Introduction There are some exceptions, which we shall see below, but virtually all theories in psychology and cognitive science make use of the notion of representation. Arguably, folk psychology also traffics in representations, or is at least strongly suggestive of their existence. There are many different types of things discussed in the psychological and philosophical literature that are candidates for representation-hood. First, there are the propositional attitudes – beliefs, judgments, desires, hopes etc. (see Chapters 9 and 17 of (...) this volume). If the propositional attitudes are representations, they are person-level representations – the judgment that the sun is bright pertains to John, not a subpersonal part of John. By contrast, the representations of edges in V1 of the cerebral cortex that neuroscientists talk about and David Marr’s symbolic representations of “zero-crossings” in early vision (Marr 1982) are at the “sub-personal” level – they apply to parts or states of a person (e.g. neural parts or computational states of the visual system). Another important distinction is often made among perceptual, cognitive, and action-oriented representations (e.g. motor commands). Another contrast lies between “stored representations” (e.g. memories) and “active representations” (e.g. a current perceptual state). Related to this is the distinction between “dispositional representations” and “occurrent representations.” Beliefs that are not currently being entertained are dispositional, e.g. your belief that the United States is in North America - no doubt you had this belief two minutes ago, but you were not consciously accessing it until you read this sentence. Occurrent representations, by contrast, are active, conscious thoughts or perceptions. Which leads us to another important distinction: 1 between conscious and non-conscious mental representations, once a bizarre-sounding distinction that has become familiar since Freud (see Chapter 4 of this volume). I mention these distinctions at the outset to give you some idea of the range of phenomena we will be considering, and to set the stage for our central “problem of representation”: what is a mental representation, exactly, and how do we go about deciding whether there are any? We know there are public representations of various kinds: words, maps, and pictures, among others.. (shrink)

According to the logical positivists, signs (words and pictures) of imaginary beings have no referent (Goodman). The semiotic theory behind this assumption is dualistic and Cartesian: signs vs. nonsigns as well as the mental vs. the material world are in fundamental opposition. Peirce’s semiotics is based on the premise of the sign as a mediator between such opposites: signs do not refer to referents, they represent objects to a mind, but the object of a sign can be existent or nonexistent, (...) a feeling or an idea, something merely imaginary or even something false. The paper examines the nature of imaginary, nonexistent, and nonfigurative objects, such as unicorns, phoenixes, or nonrepresentative paintings, and shows why verbal or visual representations of imaginary beings and even nonfigurative paintings, which seem to represent nothing, are fully developed signs with a variety of objects determining their representation. (shrink)

I defend a theory of mental representation that satisfies naturalistic constraints. Briefly, we begin by distinguishing (i) what makes something a representation from (ii) given that a thing is a representation, what determines what it represents. Representations are states of biological organisms, so we should expect a unified theoretical framework for explaining both what it is to be a representation as well as what it is to be a heart or a kidney. I follow Millikan in (...) explaining (i) in terms of teleofunction, explicated in terms of natural selection. -/- To explain (ii), we begin by recognizing that representational states do not have content, that is, they are neither true nor false except insofar as they both “point to” or “refer” to something, as well as “say” something regarding whatever it is they are about. To distinguish veridical from false representations, there must be a way for these separate aspects to come apart; hence, we explain (ii) by providing independent theories of what I call f-reference and f-predication (the ‘f’ simply connotes ‘fundamental’, to distinguish these things from their natural language counterparts). -/- Causal theories of representation typically founder on error, or on what Fodor has called the disjunction problem. Resemblance or isomorphism theories typically founder on what I’ve called the non-uniqueness problem, which is that isomorphisms and resemblance are practically unconstrained and so representational content cannot be uniquely determined. These traditional problems provide the motivation for my theory, the structural preservation theory, as follows. F-reference, like reference, is a specific, asymmetric relation, as is causation. F-predication, like predication, is a non-specific relation, as predicates typically apply to many things, just as many relational systems can be isomorphic to any given relational system. Putting these observations together, a promising strategy is to explain f-reference via causal history and f-predication via something like isomorphism between relational systems. -/- This dissertation should be conceptualized as having three parts. After motivating and characterizing the problem in chapter 1, the first part is the negative project, where I review and critique Dretske’s, Fodor’s, and Millikan’s theories in chapters 2-4. Second, I construct my theory about the nature of representation in chapter 5 and defend it from objections in chapter 6. In chapters 7-8, which constitute the third and final part, I address the question of how representation is implemented in biological systems. In chapter 7 I argue that single-cell intracortical recordings taken from awake Macaque monkeys performing a cognitive task provide empirical evidence for structural preservation theory, and in chapter 8 I use the empirical results to illustrate, clarify, and refine the theory. (shrink)

Despite its centrality in the philosophy of cognitive science, there has been little prior philosophical work engaging with the notion of representation in contemporary NLP practice. This paper attempts to fill that lacuna: drawing on ideas from cognitive science, I introduce a framework for evaluating the representational claims made about components of neural NLP models, proposing three criteria with which to evaluate whether a component of a model represents a property and operationalising these criteria using probing classifiers, a popular (...) analysis technique in NLP (and deep learning more broadly). The project of operationalising a philosophically-informed notion of representation should be of interest to both philosophers of science and NLP practitioners. It affords philosophers a novel testing-ground for claims about the nature of representation, and helps NLPers organise the large literature on probing experiments, suggesting novel avenues for empirical research. (shrink)

Regarding the connection between the Qur'an and the New Testament, we noted that Jesus Christ is often presented in the pages of the Qur'an as a moral model, along with his mother Mary. The events of the life of "Qur'an Jesus" are marked by marginal Christianity of the Monophysitism and by the Christian apocrypha circulating in the time of Muhammad in the Eastern space. The Qur'anic images of the figure of Jesus Christ present Him in His dignity as the Messiah, (...) the Prophet, the Divine Sign, and the Word of God. The Qur'anic exegesis proposes variants that diminish the image of Jesus in the Qur'an, reducing him to a mere Prophet, despite obvious Qur'anic texts that state otherwise. The Qur'an does nothing but reforms the Christian morality and change the sense to other meanings assessed by Muhammad and the Caliphs of Islam as suitable for the social life of Muslim communities. References to the Biblical Jesus Christ in the text of the Qur'an are generally divided into four main themes, which are discussed in detail in this article: Birth and Childhood; Teaching and Miracles; Nature and Status before God (Allah); The Death and the Resurrection. (shrink)

