Quel Arrière-plan pour l'esprit?

Dialogue ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-444
Author(s):  
Pierre Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
John Searle

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes the notion of background capacities as developed by John Searle during the last twenty years in philosophy of mind. Broadly construed, this notion designates non-representational mental capacities as the means by which mental representations are given a precise semantic content and thus are able to be expressed. Though novel and relevant, I intend to show that, according to Searle's description, this notion proves inadequate to attain its descriptive and explicative goals. I go on to regard background capacities in a perspective both externalist and (minimally) representationalist.

scholarly journals Intentionality: A philosophical-cognitive approach to mental representations

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (39) ◽  
pp. 819
Author(s):  
Cleverson Leite Bastos ◽  
Tomas Rodolfo Drunkenmolle
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Definition Of

This article critically analyses the notion of intentionality from several philosophical cognitive points of view. The authors argue that the notion of mental representation in the wider sense and intentionality in the narrower sense remains elusive despite accommodated paradoxes, improved semantic precision and more sophisticated strategies in dealing with intentionality. We will argue that different approaches to intentionality appear to be coherent in their inferences. However, most of them become contradictory and mutually exclusive when juxtaposed and applied to borderline questions. While the explanatory value of both philosophy of mind as well as cognitive psychology should not be underestimated, we must note that not even hard-core neuroscience has been able to pin point what is going on in our minds, let alone come up with a clear cut explanation how it works or a definition of what thought really is. To date, however, intentionality is the best of all explanatory models regarding mental representations.

Searle's Regimen for Rediscovering the Mind

Dialogue ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Hershfield
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
John Searle ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
The Mind

Like Wittgenstein, John Searle believes that much of analytic philosophy—especially the philosophy of mind—is founded on confusion and falsehood. Unlike Wittgenstein, he does not consider this condition to be endemic to philosophy. As a result, Searle's dual goals inThe Rediscovery of the Mindare to rid the philosophy of mind of the fundamental confusions that plague it, and to set the field on the path toward genuine progress. Thus, the book opens with a chapter entitled “What's Wrong with the Philosophy of Mind?” and closes with “The Proper Study.” The text is a blend of old and new: Searle introduces several new ideas, the most important of which is his thesis of the unconscious, and incorporates them into theses that have figured prominently in his previous works. Even for those who will find little to agree with in this book,The Rediscovery of the Mindserves as a testament to the sheer scope and iconoclasm of Searle's work.

scholarly journals Entity Realism About Mental Representations

Erkenntnis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bence Nanay
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
The Real ◽  
Entity Realism ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

Abstract The concept of mental representation has long been considered to be central concept of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. But not everyone agrees. Neo-behaviorists aim to explain the mind (or some subset thereof) without positing any representations. My aim here is not to assess the merits and demerits of neo-behaviorism, but to take their challenge seriously and ask the question: What justifies the attribution of representations to an agent? Both representationalists and neo-behaviorists tend to take it for granted that the real question about representations is whether we should be realist about the theory of representationalism. This paper is an attempt to shift the emphasis from the debate concerning realism about theories to the one concerning realism about entities. My claim is that regardless of whether we are realist about representational theories of the mind, we have compelling reasons to endorse entity realism about mental representations.

Media and Radical Embodiment

Media in Mind ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 71-96
Author(s):  
Daniel Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Radical Embodiment ◽  
Psychological Experiments

This chapter addresses the concept of mental representations in both media theory and philosophy of mind. It argues that, contrary to what representationalist models claim, the mind does not work by way of an internal language or internal images but through active bodily engagement with the environment. The chapter discusses how mental representations have functioned historically in media theory. It shows how video games have been employed in philosophical and psychological argumentation about the nature of the mind. It presents the case of Hugo Münsterberg, a psychologist whose encounter with film impacted his psychological theory. It discusses the role of imagery in video game play. It illustrates how the use of moving image media in psychological experiments can reinforce ideas about internal mental representations.

