Neuroscientific data may be usefully invoked in the arbitration of debates concerning the scope of representational theories of the mind. Contemporary cognitivists tend toward theoretical imperialism in that they argue that all types of intelligent behaviour, including perceptual-motor skills, can be explained within the framework of representationalism. Phenomenologists argue that the scope of cognitivism is not as vast as its proponents suppose. They claim that perceptual-motor skills are non-representational and thus fall beyond the purview of cognitivism. I argue that this (...) debate can be resolved in favour of the phenomenologists by citing the neuroscientific evidence for the claim that there are two distinct neural memory systems: a hippocampal system which operates over neurally realized Fodorian representations and subserves rational thought and action and a non-representational striatal system which subserves perceptual-motor skills. (shrink)

From Sources of the Self to A Secular Age, Charles Taylor has shown how we create ways of being, as individuals and as a society. Here, he demonstrates that language is at the center of this generative process. Language does not merely describe; it constitutes meaning, and the shared practice of speech shapes human experience.

For Descartes, knowledge exists as ideas in the mind that represent the world. In a radical critique, Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor argue that knowledge consists of much more than the representations we formulate in our minds. They affirm our direct contact with reality—both the physical and the social world—and our shared understanding of it.

Most cognitive scientists are committed to some version of representationalism, the view that intelligent behavior is caused by internal processes that involve computations over representations. Phenomenologists, however, argue that certain types of intelligent behavior, engaged coping skills, are nonrepresentational. Recent neuroscientific work on multiple memory systems indicates that while many types of intelligent behavior are representational, the types of intelligent behavior cited by phenomenologists are indeed nonrepresentational. This neuroscientific research thus vindicates a key phenomenological claim about the nature of intelligent (...) behaviour. It also provides a framework for the ongoing reconciliation of cognitive science and phenomenology. (shrink)