It is agreed by most people that self-consciousness is the result of an evolutionary process, and that representations may have played an important role in that process. We would like to propose here that some evolutionary stages can highlight links existing between representations and the notion of self, opening a possible path to the nature of self-consciousness. Our starting point is to focus on representations as usage oriented items for the subject that carries them. These representations are about elements (...) of the environment including conspecifics, and can also represent parts of the subject without refering to a notion of self (we introduce the notion of "auto-representation" that does not carry the notion of self-representation). Next step uses the performance of intersubjectivity (mirror neurons level in evolution) where a subject has the capability to mentally simulate the observed action of a conspecific (Gallese 2001). We propose that this intersubjectivity allows the subject to identify his auto-representation with the representations of his conspecifics, and so to consider his auto-representation as existing in the environment. We show how this evolutionary stage can introduce a notion of self-representation for a subject, opening a road to self-conciousness and to self. This evolutionary approach to the self via self- representation is close to the current theory of the self linked to representations and simulations (Metzinger 2003). We use a scenario about how evolution has brought the performance of self-representation to self-consciousness. We develop a process describing how the anxiety increase resulting from identification with endangered or suffering conspecifics may have called for the development of tools to limit this anxiety (empathy, imitation, language), and how these tools have accelerated the evolutionary process through a positive feedback on intersubjectivity (Menant 2004, 2005). We finish by summarizing the points addressed, and propose some possible continuations. (shrink)

To move beyond vague platitudes about the importance of context in legal reasoning or natural language understanding, one must take account of ideas from artificial intelligence on how to represent context formally. Work on topics like prior probabilities, the theory-ladenness of observation, encyclopedic knowledge for disambiguation in language translation and pathology test diagnosis has produced a body of knowledge on how to represent context in artificial intelligence applications.

In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant introduces the notion of the reflective judgment and the a priori principle of purposiveness or systematicity of nature. He claims that the ability to judge objects by means of this principle underlies empirical concept acquisition and it is therefore necessary for cognition in general. In addition, he suggests that there is a connection between this principle and judgments of taste. Kant’s account of this connection has been criticized by several commentators (...) for the reason that it leads to the ‘everythingisbeautiful’ problem. In this paper I argue, contrary to these objections, that both finding an object beautiful and acquiring the concept represent the satisfaction of the same principle of nature’s purposiveness, which refers to the same cognitive need we have, that is, to systematize experience. I avoid the ‘everything is beautiful’ problem by arguing that aesthetic reflection refers to the synthesis of object’s individual and distinctive properties, while logical reflection refers to the synthesis of object’s general properties that it shares with other objects of its kind. Because aesthetic purposiveness is different from logical purposiveness, this allows for the possibility that we can have an object of cognition, without finding this object beautiful. (shrink)

The representation and classification of the structure of natural arguments has been one of the most important aspects of Aristotelian and medieval dialectical and rhetorical theories. This traditional approach is represented nowadays in models of argumentation schemes. The purpose of this article is to show how arguments are characterized by a complex combination of two levels of abstraction, namely, semantic relations and types of reasoning, and to provide an effective and comprehensive classification system for this matrix of semantic and (...) quasilogical connections. To this purpose, we propose a dichotomous criterion of classification, transcending both levels of abstraction and representing not what an argument is but how it is understood and interpreted. The schemes are grouped according to an end-means criterion, which is strictly bound to the ontological structure of the conclusion and the premises. On this view, a scheme can be selected according to the intended or reconstructed purpose of an argument and the possible strategies that can be used to achieve it. (shrink)

James Prosek paints flora and fauna, but first became known for his paintings of trout. This essay situates Prosek's paintings, especially those at the Lowe Museum exhibit, within the long tradition of the depiction of nature. The essay comments on the relationship between the representation of nature and the nature of representation.

This is a review of From Discourse to Logic: Introduction to Modeltheoretic Semantics of Natural Language, Formal Logic and Discourse Representation Theory, written by Hans Kamp and Uwe Reyle and published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1993.

In this thesis, I explore themes and concerns that have arisen in my art practice, namely the relationship between landscape, monstrosity, and subjectivity. The tropes scar and form refer to features analogous in the subject and in the land which take on different specific meanings throughout the project, but in general terms, I relate them to trauma as a defining force. I suggest that monsters can be understood as embodying attitudes to time (a cause of trauma): those being fixity, which (...) is resistant to temporality; and flux, which embraces temporality. Consequently, I define these categories and their opposition, presenting arguments for both monsters of fixity and flux monsters. I examine the construction of false universals of ‘England’ (categories of fixity) in representations of landscape and how they come to dominate the picturing of Britain more generally, alongside a mode I refer to as dynamic-fatalism, which examines the polemics and aesthetics of Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957). In this regard, I look at Lewis’s monstrous Tyro and its role in eliciting dehumanisation as a defining value in conceptions of a stratified society. Emphasis on creative practices and representations related to England serve to dissolve ‘proto-fascistic’ fantasies of a heroic, mono-cultural, and pure base for nation, dependent on categories of fixity. I suggest these values are instead understood as patrician, sexist, class-based, and racially biased. Given that landscape constructions are constitutive of our engagement with landscape, I conclude with a proposal for better ‘analogues’ of nature in the form of virescent space (a category of flux). I argue that virescent space is a phenomenon that sees the monster take on a specific role concerning the subject, one I define in relation to a wilderness destination in the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c.1370). (shrink)