Passionate thought

1993 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Losonsky
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Theories Of Mind ◽  
Intelligent Behavior

According to a computational view of mind, thinking is identified with the manipulation of internal mental representations and intelligent behavior is the output of these computations. Although Thomas Hobbes's philosophy of mind is taken by many to be a precursor of this brand of cognitivism, this is not the case. For Hobbes, not all thinking is the manipulation of language-like symbols, and intelligent behavior is partly constitutive of cognition. Cognition requires a 'passionate thought', and this Hobbsian synthesis of inner thought and outer behavior suggests a resolution to the contemporary conflict between cognitive theories of mind that make KNOWING THAT primary and pragmatic theories that make KNOWING HOW primary.

O naturalismo biológico em John Searle: A objetividade epistêmica e a subjetividade ontológica como artífices da consciência

ENDOXA ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 229
Author(s):  
Edimar Brígido ◽  
Fátima Szinwelski ◽  
Felipe Godoi
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Mind

Or present article salient to the theme of consciousness, as a crucial fator we are mindful, based on a historical retake, encompassing the principalities that justify and conceive this phenomenon. Initially, discussed in the "mind-brain" problem, a conscience is given to the leading role of Philosophy of Mind, alicerçada em duas great corntes: monista and dualista. Both, theoretically, from the ramifications of Cartesian thought, which divides the mind and mind into these dichotomous substances or as reduced to pure materialism, discarding subjectivities. Searle, based on his Biological Naturalism, stands out as an innovative thinker, who unleashes the current theories, proposed to analyze two states as a result of epistemic objectivity together with no ontological subjectivity. 

Cognitivism and Explanantory Relativity

1998 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-526
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Hershfield
Keyword(s):  
Computer Model ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Causal Account ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
The Mind

In much of his writing in the philosophy of mind, John Searle has been highly critical of what N. Block refers to as ‘The Computer Model of the Mind’ — the approach that treats the mind as a symbol-manipulating device akin in spirit, if not detail, to the modem computer. Searle refers to this philosophical approach as ‘cognitivism.’ The extent of his skepticism and animus toward the computer model of the mind is plainly apparent in the following quotation from Searle: ‘I used to believe that as a causal account, the cognitivist's theory was at least false, but I am now having difficulty formulating a version of it that is coherent even to the point where it could be an empirical thesis at all’ (The Rediscovery of the Mind [Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1992], 215). In what follows, I shall attempt to show that this charge of incoherence is unfounded.

Wolff, Baumgarten, and the Technical Idiom of Post-Leibnizian Philosophy of Mind

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-148
Author(s):  
Patrick R. Leland
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Taxonomic Relations ◽  
Technical Terms

Philosophers after Leibniz used a technical idiom to classify and explain the nature of mental content. Substantive philosophical claims were formulated in terms of this vocabulary, including claims about the nature of mental representations, concepts, unconscious mental content, and consciousness. Despite its importance, the origin and development of this vocabulary is insufficiently well understood. More specifically, interpreters have failed to recognize the existence of two distinct and influential versions of the post-Leibnizian idiom. These competing formulations used the same technical terms and taxonomic relations but assigned different connotations to those terms and employed different criteria for their application. This paper explains the two most influential versions of the post-Leibnizian idiom.

Nonnatural Mental Representation

2020 ◽  
pp. 254-286
Author(s):  
Gualtiero Piccinini
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Natural Representation ◽  
Actual Environment ◽  
Internal Signal

This chapter distinguishes between two types of representation, natural and nonnatural. It argues that nonnatural representation is necessary to explain intentionality. It also argues that traditional accounts of the semantic content of mental representations are insufficient to explain nonnatural representation and, therefore, intentionality. To remedy this, the chapter sketches an account of nonnatural representation in terms of natural representation plus offline simulation of nonactual environments plus tracking the ways in which a simulation departs from the actual environment. To represent nonnaturally, a system must be able to decouple internal simulations from sensory information by activating representational resources offline. The system must be able to represent things that are not in the actual environment and to track that it’s doing so; i.e., there must be an internal signal or state that can indicate whether what is represented departs from the actual environment. In addition, the system must be able to manipulate a representation independently of what happens in the actual environment and keep track that it’s doing so. In short, nonnatural representations are offline simulations whose departure from the actual environment the system has the function to keep track of. This is a step toward a naturalistic, mechanistic, neurocomputational account of intentionality.

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