scholarly journals Concepts: Where Subjectivism Goes Wrong

Philosophy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Johann Glock
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Conceptual Thinking ◽  
The Mind

AbstractThe debate about concepts has always been shaped by a contrast between subjectivism, which treats them as phenomena in the mind or head of individuals, and objectivism, which insists that they exist independently of individual minds. The most prominent contemporary version of subjectivism is Fodor's RTM. The Fregean charge against subjectivism is that it cannot do justice to the fact that different individuals can share the same concepts. Proponents of RTM have accepted shareability as a ‘non-negotiable constraint’. At the same time they insist that by distinguishing between sign-types and – tokens the Fregean objection cannot just be circumvented but revealed to be fallacious. My paper rehabilitates the Fregean argument against subjectivism. The RTM response rests either on an equivocation of ‘concept’—between types which satisfy the non-negotiable constraint and tokens which are mental particulars in line with RTM doctrine—or on the untenable idea that one and the same entity can be both a shareable type and hence abstract and a concrete particular in the head. Furthermore, subjectivism cannot be rescued by adopting unorthodox metaphysical theories about the type/token and universal/particular contrasts. The final section argues that concepts are not representations or signs, but something represented by signs. Even if RTM is right to explain conceptual thinking by reference to the occurrence of mental representations, concepts themselves cannot be identical with such representations.

scholarly journals Analysing the Nature of Meaning in Modal Auxiliary Use in Standard Six English in Nakuru County, Kenya

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62
Author(s):  
Njuguna Jane Ngoiri
Keyword(s):  
Primary Schools ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
School Level ◽  
Appropriate Use ◽  
Written Composition ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Auxiliary Verbs ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Mind

The objective of the study was to describe appropriateness of modal auxiliary verbs in class six written English. The study focused on the use of English modal auxiliary verbs by class six pupils from diverse language backgrounds in Kenyan primary schools. Modal auxiliary verbs are difficult as their use entails syntactic and semantic appropriateness. As such, most pupils often find themselves unable to use this complex linguistic feature in written English. In spite of this, there is no known documentation that focuses on modal auxiliary verbs among children. It is this gap that the current study sought to fill. Forty pupils were randomly selected from four primary schools in Nakuru County. Data was elicited by means of written composition and grammar exercises. Further, it was analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively and presented in the form of graphs and tables. The Representational Theory of The Mind was used to explain the research findings. The findings revealed that modal auxiliary verbs are indeed difficult and their appropriate use present difficulties in pupils' written work. It was therefore recommended that learning of English should be meaningful. In order to enrich pupil's mental representations pupils should be exposed to a linguistically rich environment to enhance acquisition and learning. It is hoped that these findings will be of benefit to school stakeholders in ensuring that appropriate learning environment is created for pupils. Additionally, it could be a reference for researchers interested in language use at the school level.

scholarly journals Redundancy and reducibility in the formats of spatial representations

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami Ryan Yousif
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Spatial Behavior ◽  
Polar Coordinates ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Spatial Representations ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Mind

Mental representations are the essence of cognition. Yet, to understand how the mind works, we must understand not just the content of mental representations (i.e., what information is stored), but also the format of those representations (i.e., how that information is stored). But what does it mean for representations to be formatted? How many formats are there? Is it possible that the mind represents some pieces of information in multiple formats at once? To address these questions, I discuss a ‘case study’ of representational format: the representation of spatial location. I review work (a) across species and across development, (b) across spatial scales, and (c) across levels of analysis (e.g., high-level cognitive format vs. low-level neural format). Along the way, I discuss the possibility that the same information may be organized in multiple formats simultaneously (e.g., that locations may be represented in both Cartesian and polar coordinates). Ultimately, I argue that seemingly ‘redundant’ formats may support the flexible spatial behavior observed in humans, and that we should approach the study of all mental representations with this possibility in mind.