Representations are not only used in our folk-psychological explanations of behaviour, but are also fruitfully postulated, for example, in cognitive science. The mainstream view in cognitive science maintains that our mind is a representational system. This popular view requires an understanding of the nature of the entities they are postulating. Teleosemantic theories face this challenge, unpacking the normativity in the relation of representation by appealing to the teleological function of the representing state. It has been argued that, if (...) intentionality is to be explained in teleological terms, then the function of a state cannot depend on its phylogenetical history, given the metaphysical possibility of a duplicate of an intentional being that lacks an evolutionary history. In this paper, I present a method to produce, according to our current knowledge in genetic engineering, human-like individuals who are not the product of natural selection in the required sense. This variation will be used to shed light on the main replies that have been offered in the literature to the Swampman thought experiment. I argue that these replies are not satisfactory: representations should better not depend on natural selection. I conclude that a non-etiological notion of function is to be preferred for characterizing the relation of representation. (shrink)

Schemes of diagrammatic representation have been so familiarly introduced into logical treatises during the last century or so, that many readers, even of those who have made no professional study of logic, may be supposed to be acquainted with the general nature and object of such devices. Of these schemes one only, viz. that commonly called "Eulerian circles," has met with any general acceptance. A variety of others indeed have been proposed by ingenious and celebrated logicians, several of (...) which would claim notice in a historical treatment of the subject; but they mostly do not seem to me to differ in any essential respect from that of Euler. They rest upon the same leading principle, and are subject all alike to the same restrictions and defects. We must therefore cast about for some new scheme of diagrammatic representation which shall be competent to indicate imperfect knowledge on our part; for this will at once enable us to appeal to it step by step in the process of working out our conclusions. I have never seen any hint at such a scheme, though the want seems so evident that one would suppose that something of the kind must have been proposed before. (shrink)

The representation of propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.) and the analysis of natural-language, propositional-attitude reports presents difficult problems for cognitive science and artificial intelligence. In particular, various representational approaches to attitudes involve the incorrect “imputation,” to cognitive agents, of the use of artificial theory-laden notions. Interesting cases of this problem are shown to occur in several approaches to attitudes. The imputation problem is shown to arise from the way that representational approaches explicate properties and relationships, and in particular from (...) the way they explicate propositional attitudes themselves. Another factor contributing to imputation is the compositional nature of typical semantic approaches to propositional-attitude reports. Some strategies for avoiding undesirable imputation are examined. One of the main conclusions is that the importance of imputations that arise in a representation scheme depends strongly on the use to which the scheme is put -- on whether, for instance, the scheme is used as part of a formal, objective account of natural language, or is used rather as a representational tool within an agent. (shrink)

Proceeding from serendipitous observations, three studies and two pilot experiments examined how the way mental representations are conceived varies as the subjective status of the representations is manifest or otherwise. Participants were found to produce simple line drawings differently when the drawings were assumed to represent mental contents (beliefs, imaginations, percepts). The results challenged particular lay epistemological concepts. They were partly accounted for by Gricean conversational rules, but a "subjective status bias" was postulated to have them fully explained. The discussion (...) and recommendations for research--completed with two pilot studies--center on the nature of this bias relating it either to a tendency to conceive subjective representations as vague "shadows of reality", or to a tendency to have an increased impact of the law of pregnance. The empirical outcomes of the pilot studies argue for the latter tendency. (shrink)

Many philosophers treat mental imagery as a kind of perceptual representation – it is either a perceptual state, or a representation of a perceptual state. In the sciences, writers point to mental imagery by way of a standard gloss – mental imagery is said to be (often, early) perceptual processing not directly caused by sensory stimuli (Kosslyn et al. 1995). Philosophers sometimes adopt this gloss, which I will call the basic view. Bence Nanay endorses it, and appeals to (...) it in a number of places to argue that mental imagery plays various functional or explanatory roles, as well as to argue that some mental phenomena should be seen as forms of mental imagery. In places he goes even further, relying on this view of mental imagery to explain how mental imagery is a unified kind despite heterogeneous appearances, and using this view to support his claim that mental imagery is a natural kind. Nanay’s book – which is a both a useful introduction to the many ways that mental imagery appears in discussions across philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology, as well as an extended argument for the multi-faceted relevance of mental imagery to a range of projects in the philosophy of mind and psychology – thus also serves as a nice test case for whether this basic view of mental imagery is good enough to aid theorizing across philosophy and the sciences. I think not. I will illustrate why by looking at two areas. First, I will discuss Nanay’s argument regarding mental imagery and object files. Second, I will discuss an issue Nanay raises, regarding the relationship between mental and motor imagery. A longer discussion might look to many more areas – as already mentioned, Nanay’s book covers a wide range of mental phenomena – with the same lesson emerging. The nature of mental imagery cannot be fully understood without facing an array of choice points, many of which push us to make commitments beyond the basic view. (shrink)

Many species rely on the three-dimensional surface layout of an environment to find a desired goal following disorientation. They generally do so to the exclusion of other important spatial cues. Two influential frameworks for explaining that phenomenon are provided by geometric-module theories and view-matching theories of reorientation respectively. The former posit a module that operates only on representations of the global geo- metry of three-dimensional surfaces to guide behavior. The latter place snapshots, stored representations of the subject’s two-dimensional retinal stimulation (...) at specific locations, at the heart of their accounts. In this paper, I take a fresh look at the debate between them. I begin by making a case that the empirical evidence we currently have does not clearly favor one framework over the other, and that the debate has reached something of an impasse. Then, I present a new explanatory problem—the representation selection problem—that offers the pro- spect of breaking the impasse by introducing a new type of explanatory consideration that both frameworks must address. The representation selection problem requires explaining how subjects can reliably select the relevant representation with which they initiate the reorientation process. I argue that the view-matching framework does not have the resources to address this problem, while a certain type of theory within the geometric-module framework can provide a natural response to it. In showing this, I develop a new geometric-module theory. (shrink)

