 1980.Elizabeth Schier & John Sutton - 2014 - In Graham Oppy & Nick Trakakis (eds.), History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand. Dordrecht: Springer.
    If Australasian philosophers constitute the kind of group to which a collective identity or broadly shared self-image can plausibly be ascribed, the celebrated history of Australian materialism rightly lies close to its heart. Jack Smart’s chapter in this volume, along with an outstanding series of briefer essays in A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (Forrest 2010; Gold 2010; Koksvik 2010; Lycan 2010; Matthews 2010; Nagasawa 2010; Opie 2010; Stoljar 2010a), effectively describe the naturalistic realism of Australian philosophy (...)
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  • Sculpting the space of actions. Explaining human action by integrating intentions and mechanisms.Machiel Keestra - 2014 - Dissertation, University of Amsterdam
    How can we explain the intentional nature of an expert’s actions, performed without immediate and conscious control, relying instead on automatic cognitive processes? How can we account for the differences and similarities with a novice’s performance of the same actions? Can a naturalist explanation of intentional expert action be in line with a philosophical concept of intentional action? Answering these and related questions in a positive sense, this dissertation develops a three-step argument. Part I considers different methods of explanations in (...)
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  • A non-representational approach to imagined action.I. van Rooij - 2002 - Cognitive Science 26 (3):345-375.
    This study addresses the dynamical nature of a “representation‐hungry” cognitive task involving an imagined action. In our experiment, participants were handed rods that systematically increased or decreased in length on subsequent trials. Participants were asked to judge whether or not they thought they could reach for a distant object with the hand‐held rod. The results are in agreement with a dynamical model, extended from Tuller, Case, Ding, and Kelso (1994). The dynamical effects observed in this study suggest that predictive judgments (...)
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  • Situated Cognition: A Field Guide to Some Open Conceptual and Ontological Issues.Sven Walter - 2014 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 5 (2):241-263.
    This paper provides an overview over the debate about so-called “situated approaches to cognition” that depart from the intracranialism associated with traditional cognitivism insofar as they stress the importance of body, world, and interaction for cognitive processing. It sketches the outlines of an overarching framework that reveals the differences, commonalities, and interdependencies between the various claims and positions of second-generation cognitive science, and identifies a number of apparently unresolved conceptual and ontological issues.
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  • Dual-aspect monism à la Pauli and Jung.Harald Atmanspacher - 2012 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 19 (9-10):96–120.
    Dual-aspect monism and neutral monism offer interesting alternatives to mainstream positions concerning the mind-matter problem. Both assume a domain underlying the mind-matter distinction, but they also differ in definitive ways. In the twentieth century, variants of both positions have been advanced by a number of protagonists. One of these variants, the dual-aspect monism due toWolfgang Pauli and Carl Gustav Jung, will be described and commented on in detail. As a unique feature in the Pauli-Jung conception, the duality of mental and (...)
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  • (1 other version)From Interface to Correspondence: Recovering Classical Representations in a Pragmatic Theory of Semantic Information.Orlin Vakarelov - 2013 - Minds and Machines (3):1-25.
    One major fault line in foundational theories of cognition is between the so-called “representational” and “non-representational” theories. Is it possible to formulate an intermediate approach for a foundational theory of cognition by defining a conception of representation that may bridge the fault line? Such an account of representation, as well as an account of correspondence semantics, is offered here. The account extends previously developed agent-based pragmatic theories of semantic information, where meaning of an information state is defined by its interface (...)
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  • Process Philosophy.Johanna Seibt - 2013 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • In Search of Ontological Emergence: Diachronic, But Non-supervenient.Michael Kirchhoff - 2014 - Axiomathes 24 (1):89-116.
    Most philosophical accounts of emergence are based on supervenience, with supervenience being an ontologically synchronic relation of determination. This conception of emergence as a relation of supervenience, I will argue, is unable to make sense of the kinds of emergence that are widespread in self-organizing and nonlinear dynamical systems, including distributed cognitive systems. In these dynamical systems, an emergent property is ontological and diachronic.
