First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Anti-realism is a doctrine about logic, language, and meaning that is based on the work of Wittgenstein and Frege. In this book, Professor Tennant clarifies and develops Dummett's arguments for anti-realism and ultimately advocates a radical reform of our logical practices.

The character of computational modelling of cognition depends on an underlying theory of representation. Classical cognitive science has exploited the syntax/semantics theory of representation that derives from logic. But this has had the consequence that the kind of psychological explanation supported by classical cognitive science is " _conceptualist_: " psychological phenomena are modelled in terms of relations that hold between concepts, and between the sensors/effectors and concepts. This kind of explanation is inappropriate for the Proper Treatment of Connectionism.

Preface 1 Introduction: The Persistence of the Attitudes 2 Individualism and Supervenience 3 Meaning Holism 4 Meaning and the World Order Epilogue Creation Myth Appendix Why There Still Has to be a Language of Thought Notes References Author Index.

In this lucid portrayal of human behavior, Fred Dretske provides an original account of the way reasons function in the causal explanation of behavior.

A collection of all but two of the author's philosophical essays and lectures originally published or presented before August 1976.

This paper argues that questions concerning the nature of concepts that are central in cognitive psychology are also important to epistemology and that there is more to conceptual change than mere belief revision. Understanding of epistemic change requires appreciation of the complex ways in which concepts are structured and organized and of how this organization can affect belief revision. Following a brief summary of the psychological functions of concepts and a discussion of some recent accounts of what concepts are, I (...) propose a view of concepts as complex computational structures. This account suggests that conceptual change can come in varying degrees, with the most extreme consisting of fundamental conceptual reorganizations. These degrees of conceptual change are illustrated by the development of the concept of an acid. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;The central aim of this study is to articulate a view of word-meaning that respects constraints from philosophical and semantic anti-realism, and from the psychological study of concepts. The central philosophical argumentation concerns the relationship between agents, language and the world, and gives rise to a cognitive Manifestation Constraint on the individuation of semantic content ascribed to word-meanings. This constraint is operationalised through a consideration of psychological phenomena regarding (...) concepts and their combination. The philosophical arguments, together with the Manifestation Constraint motivate a discussion of extant views of adjectival modification and concept combination. This then supports three subgoals of the thesis. The first is to articulate a plausible position on word-meanings and concepts. The second is to propose a mechanism for the combination of concepts. And the third is to provide an account of the combination of concepts, and the resulting categorisation behaviour, for two troublesome problem-classes: "Privative" , and "Attributive" combinations. (shrink)