An early, very preliminary edition of this book was circulated in 1962 under the title Set-theoretical Structures in Science. There are many reasons for maintaining that such structures play a role in the philosophy of science. Perhaps the best is that they provide the right setting for investigating problems of representation and invariance in any systematic part of science, past or present. Examples are easy to cite. Sophisticated analysis of the nature of representation in perception is to (...) be found already in Plato and Aristotle. One of the great intellectual triumphs of the nineteenth century was the mechanical explanation of such familiar concepts as temperature and pressure by their representation in terms of the motion of particles. A more disturbing change of viewpoint was the realization at the beginning of the twentieth century that the separate invariant properties of space and time must be replaced by the space-time invariants of Einstein's special relativity. Another example, the focus of the longest chapter in this book, is controversy extending over several centuries on the proper representation of probability. The six major positions on this question are critically examined. Topics covered in other chapters include an unusually detailed treatment of theoretical and experimental work on visual space, the two senses of invariance represented by weak and strong reversibility of causal processes, and the representation of hidden variables in quantum mechanics. The final chapter concentrates on different kinds of representations of language, concluding with some empirical results on brain-wave representations of words and sentences. (shrink)

Prominent views about representation share a premise: that mathematical communication theory is blind to representational content. Here I challenge that premise by rejecting two common misconceptions: that Claude Shannon said that the meanings of signals are irrelevant for communication theory (he didn't and they aren't), and that since correlational measures can't distinguish representations from natural signs, communication theory can't distinguish them either (the premise is true but the conclusion is false; no valid argument can link them).

This paper presents a novel theory of what it is that makes vision a representational affair. Vision is a process of representation; a fact that does not depend on it being "contentfull" or "indirect". Even if it turns out that vision is direct and/or intrinsically "contentless", it is nevertheless defined by features that decisively make it count as a process or representation. The phenomenology of vision is key here: as we see, we are directly presented with aspects of (...) the environment that are at various distances away from us. Through the process of vision, aspects of the environment that would otherwise still be unavailable or “absent”, are made (quasi-)available, or (quasi-)present. This already by itself makes vision deserving of the name ‘representational’, even if those distant aspects of the world are presented to us directly and contentless. In part I, I provide a bit of an overview of the relevant theoretical landscape, and I give my own take on how we may frame and approach some of the issues with respect to mental representation. Then, in part II, I argue that the representational features of vision must primarily be sought at the level of conscious experience. In part III, I elaborate on the two most common theories that are associated with the view that vision is ‘representational’, and proceed to show that there is in fact a third, more direct, way in which vision can be considered as essentially a process of representation. Finally, in part IV, I show that the kind of interaction problems that arise with the more traditional notions of representation also arise with this newer, more direct, notion. (shrink)

This paper discusses the thesis defended by Edith Stein that certain acts can be attributed to the State. According to Stein, the State is a social structure characterized by sovereignty. As such, it is responsible for the production, interpretation, and application of law. These tasks require the performance of acts, most of which are what Stein calls “social acts” like enactments and orders. For Stein, the acts in question are made by the organs of the State, but in the name (...) of the State, and are thus attributed to the State via a relation of representation. In the first section, the paper presents Stein’s thesis that the sovereignty of the State entails a series of legal prerogatives, which in turn result in various social acts being ascribed to the State through its representatives. In the second section, the paper critically discusses Stein’s views, notably her theory of representation, and her account of the nature of the State, while emphasizing its most interesting aspects, namely, its fine-grained analyses of the various acts that are attributed to the State. (shrink)

The main task of this paper is to understand if and how static images like photographs can represent and/or depict temporal extension (duration). In order to do this, a detour will be necessary to understand some features of the nature of photographic representation and depiction in general. This important detour will enable us to see that photographs (can) have a narrative content, and that the skilled photographer can 'tell a story' in a very clear sense, as well as (...) control and guide the attention of the spectator of the photograph. The understanding and defence of this claim is a secondary aim of this paper, and it will then allow us to provide a good treatment of the particular case of photographic representation and depiction of temporal extension. (shrink)

Digital Twins are conceptualised in the academic technical discourse as real-time realistic digital representations of physical entities. Originating from product engineering, the Digital Twin quickly advanced into other fields, including the life sciences and earth sciences. Digital Twins are seen by the tech sector as the new promising tool for efficiency and optimisation, while governmental agencies see it as a fruitful means for improving decision-making to meet sustainability goals. A striking example of the latter is the European Commission who wishes (...) to delegate a significant role to Digital Twins in addressing climate change and supporting Green Deal policy. As Digital Twins give rise to high expectations, ambitions, and are being entrusted important societal roles, it is crucial to critically reflect on the nature of Digital Twins. In this article, we therefore philosophically reflect on Digital Twins by critically analysing dominant conceptualisations, the assumptions underlying them, and their normative implications. We dissect the concept and argue that a Digital Twin does not merely fulfil the role of being a representation, but is in fact a steering technique used to direct a physical entity towards certain goals by means of multiple representations. Currently, this steering seems mainly fuelled by a reductionist approach focused on efficiency and optimisation. However, this is not the only direction from which a Digital Twin can be thought and, consequently, designed and deployed. We therefore set an agenda based on a critical understanding of Digital Twins that helps to draw out their beneficial potential, while addressing their potential issues. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, the dominant approach to explaining intentionality has been a naturalistic approach, one appealing only to non-mental ingredients condoned by the natural sciences. Karen Neander’s A Mark of the Mental (2017) is the latest installment in the naturalist project, proposing a detailed and systematic theory of intentionality that combines aspects of several naturalistic approaches, invoking causal relations, teleological functions, and relations of second-order similarity. In this paper, we consider the case of perceptual representations of colors, which (...) is a challenging case for Neander’s theory. This case will brings out a general methodological concern with Neander’s and other naturalistic theories: these theories generally rest on the assumption that the mental intentionality we are acquainted with in everyday life—the phenomenon exhibited by desires for cups of coffee, perceptual experiences of dogs playing in yards, and thoughts about the weather—is the very same kind of phenomenon that cognitive science studies under labels such as “mental representation” and, in some cases, “information processing.” This assumption is dubious, as the case of Neander’s theory illustrates. (shrink)

Much of computational cognitive science construes human cognitive capacities as representational capacities, or as involving representation in some way. Computational theories of vision, for example, typically posit structures that represent edges in the distal scene. Neurons are often said to represent elements of their receptive fields. Despite the ubiquity of representational talk in computational theorizing there is surprisingly little consensus about how such claims are to be understood. The point of this chapter is to sketch an account of the (...) nature and function of representation in computational cognitive models. (shrink)