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  • (2 other versions)Getting interaction theory (IT) together: Integrating developmental, phenomenological, enactive, and dynamical approaches to social interaction.Tom Froese & Shaun Gallagher - 2012 - Interaction Studies 13 (3):436-468.
    We argue that progress in our scientific understanding of the `social mind' is hampered by a number of unfounded assumptions. We single out the widely shared assumption that social behavior depends solely on the capacities of an individual agent. In contrast, both developmental and phenomenological studies suggest that the personal-level capacity for detached `social cognition' (conceived as a process of theorizing about and/or simulating another mind) is a secondary achievement that is dependent on more immediate processes of embodied social interaction. (...)
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  • A verisimilitudinarian analysis of the Linda paradox.Gustavo Cevolani, Vincenzo Crupi & Roberto Festa - 2012 - VII Conference of the Spanish Society for Logic, Methodology and Philosphy of Science.
    The Linda paradox is a key topic in current debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. We present a novel analysis of this paradox, based on the notion of verisimilitude as studied in the philosophy of science. The comparison with an alternative analysis based on probabilistic confirmation suggests how to overcome some problems of our account by introducing an adequately defined notion of verisimilitudinarian confirmation.
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  • The Explanatory Role of Computation in Cognitive Science.Nir Fresco - 2012 - Minds and Machines 22 (4):353-380.
    Which notion of computation (if any) is essential for explaining cognition? Five answers to this question are discussed in the paper. (1) The classicist answer: symbolic (digital) computation is required for explaining cognition; (2) The broad digital computationalist answer: digital computation broadly construed is required for explaining cognition; (3) The connectionist answer: sub-symbolic computation is required for explaining cognition; (4) The computational neuroscientist answer: neural computation (that, strictly, is neither digital nor analogue) is required for explaining cognition; (5) The extreme (...)
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  • Dal Simulazionismo al Paradigma Galileiano.Marco Giunti - 2005 - In Atti del XIX Congresso Nazionale dell'Associazione Italiana di Psicologia, sez. di Psicologia Sperimentale, Cagliari, 18-20 settembre, 2005. (CD-ROM). Associazione Italiana di Psicologia Sperimentale.
    Il lavoro esamina criticamente i presupposti di cinque differenti approcci alla Scienza Cognitiva, (simbolico, connessionista, dinamico, della cognizione incarnata e della vita artificiale) e sostiene che tutti e cinque condividono tacitamente un’ipotesi metodologica molto generale. Tale ipotesi, che propongo di chiamare simulazionismo , postula che i fenomeni cognitivi di un qualunque sistema reale possono essere adeguatamente spiegati sulla base di opportuni modelli di simulazione del sistema stesso. Tuttavia, a causa della loro costituzione, i modelli di simulazione hanno forti limitazioni, sia (...)
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  • Embodied cognition.A. Wilson Robert & Foglia Lucia - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Cognition is embodied when it is deeply dependent upon features of the physical body of an agent, that is, when aspects of the agent's body beyond the brain play a significant causal or physically constitutive role in cognitive processing. In general, dominant views in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science have considered the body as peripheral to understanding the nature of mind and cognition. Proponents of embodied cognitive science view this as a serious mistake. Sometimes the nature of the (...)
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  • Dynamical Models: An Alternative or Complement to Mechanistic Explanations?David M. Kaplan & William Bechtel - 2011 - Topics in Cognitive Science 3 (2):438-444.
    Abstract While agreeing that dynamical models play a major role in cognitive science, we reject Stepp, Chemero, and Turvey's contention that they constitute an alternative to mechanistic explanations. We review several problems dynamical models face as putative explanations when they are not grounded in mechanisms. Further, we argue that the opposition of dynamical models and mechanisms is a false one and that those dynamical models that characterize the operations of mechanisms overcome these problems. By briefly considering examples involving the generation (...)