Mental representations of multimodal constructions

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masaru Kanetani
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Kinetic Features ◽  
Bodily Movements

Abstract Japanese mimetics, and its psychomimes (e.g. gakkuri ‘disappointed’), in particular, are usually accompanied in speech with bodily movements, including gestures and postures. I have already argued that certain patterns in co-speech gestures and postures that accompanied psychomimes showed a relatively high rate of concord across speakers (Kanetani 2019). Taking the co-speech bodily movements as metonymic representations of embodied metaphors of emotion, this paper suggests that these kinetic features may be stored as part of the speaker’s knowledge of the words and argue that Japanese psychomimes are multimodal lexical constructions. I also show how such multimodal constructions are represented in the mind and how they are expressed in actual use. In particular, I describe and examine two-dimensional form-meaning pairings (based on Kita 1997) and show that one of the two dimensions may be selectively expressed in a given context.

scholarly journals El dolor de los marcianos. Un análisis fenomenológico contra Rorty

2014 ◽  
pp. 313
Author(s):  
Agustín Serrano de Haro
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Physiological State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Lived Body ◽  
Objective State ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Phenomenological Point ◽  
Person Experience ◽  
Sobre Todo

Mi ensayo trata de mostrar que es insostenible la ficción de Rorty de una civilización avanzada científicamente cuyos habitantes no sintieran el dolor como una vivencia sufrida en primera persona y que únicamente lo captaran como una excitación objetiva de su sistema nervioso. Entre otras dudas relativas a que esa captación objetiva y exacta se hallaría en indefinida reconstrucción teórica y a que ella no puede ser la experiencia primera del dolor ni siquiera en esa otra galaxia, aduzco que tener un estado fisiológico no equivale por principio a captarlo y que captar determinados rasgos objetivos no puede equivaler por principio a sufrir, a padecer. Concluyo señalando que Rorty, en su empeño por impugnar las representaciones mentales, pierde de vista cómo la experiencia del dolor manifiesta sobre todo la condición originaria del cuerpo vivido.My paper tries to show that Rorty’s fiction of a scientifically developed civilization whose inhabitants should not feel pain as a first-person experience, but would grasp it rather as an objective state of their nervous system, is unsustainable from a phenomenological point of view. I point out several doubts concerning the facts that such an objective apprehension would be in an indefinite process of theoretical reconstruction, and that even in that other galaxy it could not be valid as the original pain situation (for example, among children). But then I focus on the principles that to have a physiological state cannot be equiva-lent to grasping it, and second that to grasp several objective features cannot be equivalent to suffering or to undergoing pain. I conclude by suggesting that Rorty’s eagerness to discard mental representations made him neglect the lived body as implied in everyday experience: the body, not the mind, comes to the fore in the experience of pain.

scholarly journals IMAGE OF THE FUTURE: DESIGN AND REPRESENTATION

2020 ◽  
pp. 84-95
Author(s):  
M. K. Kremenchutska ◽  
І. V. Dobrynina
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Future Design ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Images Of The Future ◽  
The Impact ◽  
World Image

Problem statement. It is shown that the main scientific vectors of the study of the personality image of the future can be considered philosophical, sociological, psychophysiological and psychological. In psychology, the future is revealed as a property of the mental. It is determined that the psychological phenomenology of the image of the future is that it is a holistic view of the individual about the future. It is in the mind and constantly affects behavior, activities, and its emotional state. The ability of an individual to construct his own future is due to the peculiarities of his individual psychological representations. This aspect is little studied in psychological science.  The purpose of the article is to present methods and techniques of research of representations and designing the world image of the future by the person. Results of the research. It is noted that the process of forming the image of the future is not only a vision of the end result, but also the impact on the assessment of behavior, consolidation of moral, volitional, intellectual efforts to realize their own expectations. This emphasizes the subjective nature of this process. In the framework of the research of mental representations and the peculiarities of constructing personality images of the future in a particular individual context were identified the mediative and moderative components that influence this phenomenon. The author’s method of assessing the world image of the future is presented. It is a technique of subjective scaling — that is, it shows how the individual imagines his future. To assess the relationship between the studied indicators, which are operationalized as concepts of psychosemantic analysis, a multidimensional deployment was used. Conclusions and prospects for further research. It is concluded that the psychosemantic approach is the most informative in the identified abilities of the individual to construct images of their own future. It is noted that the prospects for further research will be to identify the re lationship between forms and strategies for building mental representations of the image of the future with strategies for individual behavior in difficult life situations.