The nature of linguistic understanding is a much-debated topic. Among the issues that have been discussed, two questions have recently received a lot of attention: (Q1) ‘Are states of understanding direct (i.e. represent solely what is said) or indirect (i.e. represent what is said as being said/asserted)?’ and (Q2) ‘What kind of mental attitude is linguistic understanding (e.g. knowledge, belief, seeming)?’ This paper argues that, contrary to what is commonly assumed, there is no straightforward answer to either of these (...) questions. This is because linguistic understanding cannot be identified with a single mental attitude towards a particular representation. Instead, we should characterize states of linguistic understanding as involving complex representational structures generated by a dual-stream process. The first stream operates on direct representations of what is said, while the second operates on representations of what is said as being said/asserted by a given source. Both these streams feed a situation model, i.e. a complex representation of a state of affairs described by a given piece of discourse. (shrink)

Naturalistic theories of representation seek to specify the conditions that must be met for an entity to represent another entity. Although these approaches have been relatively successful in certain areas, such as communication theory or genetics, many doubt that they can be employed to naturalize complex cognitive representations. In this essay I identify some of the difficulties for developing a teleosemantic theory of cognitive representations and provide a strategy for accommodating them: to look into models of signaling in evolutionary (...) game theory. I show how these models can be used to formulate teleosemantics and expand it in new directions. (shrink)

This dissertation provides a theory of the nature of aesthetic experiences on the basis of a theory of aesthetic values. It results in the formulation of the following necessary conditions for an experience to be aesthetic: it must consist of a representation of an object and an accompanying feeling; the representation must instantiate an intrinsic value; and the feeling must be the recognition of that value and bestow it on the object. Since representations are of intrinsic value (...) for different reasons, there are different kinds of aesthetic experiences . By means of certain conceptual links, it is possible to extend this account to other aesthetic entities thus enabling the formulation of a general theory of the aesthetic in non-aesthetic terms. In particular, aesthetic values are identical with subjective dispositions to elicit aesthetic experiences under normal conditions. Accordingly, I endorse anti-realism about aesthetic values: their existence, nature and exemplification are mind-dependent, while their ascriptions to objects have genuine truth-values. I back up this account by arguing against the alternative positions that either take aesthetic values to be objective or deny the truth-aptness of their attributions. Furthermore, I put forward a relativist variant of anti-realism according to which ascriptions of different aesthetic values to a particular object are all correct, given that the aesthetic experiences involved are made under normal conditions and concern the same aesthetically nonevaluative features of that object. For there is no specifically aesthetic norm by means of which one of the faultless aesthetic experiences can be picked out as the only appropriate one. That aesthetic values nevertheless show a normative dimension is ensured by their conformity to a general account of values as capacities to satisfy, or dissatisfy, rational desires. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of analog representation. We first argue that the mark of the analog is to be found in the nature of a representational system’s interpretation function, rather than in its vehicles or contents alone. We then develop the rulebound structure theory of analog representation, according to which analog systems are those that use interpretive rules to map syntactic structural features onto semantic structural features. The theory involves three degree-theoretic measures that capture three independent (...) ways in which a system can be more or less analog. We explain how our theory improves upon prior accounts of analog representation, provides plausible diagnoses for novel challenge cases, extends to hybrid systems that are partially analog and partially symbolic, and accounts for some of the advantages and disadvantages of representing analogically versus symbolically. (shrink)

Norbert Wiener’s idea of “cybernetics” is linked to temporality as in a physical as in a philosophical sense. “Time orders” can be the slogan of that natural cybernetics of time: time orders by itself in its “screen” in virtue of being a well-ordering valid until the present moment and dividing any totality into two parts: the well-ordered of the past and the yet unordered of the future therefore sharing the common boundary of the present between them when the ordering is (...) taking place by choices. Thus, the quantity of information defined by units of choices, whether bits or qubits, describes that process of ordering happening in the present moment. The totality (which can be considered also as a particular or “regional” totality) turns out to be divided into two parts: the internality of the past and the externality of the future by the course of time, but identifiable to each other in virtue of scientific transcendentalism (e.g. mathematical, physical, and historical transcendentalism). A properly mathematical approach to the “totality and time” is introduced by the abstract concept of “evolutionary tree” (i.e. regardless of the specific nature of that to which refers: such as biological evolution, Feynman trajectories, social and historical development, etc.), Then, the other half of the future can be represented as a deformed mirror image of the evolutionary tree taken place already in the past: therefore the past and future part are seen to be unifiable as a mirrorly doubled evolutionary tree and thus representable as generalized Feynman trajectories. The formalism of the separable complex Hilbert space (respectively, the qubit Hilbert space) applied and further elaborated in quantum mechanics in order to uniform temporal and reversible, discrete and continuous processes is relevant. Then, the past and future parts of evolutionary tree would constitute a wave function (or even only a single qubit once the concept of actual infinity be involved to real processes). Each of both parts of it, i.e. either the future evolutionary tree or its deformed mirror image, would represented a “half of the whole”. The two halves can be considered as the two disjunctive states of any bit as two fundamentally inseparable (in virtue of quantum correlation) “halves” of any qubit. A few important corollaries exemplify that natural cybernetics of time. (shrink)

Du Châtelet holds that mathematical representations play an explanatory role in natural science. Moreover, she writes that things proceed in nature as they do in geometry. How should we square these assertions with Du Châtelet’s idealism about mathematical objects, on which they are ‘fictions’ dependent on acts of abstraction? The question is especially pressing because some of her important interlocutors (Wolff, Maupertuis, and Voltaire) denied that mathematics informs us about the properties of material things. After situating Du Châtelet in (...) this debate, this chapter argues, first, that her account of the origins of mathematical objects is less subjectivist than it might seem. Mathematical objects are non-arbitrary, public entities. While mathematical objects are partly mind-dependent, so are material things. Mathematical objects can approximate the material. Second, it is argued that this moderate metaphysical position underlies Du Châtelet’s persistent claims that mathematics is required for certain kinds of general knowledge, including in natural science. The chapter concludes with an illustrative example: an analysis of Du Châtelet’s argument that matter is continuous. A key premise in the argument is that mathematical representations and material nature correspond. (shrink)