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  • Extending Dynamical Systems Theory to Model Embodied Cognition.Scott Hotton & Jeff Yoshimi - 2011 - Cognitive Science 35 (3):444-479.
    We define a mathematical formalism based on the concept of an ‘‘open dynamical system” and show how it can be used to model embodied cognition. This formalism extends classical dynamical systems theory by distinguishing a ‘‘total system’’ (which models an agent in an environment) and an ‘‘agent system’’ (which models an agent by itself), and it includes tools for analyzing the collections of overlapping paths that occur in an embedded agent's state space. To illustrate the way this formalism can be (...)
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  • The Nature of Dynamical Explanation.Carlos Zednik - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (2):238-263.
    The received view of dynamical explanation is that dynamical cognitive science seeks to provide covering law explanations of cognitive phenomena. By analyzing three prominent examples of dynamicist research, I show that the received view is misleading: some dynamical explanations are mechanistic explanations, and in this way resemble computational and connectionist explanations. Interestingly, these dynamical explanations invoke the mathematical framework of dynamical systems theory to describe mechanisms far more complex and distributed than the ones typically considered by philosophers. Therefore, contemporary dynamicist (...)
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  • Language as a cognitive tool.Marco Mirolli & Domenico Parisi - 2009 - Minds and Machines 19 (4):517-528.
    The standard view of classical cognitive science stated that cognition consists in the manipulation of language-like structures according to formal rules. Since cognition is ‘linguistic’ in itself, according to this view language is just a complex communication system and does not influence cognitive processes in any substantial way. This view has been criticized from several perspectives and a new framework (Embodied Cognition) has emerged that considers cognitive processes as non-symbolic and heavily dependent on the dynamical interactions between the cognitive system (...)
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  • On the 'dynamic brain' metaphor.Péter Érdi - 2000 - Brain and Mind 1 (1):119-145.
    Dynamic systems theory offers conceptual andmathematical tools for describing the performance ofneural systems at very different levels oforganization. Three aspects of the dynamic paradigmare discussed, namely neural rhythms, neural andmental development, and macroscopic brain theories andmodels.
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  • Dynamic systems as tools for analysing human judgement.Joachim Funke - 2001 - Thinking and Reasoning 7 (1):69 – 89.
    With the advent of computers in the experimental labs, dynamic systems have become a new tool for research on problem solving and decision making. A short review of this research is given and the main features of these systems (connectivity and dynamics) are illustrated. To allow systematic approaches to the influential variables in this area, two formal frameworks (linear structural equations and finite state automata) are presented. Besides the formal background, the article sets out how the task demands of system (...)
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  • The Resilience of Computationalism.Gualtiero Piccinini - 2010 - Philosophy of Science 77 (5):852-861.
    Roughly speaking, computationalism says that cognition is computation, or that cognitive phenomena are explained by the agent‘s computations. The cognitive processes and behavior of agents are the explanandum. The computations performed by the agents‘ cognitive systems are the proposed explanans. Since the cognitive systems of biological organisms are their nervous 1 systems (plus or minus a bit), we may say that according to computationalism, the cognitive processes and behavior of organisms are explained by neural computations. Some people might prefer to (...)
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  • Darwin's mistake: Explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds.Derek C. Penn, Keith J. Holyoak & Daniel J. Povinelli - 2008 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31 (2):109-130.
    Over the last quarter century, the dominant tendency in comparative cognitive psychology has been to emphasize the similarities between human and nonhuman minds and to downplay the differences as (Darwin 1871). In the present target article, we argue that Darwin was mistaken: the profound biological continuity between human and nonhuman animals masks an equally profound discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. To wit, there is a significant discontinuity in the degree to which human and nonhuman animals are able to approximate (...)
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  • Explanation in dynamical cognitive science.Joel Walmsley - 2008 - Minds and Machines 18 (3):331-348.