scholarly journals The mental representation of sounds in speech sound disorders

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Soujanya Pathi ◽  
Prakash Mondal
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Tract ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Sound System ◽  
Interface Module ◽  
The Mind ◽  
System Mapping ◽  
Specialized System

AbstractThe objective of this study is to investigate facets of the human phonological system in an attempt to elucidate the special nature of mental representations and operations underlying some of the errors in speech sound disorders (SSDs). After examining different theories on the mental representations of sounds and their organization in SSDs, we arrive at the conclusion that the existing elucidations on the phonological representations do not suffice to explain some distinctive facets of SSDs. Here, we endorse a hypothesis in favor of representationalism but offer an alternative conceptualization of the phonological representations (PR). We argue that the PR is to be understood in terms of a phonological base that holds information about a segment’s acoustic structure, and which interacts with other levels in the speech sound system in the mind so as to produce a certain sound. We also propose that the PR is connected to an interface module which mediates interactions between the PR and the articulatory system (AS) responsible for the physical manifestation of speech sounds in real time by way of the coordination of activities of speech organs in the vocal tract. We specifically consider different stages of operations within the interface, a specialized system within the cognitive system, which can explain patterns in the SSD data that have so far remained elusive. Positioned between the PR and the AS, the interface module is the heart of the current study. The presence of an interface module is necessitated by the fact that not all errors of SSDs are explainable in terms of structural, motor or even the symbolic misrepresentations at the level of PR. The interface acts as a mediating system mapping sound representations onto articulatory instructions for the actual production of sounds. The interface module can receive, process, and share the phonological inputs with other levels within the speech sound system. We believe an interface module such as ours holds the key to explaining at least certain speech disarticulations in SSDs.

scholarly journals A Frequency Ratio Account of Temporal Atomism

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-127
Author(s):  
Carey R. Carlson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Frequency Ratio ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Relative Duration ◽  
Time Duration ◽  
Physical Universe ◽  
Temporal Succession ◽  
Energy Ratios ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Frequency Ratios

This article examines the time duration of individual occasions in the light of the discovery that temporal succession produces frequency ratios. The frequency ratios are used to define energy ratios and the quantum. The manifold and the common particles are constructed graphically using the arrows of time, with the mass-ratios of the particles derivable from the graphs. The formal reduction of physics to time compels us to adopt Whitehead's conception of the physical universe as occasions of experience engaged in temporal/causal succession. The relative duration of the constituent occasions of the particles are determined by their graphs. In the final section, a refined account of the mind-brain interaction sequence confirms the duration of a human occasion as one tenth of a second.

Cognitive Turn and Linguistic Turn

1998 ◽  
pp. 37-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Michel Roy
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Double Reduction ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Representational System ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
The Mind

My first goal is to question a received view about the development of Analytical Philosophy. According to this received view Analytical Philosophy is born out of a Linguistic Turn establishing the study of language as the foundation of the discipline; this primacy of language is then overthrown by the return of the study of mind as philosophia prima through a second Cognitive Turn taken in the mid-sixties. My contention is that this picture is a gross oversimplification and that the Cognitive Turn should better be seen as an extension of the Linguistic one. Indeed, if the Cognitive Turn gives explicit logical priority to the study of mind over the study of language, one of its central features is to see the mind as a representational system offering no substantial difference with a linguistic one. However, no justification is offered for the fundamental assimilation of the nature of a mental representation with that of a linguistic symbol supporting this picture of the mind, although the idea that a system of mental representations is identical in structure with a system of linguistic symbols has been argued over and over. I try to demonstrate this point through a close critical examination of Fodor's paradigmatic notion of 'double reduction.' My second claim is that the widespread contemporary assimilation of a mental representation with a symbol of a linguistic kind is no more than a prejudice. Finally I indicate that this prejudice cannot survive a rigorous critical examination.

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.

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