I demonstrate that analogies, both explicit and implicit, between Wittgenstein’s discussions of rituals, aesthetics, and aspect-perception, have important payoffs in terms of understanding his notion of a “surveyable representation” (übersichtliche Darstellung) as it applies to phenomena that are not exclusively grammatical in nature. In particular, I argue that a surveyable representation of certain anthropological and aesthetic facts allows us to see, qua form of aspect-perception, internal relations and formal connections, so that the inner nature of a (...) ritual or the solution of an aesthetic puzzle is exhibited. This particular form of seeing both explains why Wittgenstein thought that hypothetical explanations about the origins of a ritual are irrelevant to appreciating its meaning and elucidates his understanding of rituals, which involves seeing “internal relations” and “formal connections.” The upshots of the account for work in anthropology are discussed. (shrink)

Grete Hermann’s essay “Die naturphilosophischen Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik” has received much deserved scholarly attention in recent years. In this paper, I follow the lead of Elise Crull who sees in Hermann’s work the general outlines of a neo-Kantian interpretation of quantum theory. In full support of this view, I focus on Hermann’s central claim that limited spatio-temporal, and even analogically causal, representations of events exist within an overall relational structure of entangled quantum mechanical states that defy any unified spatio-temporal description. (...) In my view, Hermann also advances an important transcendental argument that perspectival spatio-temporal representations of nature have their foundations in general relational networks that are not spatio-temporal. The key point is that the adoption of a perspectival system within the general network induces the representation but only for that context. These ideas are consistent with a perspectival subject–object principle in Kant and also with Weyl’s work on Lie groups and their representations. (shrink)

Deleuze’s philosophy of painting can be seen to pose certain challenges to a phenomenological approach to philosophy. While a phenomenological response to Deleuze’s philosophy is clearly needed, I show in this article how an approach taken in a recent paper by Christian Lotz proves inadequate. Lotz argues that through Deleuze’s refusal to accept the place of representation in art, he is unable to distinguish art from decoration, or to give a coherent account of how the content of art can (...) be represented. I show that this criticism emerges from a misreading of the place of representation in Deleuze’s philosophy. I will argue that by failing to take account of some of the key features of Deleuze’s wider ontology, such as the importance of both the virtual and the actual for his analysis of objects, Lotz’s critique proves unsuccessful. In particular, I want to show that Lotz’s criticisms rest on a failure to attend to the systematic nature of Deleuze’s philosophy, and in particular, the place of Deleuze’s analysis of Bacon within the system as a whole. I will further show that Lotz’s phenomenological defence commits the fallacy of petitio principii, assuming the validity of the phenomenological method in order to justify the phenomenological approach. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of the nature of belief, at least in the western tradition, are framed in large part by two ideas. One is that believing is a form of representing. The other is that a belief plays a causal role when a person acts on it. The standard picture of belief as a mental entity with representational properties and causal powers merges these two ideas. We are to think of beliefs as things that are true or false and that (...) interact with desires, intentions, and emotions to bring about rational action. Both ideas, I think, are ill-founded. One effect of abandoning them is a further blurring of the distinction between what is inside and what is outside our minds. Another is a shift towards a less mentalistic picture of the roots of rational action. (shrink)

This article argues that the standard model of political representation mischaracterises the structure of representation. After surveying the classical types of representation and their application to non-humans, the basic nature of representation is shown to have been unduly centred on interests, responsiveness and unidirectional protocols. It proposes a different structure by drawing inspiration from recent scholarship and developments in political philosophy, as well as the representation of non-human actors. It proposes an ontological grounding of (...) representation in ‘irreducible multiplicity’, and a structural analysis based on the concepts of claim and relation. This abstract form of representation can take into account both human and non-human cases, and works to ground different typologies. The relational structure of representation creates interests and preferences, subjects and actors, power dynamics and seemingly immutable identities. (shrink)

In this paper we motivate and develop the analytic theory of measurement, in which autonomously specified algebras of quantities (together with the resources of mathematical analysis) are used as a unified mathematical framework for modeling (a) the time-dependent behavior of natural systems, (b) interactions between natural systems and measuring instruments, (c) error and uncertainty in measurement, and (d) the formal propositional language for describing and reasoning about measurement results. We also discuss how a celebrated theorem in analysis, known as Gelfand (...) representation, guarantees that autonomously specified algebras of quantities can be interpreted as algebras of observables on a suitable state space. Such an interpretation is then used to support (i) a realist conception of quantities as objective characteristics of natural systems, and (ii) a realist conception of measurement results (evaluations of quantities) as determined by and descriptive of the states of a target natural system. As a way of motivating the analytic approach to measurement, we begin with a discussion of some serious philosophical and theoretical problems facing the well-known representational theory of measurement. We then explain why we consider the analytic approach, which avoids all these problems, to be far more attractive on both philosophical and theoretical grounds. (shrink)

In this inaugural lecture I offer, against the background of a discussion of knowledge representation and its tools, an overview of my research in the philosophy of science. I defend a relational model-theoretic realism as being the appropriate meta-stance most congruent with the model-theoretic view of science as a form of human engagement with the world. Making use of logics with preferential semantics within a model-theoretic paradigm, I give an account of science as process and product. I demonstrate the (...) power of the full-blown employment of this paradigm in the philosophy of science by discussing the main applications of model-theoretic realism to traditional problems in the philosophy of science. I discuss my views of the nature of logic and of its role in the philosophy of science today. I also specifically offer a brief discussion on the future of cognitive philosophy in South Africa. My conclusion is a general look at the nature of philosophical inquiry and its significance for philosophers today. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 25 (4) 2006: pp. 275-289. (shrink)