    In this paper, I outline two strands of evidence for the conclusion that the dynamical approach to cognitive science both seeks and provides covering law explanations. Two of the most successful dynamical models—Kelso’s model of rhythmic finger movement and Thelen et al.’s model of infant perseverative reaching—can be seen to provide explanations which conform to the famous explanatory scheme first put forward by Hempel and Oppenheim. In addition, many prominent advocates of the dynamical approach also express the provision of this (...)
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  • What is neurophilosophy? A methodological account.Georg Northoff - 2004 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 35 (1):91-127.
    The term ``neurophilosophy'' is often used either implicitly or explicitly for characterizing the investigation of philosophical theories in relation to neuroscientific hypotheses. The exact methodological principles and systematic rules for a linkage between philosophical theories and neuroscientific hypothesis, however, remain to be clarified. The present contribution focuses on these principles, as well as on the relation between ontology and epistemology and the characterization of hypothesis in neurophilosophy. Principles of transdisciplinary methodology include the `principle of asymmetry', the `principle of bi-directionality' and (...)
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  • Computationalism under attack.Roberto Cordeschi & Marcello Frixione - 2007 - In M. Marraffa, M. Caro & F. Ferretti (eds.), Cartographies of the Mind: Philosophy and Psychology in Intersection. Springer.
    Since the early eighties, computationalism in the study of the mind has been “under attack” by several critics of the so-called “classic” or “symbolic” approaches in AI and cognitive science. Computationalism was generically identified with such approaches. For example, it was identified with both Allen Newell and Herbert Simon’s Physical Symbol System Hypothesis and Jerry Fodor’s theory of Language of Thought, usually without taking into account the fact ,that such approaches are very different as to their methods and aims. Zenon (...)
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  • Interactively converging on context-sensitive representations: A solution to the frame problem.Patrick Anselme & Robert M. French - 1999 - Revue Internationale de Philosophie 53 (209):365-385.
    While we agree that the frame problem, as initially stated by McCarthy and Hayes (1969), is a problem that arises because of the use of representations, we do not accept the anti-representationalist position that the way around the problem is to eliminate representations. We believe that internal representations of the external world are a necessary, perhaps even a defining feature, of higher cognition. We explore the notion of dynamically created context-dependent representations that emerge from a continual interaction between working memory, (...)
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  • The self as an embedded agent.Chris Dobbyn & Susan A. J. Stuart - 2003 - Minds and Machines 13 (2):187-201.
    In this paper we consider the concept of a self-aware agent. In cognitive science agents are seen as embodied and interactively situated in worlds. We analyse the meanings attached to these terms in cognitive science and robotics, proposing a set of conditions for situatedness and embodiment, and examine the claim that internal representational schemas are largely unnecessary for intelligent behaviour in animats. We maintain that current situated and embodied animats cannot be ascribed even minimal self-awareness, and offer a six point (...)
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  • Anti-representationalism and the dynamical stance.Anthony Chemero - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (4):625-647.
    Arguments in favor of anti-representationalism in cognitive science often suffer from a lack of attention to detail. The purpose of this paper is to fill in the gaps in these arguments, and in so doing show that at least one form of anti- representationalism is potentially viable. After giving a teleological definition of representation and applying it to a few models that have inspired anti- representationalist claims, I argue that anti-representationalism must be divided into two distinct theses, one ontological, one (...)
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  • State space semantics and conceptual similarity: Reply to Churchland.Francisco Calvo Garzón - 2000 - Philosophical Psychology 13 (1):77-95.
    Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore [(1992) Holism: a shopper's guide, Oxford: Blackwell; (1996) in R. McCauley (Ed.) The Churchlands and their critics , Cambridge: Blackwell] have launched a powerful attack against Paul Churchland's connectionist theory of semantics--also known as state space semantics. In one part of their attack, Fodor and Lepore argue that the architectural and functional idiosyncrasies of connectionist networks preclude us from articulating a notion of conceptual similarity applicable to state space semantics. Aarre Laakso and Gary Cottrell [(1998) (...)
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  • Discrete thoughts: Why cognition must use discrete representations.Eric Dietrich & Arthur B. Markman - 2003 - Mind and Language 18 (1):95-119.
