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The holy grail of cognitivism: a response to Adams and Aizawa

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Abstract

Adams and Aizawa (2010b) define cognitivism as the processing of representations with underived content. In this paper, I respond to their use of this stipulative definition of cognition. I look at the plausibility of Adams and Aizawa’s cognitivism, taking into account that they have no criteria for cognitive representation and no naturalistic theory of content determination. This is a glaring hole in their cognitivism—which requires both a theory of representation and underived content to be successful. I also explain why my own position, cognitive integration, is not susceptible to the supposed causal-coupling fallacy. Finally, I look at the more interesting question of whether the distinction between derived and underived content is important for cognition. Given Adams and Aizawa’s concession that there is no difference in content between derived and underived representations (only a difference in how they get their content) I conclude that the distinction is not important and show that there is empirical research which does not respect the distinction.

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Notes

  1. We should not confuse cognition with cognitivism. Cognitivism is supposed to tell us what cognition is. Standardly, it is the idea that cognition involves the processing of representations. Historically, it has been associated with a methodological individualism which takes cognitive processes and representations to supervene on physical states of an individual. However, one can be a cognitivist and not be an individualist.

  2. I don’t take seriously talk of full stops in the language of thought (see Adams and Aizawa 2001, 2010a).

  3. See Ramsey 2008 for a book length treatment of this problem.

  4. See Sterelny’s paper (Sterelny 2010).

  5. See Stotz’s paper (Stotz 2010).

  6. For a more detailed exploration of these issues see Menary 2007 chapters 2, 5 and 7.

  7. But I don't take the metaphor seriously, see the section on transformation in Dimensions of Mind for a serious account of the relationship between a cognitive agent and the developmental niche.

  8. Personally, I have never used these metaphors.

  9. I have already explicitly made this point in Menary 2009, fn p. 41 and discuss it in Menary 2007, p. 55–60.

  10. See Menary 2007 and this issue for discussion.

  11. Actually, this is just what I do say in 2006 p. 334.

  12. Assuming that we avoid the question begging assertion that only when the sentence is in the head should it be counted as cognitive.

  13. They do point out that this position is not unproblematic, but endorse it anyway.

  14. This would be to agree with Dehaene, see my Dimensions of Mind this issue.

  15. I assume that there will be a complex explanation of how images are produced in the brain, but this is irrelevant for the present discussion.

  16. Dan Hutto has long championed such a position, see his recent 2008 book for discussion.

  17. I prefer the term public meaning to conventional meaning.

  18. There may be others I shan’t try to be comprehensive about variations on a theme.

  19. This is quoted by Clark in his 2008 paper p.54–5 but he doesn’t martial it against Adams and Aizawa.

  20. See Dimensions of the Mind (this issue) for more details.

  21. Adams and Aizawa 2001 p.43.

  22. Sometimes by means of tools.

  23. Whether or not they are manipulated in the head or in a shared public environment.

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Correspondence to Richard Menary.

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The research for this paper was conducted whilst on research leave awarded by the Faculty of Arts. It is supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery grant: Embodied Virtues and Expertise.

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Menary, R. The holy grail of cognitivism: a response to Adams and Aizawa. Phenom Cogn Sci 9, 605–618 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-010-9185-8

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