This paper examines the nature of analytical philosophy, its need and the importance in the contemporary world. In this write up I will investigate the role of logic, mind and language in the field of awnalytical philosophy. It further determines the development of clarification of complex statements into simple statements. What makes analytical philosophy unique and what are the major significance that differentiates analytical philosophy from philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic and philosophy of language. Analytical philosophy is the (...) process of analysis in which we proceed from complexity to simplicity and clarity. In analytical philosophy, philosophers are using analytical method to uncover those truths of the world and reality which are covered with linguistic ambiguity. Language plays an important role in analytical philosophy because the clarification and simplification is the business of analytical philosophy. World is made up of facts and facts are expressed and analyzed in language. Language is the representation of the world. I will also show the major contribution of analytical philosophers in explaining atomic world. (shrink)

Architecture often relies on mathematical models, if only to anticipate the physical behavior of structures. Accordingly, mathematical modeling serves to find an optimal form given certain constraints, constraints themselves translated into a language which must be homogeneous to that of the model in order for resolution to be possible. Traditional modeling tied to design and architecture thus appears linked to a topdown vision of creation, of the modernist, voluntarist and uniformly normative type, because usually (mono)functionalist. One available instrument of calculation/ (...) class='Hi'>representation/prescription orders this conception of architecture: indeed the search for an optimal solution through mathematical calculation of a model itself mathematical, thus homogeneous and simple, is only possible when one or two functions or functional constraints are formulated, never more, and this, on a global level, therefore starting from a unique and homogenizing viewpoint. It is essential to grasp that, even applied to material and its properties or towards a particular esthetic or functional dimension, this viewpoint is thus abstractive and generalizing: disregarding singularity of context, insertion and relationship to the environment or local, social behavior. It leaves aside functional specificity and heterogeneousness – re-contextualized each time – of functions that the object or edifice are required to fulfill and optimize under diverse constraints, in their different parts. The computational turning point today’s digital design and computational architecture embody modifies these instrumental, original prescriptions, rendering them more flexible. Perhaps in light of this turnabout we should retrospectively interpret 20th century calls for modernism, functionalism and even biomorphism as being just as many ex post rationalizations in respect to techniques of strongly prescriptive modeling since our only instrument is a monolithic language, and so being, incites a top-down conception, (naturally weakly reactive to contexts), including forms whose overall appearance resembles in fine a living form. In order to liberate oneself from this and despite everything, emerge as its initiators, one has constructed from ideology and philosophy (of object, habitat, the urban) ex post, even while it is the instrument of modeling and conception that largely determines, normalizes and dictates ex ante, the possibilities and limitations of the creation of forms and living experiments4 in a given time. (shrink)

These thirteen paragraphs portray epistemology as the study, not directly of knowing as a human action (which could be considered the object also of anthropology) but as the study of the mode of being of the object in the subject and, in this sense, of intentional being. Moreover, intentional being is not understood as the being of the cognitional species or representation, which is real and subjective, but as the being of the known, as the presence of the known (...) to the knower (obviously, through the species but a being not reduced to the subjective being of the species): this kind of being is the proper object of epistemology. Other considerations regarding the distinction between metaphysics and epistemology take place as well. As regards the method, this essay attempts to apply Aquinas’ four steps of scientific reasoning to epistemology, in the following fashion and order: 1- Solution of the problem of the universals by recourse to the theory of the agent intellect (resolutio secundum rem); 2- Definition of knowledge as intentional possession of being (res. sec. rationem); 3- Judgment of value regarding the different instances of human knowledge or critique of knowledge (compositio secundum rem) and 4- Reinterpretation (in the light of the previous path) of common notions of epistemology, such as truth, certainty, evidence, and error (comp. sec. rationem). (shrink)

Natural resource management agencies in the United States have a legal responsibility to represent Indigenous Peoples and federally recognized Tribes in environmental stewardship. This comment article is a call to action that argues for genuine representation of Tribes and other Indigenous Peoples through adherence to existing, formal consultation policies and coproduction of knowledge. Agencies must recognize and respect the differences between public involvement and government-to-government consultation with federally-recognized Tribes. Sovereign tribal nations are not the public and have a unique (...) relationship with federal agencies based in the federal trust responsibility. Coproduction of knowledge is an emerging enterprise that has potential for meaningfully engaging and genuinely and equitably representing Indigenous Peoples and Tribes and should be codeveloped and implemented as policy. Agencies should build capacity to properly represent tribal nations in decisions. Agency employees and Indigenous Peoples must spend more time together to increase cultural awareness and build meaningful relationships to facilitate genuine consultation and coproduction of knowledge. (shrink)

In the pair of articles of which this is the first, I shall present a set of problems and philosophical proposals that have in recent years been associated with the term “relativism”. All these problems and proposals concern the question of how we should represent thought and speech about certain topics. The main issue here is whether we should model such mental states or linguistic acts as involving representational contents that are absolutely correct or incorrect, or whether, alternatively, their correctness (...) should be thought of as varying with some (more or less surprising) factor. In this, first, article, I shall discuss the general issue of relativism about representational content. I shall claim that there are legitimate ways of attributing contents that are absolute truth-bearers, and there are also equally legitimate ways of attributing relativistic representational contents. In the companion piece “Relativism 2: Semantic Content”, I look in more detail at the more specific question whether semantic contents (i.e. the contents assigned to linguistic utterances in the semantics of natural language) should be construed in an absolutist or a relativist way. (shrink)

Among the cognitive capacities of evolved creatures is the capacity to represent. Theories in cognitive neuroscience typically explain our manifest representational capacities by positing internal representations, but there is little agreement about how these representations function, especially with the relatively recent proliferation of connectionist, dynamical, embodied, and enactive approaches to cognition. In this talk I sketch an account of the nature and function of representation in cognitive neuroscience that couples a realist construal of representational vehicles with a pragmatic (...) account of mental content. I call the resulting package a deflationary account of mental representation and I argue that it avoids the problems that afflict competing accounts. (shrink)