    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 (...)
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  • William Bechtel and Linus Ta-Lun Huang, Philosophy of Neuroscience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2022), 94 pp., $20.00 (Paperback). [REVIEW]Tony Cheng - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-5.
    This new monograph _Philosophy of Neuroscience_ is a novel contribution to the relevant literatures. In this book review, I first summarise its contents, and then provide several critical points for the authors to consider. Even with these critical suggestions, the book is still highly recommended to those who work in philosophy of neuroscience, philosophy in neuroscience, neurophilosophy, philosophy of psychology, and cognitive sciences.
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  • Analytic Phenomenology and the Inseparatism Thesis.Christopher Stratman - 2023 - Argumenta:1-26.
    A phenomenological turn has occurred in contemporary philosophy of mind. Some philosophers working on the nature of intentionality and consciousness have turned away from views that construe the basic ingredients of intentionality in terms of naturalistic tracking relations that hold between thinkers and external conditions in their environment in favor of what has been called the “Phenomenal Intentionality Theory” (PIT). According to PIT, all “original” intentionality is either identical to or partly grounded in phenomenal consciousness. A central claim for PIT (...)
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  • The Dynamicist Landscape.David L. Barack - 2023 - Topics in Cognitive Science.
    The dynamical hypothesis states that cognitive systems are dynamical systems. While dynamical systems play an important role in many cognitive phenomena, the dynamical hypothesis as stated applies to every system and so fails both to specify what makes cognitive systems distinct and to distinguish between proposals regarding the nature of cognitive systems. To avoid this problem, I distinguish several different types of dynamical systems, outlining four dimensions along which dynamical systems can vary: total-state versus partial-state, internal versus external, macroscopic versus (...)
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  • Extended mind-wandering.Jelle Bruineberg & Regina Fabry - 2022 - Philosophy and the Mind Sciences 3:1-30.
    Smartphone use plays an increasingly important role in our daily lives. Philosophical research that has used first wave or second wave theories of extended cognition in order to understand our engagement with digital technologies has focused on the contribution of these technologies to the completion of specific cognitive tasks (e.g., remembering, reasoning, problem-solving, navigation).However, in a considerable number of cases, everyday smartphone use is task-unrelated. In psychological research, these cases have been captured by notions such as absent-minded smart-phone use (Marty-Dugas (...)
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  • Why studying plant cognition is valuable, even if plants aren’t cognitive.David Colaço - 2022 - Synthese 200 (6):1-18.
    Philosophers and scientists propose the idea that plants are cognitive, which has been met with criticisms. These criticisms focus on the fact that plants do not possess the properties traditionally associated with cognition. By contrast, several proponents introduce novel ways to conceptualize cognition. How should we make sense of this debate? In this paper, I argue that the plant cognition debate is not about whether plants meet a set of well-delineated and agreed-upon criteria according to which they count as cognitive. (...)
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  • Mechanistic Explanation in Psychology.Mark Povich - forthcoming - In Hank Stam & Huib Looren De Jong (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Theoretical Psychology. (Eds.) Hank Stam and Huib Looren de Jong. Sage.
    Philosophers of psychology debate, among other things, which psychological models, if any, are (or provide) mechanistic explanations. This should seem a little strange given that there is rough consensus on the following two claims: 1) a mechanism is an organized collection of entities and activities that produces, underlies, or maintains a phenomenon, and 2) a mechanistic explanation describes, represents, or provides information about the mechanism producing, underlying, or maintaining the phenomenon to be explained (i.e. the explanandum phenomenon) (Bechtel and Abrahamsen (...)
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  • Creativity.Peter Langland-Hassan - 2020 - In Explaining Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 262-296.
    Comparatively easy questions we might ask about creativity are distinguished from the hard question of explaining transformative creativity. Many have focused on the easy questions, offering no reason to think that the imagining relied upon in creative cognition cannot be reduced to more basic folk psychological states. The relevance of associative thought processes to songwriting is then explored as a means for understanding the nature of transformative creativity. Productive artificial neural networks—known as generative antagonistic networks (GANs)—are a recent example of (...)
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  • The Computational Origin of Representation.Steven T. Piantadosi - 2020 - Minds and Machines 31 (1):1-58.
    Each of our theories of mental representation provides some insight into how the mind works. However, these insights often seem incompatible, as the debates between symbolic, dynamical, emergentist, sub-symbolic, and grounded approaches to cognition attest. Mental representations—whatever they are—must share many features with each of our theories of representation, and yet there are few hypotheses about how a synthesis could be possible. Here, I develop a theory of the underpinnings of symbolic cognition that shows how sub-symbolic dynamics may give rise (...)
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  • ETHICA EX MACHINA. Exploring artificial moral agency or the possibility of computable ethics.Rodrigo Sanz - 2020 - Zeitschrift Für Ethik Und Moralphilosophie 3 (2):223-239.
    Since the automation revolution of our technological era, diverse machines or robots have gradually begun to reconfigure our lives. With this expansion, it seems that those machines are now faced with a new challenge: more autonomous decision-making involving life or death consequences. This paper explores the philosophical possibility of artificial moral agency through the following question: could a machine obtain the cognitive capacities needed to be a moral agent? In this regard, I propose to expose, under a normative-cognitive perspective, the (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Dynamic Cognition Applied to Value Learning in Artificial Intelligence.Nythamar De Oliveira & Nicholas Corrêa - 2021 - Aoristo - International Journal of Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Metaphysics 4 (2):185-199.
    Experts in Artificial Intelligence (AI) development predict that advances in the dvelopment of intelligent systems and agents will reshape vital areas in our society. Nevertheless, if such an advance isn't done with prudence, it can result in negative outcomes for humanity. For this reason, several researchers in the area are trying to develop a robust, beneficial, and safe concept of artificial intelligence. Currently, several of the open problems in the field of AI research arise from the difficulty of avoiding unwanted (...)
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  • Explaining Imagination.Peter Langland-Hassan - 2020 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    ​Imagination will remain a mystery—we will not be able to explain imagination—until we can break it into parts we already understand. Explaining Imagination is a guidebook for doing just that, where the parts are other ordinary mental states like beliefs, desires, judgments, and decisions. In different combinations and contexts, these states constitute cases of imagining. This reductive approach to imagination is at direct odds with the current orthodoxy, according to which imagination is a sui generis mental state or process—one with (...)
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  • (1 other version)Dynamical systems theory in cognitive science and neuroscience.Luis H. Favela - 2020 - Philosophy Compass 15 (8):e12695.
    Dynamical systems theory (DST) is a branch of mathematics that assesses abstract or physical systems that change over time. It has a quantitative part (mathematical equations) and a related qualitative part (plotting equations in a state space). Nonlinear dynamical systems theory applies the same tools in research involving phenomena such as chaos and hysteresis. These approaches have provided different ways of investigating and understanding cognitive systems in cognitive science and neuroscience. The ‘dynamical hypothesis’ claims that cognition is and can be (...)
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  • The foundations of cognition : variations on the theme of an a priori structure of awareness.Michael D. Kurak - 1999 - Dissertation, University of Warwick
    In the search for the foundations of cognition philosophers often encounter a familiar problem - the problem of content. The problem of content is essentially the problem of how content, whether experiential or intentional, is possible. In practice providing a response to this problem involves providing an account of how an active self-consciousness is able to conceive/perceive, or in some way be consciousness ofx. The unique nature of this problem imposes significant constraints on the field of explanatory possibilities. Since the (...)
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  • Spontaneous Cognition and Epistemic Agency in the Cognitive Niche.Regina E. Fabry - 2018 - Frontiers in Psychology 9:351126.