Conceptual modeling of a portion of the world is a necessary prerequisite to set the stage and define software system boundaries. In this context, one of the challenges is to provide a unified framework to create a comprehensive representation of the targeted domain. According to many researchers, conceptual model (CM) development is a hard task, and system requirements are difficult to collect, causing many miscommunication problems. Accordingly, CMs require more than modeling ability alone: they first require an understanding of (...) the targeted domain that the model attempts to represent. Accordingly, a preconceptual modeling (pre-CM) stage is intended to address ontological issues before typical CM development is initiated. It involves defining a portion of reality when entities and processes are differentiated and integrated as unified wholes. This pre-CM phase forms the focus of research in this paper. The purpose is not show how to model; rather, it is to demonstrate how to establish a metaphysical basis of the involved portion of reality. To demonstrate such a venture, we employ the so-called thinging machine (TM) modeling that has been proposed as a high-level CM. A TM model integrates staticity and dynamism grounded in a fundamental construct called a thimac (things/machine). It involves two modes of reality, existence (events) and subsistence (regions: roughly, specifications of things and processes). Currently, the dominant approach in CM has evolved to limit its scope of application to develop ontological categorization (types of things). In contrast, advocates of TM modeling have pursued a broader metaphysical study of the nature of the domain’s things and processes beyond categorization. In the TM approach, pre-CM metaphysics is viewed as a part and parcel of CM itself. The general research problem is how to map TM constructs to what is out there in the targeted domain. Discussions involve the nature of thimacs (things and processes) and subsistence and existence as they are superimposed over each other in reality. Specifically, we make two claims, (i) the perceptibility of regions as a phenomenon and (ii) the distinctiveness of existence as a construct for events. The results contribute to further the understanding of TM modeling in addition to introducing some metaphysical insights. (shrink)

In her landmark book, Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories (Millikan1984),1 Ruth Garrett Millikan utilizes the idea of a biological function to solve philosophical problems associated with the phenomena of language, thought, and meaning. Language and thought are activities of biological organisms, according to Millikan, and we should treat them as such when trying to answer related philosophical questions. Of special interest is Millikan’s treatment of intentionality. Here Millikan employs the notion of a biological function to explain what it is (...) for one thing in nature, a bee dance (43), for example, to be about another, in this case, the location of a nectar source. My concern in this paper is to understand whether Millikan’s account of intentionality adequately explains how humans achieve reference, in language or thought, to individuals and groups in their environment. In bringing her theory of intentional content to bear on human activities, Millikan focuses largely on natural language. Thus, in what follows, I begin by laying out the biology-based principles that underlie Millikan’s theory of content, then proceed with an explanation of how the theory is to apply to natural language. As it appears, Millikan’s account of how content is determined for natural language terms and sentences rests on the determinacy of intentional content at the psychological level. This leads me to take a careful look at what Millikan says about the content of mental representations, in hopes of finding a sufficient basis there for the application of Millikan’s theory of content to natural language. Ultimately, I conclude that Millikan’s theory faces a problem of vacuity. If we approach the theory as a theory of intentional content, intended to explain the nature of reference, the theory is lacking in an extremely important respect: Millikan explains how it could be one of the biological functions of a mental or natural language term to refer, without telling us precisely what in the natural order constitutes the reference relation.. (shrink)

This paper attempts to provide the basis for a broader naturalized account of agency. Naturalization is considered as the need for an ongoing and open-ended process of scientific inquiry driven by the continuous formulation of questions regarding a phenomenon. The naturalization of agency is focused around the interrelation of the fundamental notions of autonomy, functionality, intentionality and meaning. Certain naturalized frameworks of agency are critically considered in an attempt to bring together all the characteristic properties that constitute an autonomous agent, (...) as well as to indicate the shaping of these notions/properties during the development and the evolution of its agential capacity. Autonomy and interaction are proved to be key concepts in this endeavor. (shrink)

The concept of consciousness has long been a subject of profound contemplation for both philosophers and scientists alike over the course of decades, often accompanied by the recurring refrain that the understanding of consciousness and its genesis remains an elusive pursuit. I contend that our prevailing interpretation of consciousness has led us astray, erroneously divorcing it from the broader realm of general intelligence. I posit that 'consciousness,' specifically self-awareness, emerges as an inherent byproduct of the development of language and interpersonal (...) communication. Consciousness is but a representation of an internal dialogue akin to our external interactions with others. While the concept of consciousness has perpetually eluded precise definition, offering a plethora of interpretations, the true enigma arguably resides within the realm of self-awareness and the conscious facets of our cognitive processes. It is not in our capacity to react to external stimuli and interact with our environment, which have been largely understood on a scientific level, but rather in our self-awareness and ability to introspect that the mystique of consciousness finds its core. The frequently discussed question of whether artificial intelligence can ultimately attain 'consciousness' highlights a fundamental flaw in our comprehension of the authentic nature of consciousness and its emergence. This paper aims to deliver a comprehensive exploration of the fundamental essence of consciousness, elucidating its intricate relationship with both language and intelligence, it will simultaneously undertake the task of challenging prevailing paradigms and mystical conceptions surrounding consciousness. (shrink)

This presentation is about an evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness linked to a human specific anxiety. It is a continuation of other works (2011 Book chapter, 2014 TSC Poster). AIM: Present a scenario describing an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness that introduces a human specific anxiety which is active in our human lives. METHOD: The scenario starts with our pre-human ancestors which were capable to manage representations and to partly identify with their conspecifics (Olds 2006, DeWaal 2008). These identifications brought our (...) ancestors to merge the representations of their conspecifics with the limited auto-representation of their own entity. The result was an auto-representation becoming about an entity existing in environment. This process is proposed as having progressively generated an ancestral form of self-consciousness as object and as subject. These identifications took place also with suffering conspecifics and have imposed to our ancestors a huge anxiety increase that had to be limited. Tools developed for that limitation (caring, collaboration, empathy, ToM, ...) have linked consciousness to anxiety management while also procuring evolutionary benefits. Human minds now contain an unconscious part of that ancestral anxiety that guides many of our mental states. RESULT: An evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness is made available as linked to a specific anxiety management that characterizes human minds. Continuations are introduced, some related to mental health. CONCLUSION: The proposed evolutionary scenario presents self-consciousness and a specific human anxiety as sharing a same evolutionary nature. This new source of anxiety needs more investigations. (shrink)