    According to Thomas Metzinger, many human cognitive processes in the waking state are spontaneous and are deprived of the experience of epistemic agency. He considers mind wandering as a paradigm example of our recurring loss of epistemic agency. I will enrich this view by extending the scope of the concept of epistemic agency to include cases of depressive rumination and creative cognition, which are additional types of spontaneous cognition. Like mind wandering, they are characterized by unique phenomenal and functional properties (...)
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  • Cognition in Practice: Conceptual Development and Disagreement in Cognitive Science.Mikio Akagi - 2016 - Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh
    Cognitive science has been beset for thirty years by foundational disputes about the nature and extension of cognition—e.g. whether cognition is necessarily representational, whether cognitive processes extend outside the brain or body, and whether plants or microbes have them. Whereas previous philosophical work aimed to settle these disputes, I aim to understand what conception of cognition scientists could share given that they disagree so fundamentally. To this end, I develop a number of variations on traditional conceptual explication, and defend a (...)
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  • Is There Progress in Philosophy? The Case for Taking History Seriously.Peter P. Slezak - 2018 - Philosophy 93 (4):529-555.
    In response to widespread doubts among professional philosophers (Russell, Horwich, Dietrich, McGinn, Chalmers), Stoljar argues for a ‘reasonable optimism’ about progress in philosophy. He defends the large and surprising claim that ‘there is progress on all or reasonably many of the big questions.’ However, Stoljar’s caveats and admitted avoidance of historical evidence permits overlooking persistent controversies in philosophy of mind and cognitive science that are essentially unchanged since the 17th Century. Stoljar suggests that his claims are commonplace in philosophy departments (...)
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  • Rethinking the explanatory power of dynamical models in cognitive science.Dingmar van Eck - 2018 - Philosophical Psychology 31 (8):1131-1161.
    ABSTRACTIn this paper I offer an interventionist perspective on the explanatory structure and explanatory power of dynamical models in cognitive science: I argue that some “pure” dynamical models – ones that do not refer to mechanisms at all – in cognitive science are “contextualized causal models” and that this explanatory structure gives such models genuine explanatory power. I contrast this view with several other perspectives on the explanatory power of “pure” dynamical models. One of the main results is that dynamical (...)
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  • A Unified Cognitive Model of Visual Filling-In Based on an Emergic Network Architecture.David Pierre Leibovitz - 2013 - Dissertation, Carleton University
    The Emergic Cognitive Model (ECM) is a unified computational model of visual filling-in based on the Emergic Network architecture. The Emergic Network was designed to help realize systems undergoing continuous change. In this thesis, eight different filling-in phenomena are demonstrated under a regime of continuous eye movement (and under static eye conditions as well). -/- ECM indirectly demonstrates the power of unification inherent with Emergic Networks when cognition is decomposed according to finer-grained functions supporting change. These can interact to raise (...)
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  • Cognitive assembly: towards a diachronic conception of composition.Michael David Kirchhoff - 2015 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (1):33–53.
    In this paper, I focus on a recent debate in extended cognition known as “cognitive assembly” and how cognitive assembly shares a certain kinship with the special composition question advanced in analytical metaphysics. Both the debate about cognitive assembly and the special composition question ask about the circumstances under which entities (broadly construed) compose or assemble another entity. The paper argues for two points. The first point is that insofar as the metaphysics of composition presupposes that composition is a synchronic (...)
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  • Diachronic Metaphysical Building Relations: Towards the Metaphysics of Extended Cognition.Michael David Kirchhoff - 2013 - Dissertation, Macquarie University
    In the thesis I offer an analysis of the metaphysical underpinnings of the extended cognition thesis via an examination of standard views of metaphysical building (or, dependence) relations. -/- In summary form, the extended cognition thesis is a view put forth in naturalistic philosophy of mind stating that the physical basis of cognitive processes and cognitive processing may, in the right circumstances, be distributed across neural, bodily, and environmental vehicles. As such, the extended cognition thesis breaks substantially with the still (...)
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  • Idealist Origins: 1920s and Before.Martin Davies & Stein Helgeby - 2014 - In Graham Oppy & Nick Trakakis (eds.), History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 15-54.
    This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...)
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