Introduction

Author(s):  
Joulia Smortchkova ◽  
Krzysztof Dołęga ◽  
Tobias Schlicht

In the introduction we overview the main debates about mental representations. In the first part we focus on three questions. First, what explanatory role do mental representations play in different paradigms of cognitive science, such as classicism, connectionism, dynamical theories, and predictive processing? Second, what criteria do we need to introduce mental representations, and how can we distinguish between non-representational and representational cognitive states? And finally, how can intentionality be naturalized and what are the main challenges for naturalistic theories of intentionality? In the second part of the introduction, we present the individual chapters in the volume, and situate them within the context of broader debates.

Author(s):  
Michael Rescorla

The representational theory of mind (RTM) holds that the mind is stocked with mental representations: mental items that represent. They can be stored in memory, manipulated during mental activity, and combined to form complex representations. RTM is widely presupposed within cognitive science, which offers many successful theories that cite mental representations. Nevertheless, mental representations are still viewed warily in some scientific and philosophical circles. This chapter develops a novel version of RTM: the capacities-based representational theory of mind (C-RTM). According to C-RTM, a mental representation is an abstract type that marks the exercise of a representational capacity. Talk about mental representations embodies an ontologically loaded way of classifying mental states through representational capacities that the states deploy. Complex mental representations mark the appropriate joint exercise of multiple representational capacities. The chapter supports C-RTM with examples drawn from cognitive science, including perceptual representations and cognitive maps, and applies C-RTM to long-standing debates over the existence, nature, individuation, structure, and explanatory role of mental representations.


Author(s):  
Joulia Smortchkova ◽  
Michael Murez

Many debates in philosophy of mind and cognitive science focus on whether folk or scientific psychological notions pick out cognitive natural kinds. Examples include memory, emotions, and concepts. A potentially interesting type of kind is kinds of mental representations (as opposed, for example, to kinds of psychological faculties). This chapter outlines a proposal for a theory of representational kinds in cognitive science. It argues that the explanatory role of representational kinds in scientific theories, in conjunction with a mainstream approach to explanation in cognitive science, suggests that representational kinds are multilevel. This is to say that representational kinds’ properties cluster at different levels of explanation and allow for intra- and interlevel projections.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-34
Author(s):  
Edward C. Warburton

This essay considers metonymy in dance from the perspective of cognitive science. My goal is to unpack the roles of metaphor and metonymy in dance thought and action: how do they arise, how are they understood, how are they to be explained, and in what ways do they determine a person's doing of dance? The premise of this essay is that language matters at the cultural level and can be determinative at the individual level. I contend that some figures of speech, especially metonymic labels like ‘bunhead’, can not only discourage but dehumanize young dancers, treating them not as subjects who dance but as objects to be danced. The use of metonymy to sort young dancers may undermine the development of healthy self-image, impede strong identity formation, and retard creative-artistic development. The paper concludes with a discussion of the influence of metonymy in dance and implications for dance educators.


Author(s):  
Marek Jakubiec

AbstractAlthough much ink has been spilled on different aspects of legal concepts, the approach based on the developments of cognitive science is a still neglected area of study. The “mental” and cognitive aspect of these concepts, i.e., their features as mental constructs and cognitive tools, especially in the light of the developments of the cognitive sciences, is discussed quite rarely. The argument made by this paper is that legal concepts are best understood as mental representations. The piece explains what mental representations are and why this view matters. The explanation of legal concepts, understood as mental representations is one of (at least) three levels of explanation within legal philosophy, but—as will be argued—it is the most fundamental level. This paper analyzes the consequences of such understanding of concepts used in the field of legal philosophy. Special emphasis is put on the current debate on the analogical or amodal nature of concepts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Robert Rowe

The history of algorithmic composition using a digital computer has undergone many representations—data structures that encode some aspects of the outside world, or processes and entities within the program itself. Parallel histories in cognitive science and artificial intelligence have (of necessity) confronted their own notions of representations, including the ecological perception view of J.J. Gibson, who claims that mental representations are redundant to the affordances apparent in the world, its objects, and their relations. This review tracks these parallel histories and how the orientations and designs of multimodal interactive systems give rise to their own affordances: the representations and models used expose parameters and controls to a creator that determine how a system can be used and, thus, what it can mean.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-70
Author(s):  
Rulli Nasrullah

It is interesting to look at the Head of Criminal Investigation statement of the Indonesian National Police Commissioner General Ito Sumardi (Kompas, 22/9/2010), which warns that the crime of terrorism is closely related to ideology. Sociologist Van Dijk (1993) states that ideology is basically a mental system that is exchanged, represented both in the level of discourse and action to achieve certain goals or desires in a groups (defi ned as the system of mental representations and processes of group members). Why (technology) Internet so powerful in spreading the message of terrorism? First, the interaction happens on internet can be done anywhere and anytime. Second, Internet users in Indonesia, which is increasingly growing in number, allows access to the site or content to be easily obtained terrorism. Third, Internet medium provides access not only cheap but free. Fourth, the Internet allows anyone to construct new identity. In a fact proves that the identities of individuals in cyber world are individuals who have two possibilities, it could be the same or different identities as in the real world. Furthermore, the individual does not only have one identity per se on the internet, they could have multiple identities as well as different characteristics from each other. In according to Gilmore (1996), those on the Internet nobody knows you at all, not either knows your race or your sex. This is the opportunities that could be used by the perpetrators of terrorism to spread the ideology of terrorism and violence in the name of religion without worried their identity will be revealed. Key words: cybermedia, virtual terorism, internet, identity.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 48-63
Author(s):  
Rodica Ianole

The article tackles the analysis of the saving process by reviving a research methodology that explores mental representations and their economic implications. The conceptual background is updated to the latest interdisciplinary literature in behavioral economics and social psychology, extending the applications of construal level theory. The results are pointing out to a new way of understanding differences of opinion between groups (economists and sociologists) about saving behavior, usually considered irrational in the light of standard economic theory.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Gärtner ◽  
Robert W. Clowes

AbstractAccording to Enactivism, cognition should be understood in terms of a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. Further, this view holds that organisms do not passively receive information from this environment, they rather selectively create this environment by engaging in interaction with the world. Radical Enactivism adds that basic cognition does so without entertaining representations and hence that representations are not an essential constituent of cognition. Some proponents think that getting rid of representations amounts to a revolutionary alternative to standard views about cognition. To emphasize the impact, they claim that this ‘radicalization’ should be applied to all enactivist friendly views, including, another current and potentially revolutionary approach to cognition: predictive processing. In this paper, we will show that this is not the case. After introducing the problem (section 2), we will argue (section 3) that ‘radicalizing’ predictive processing does not add any value to this approach. After this (section 4), we will analyze whether or not radical Enactivism can count as a revolution within cognitive science at all and conclude that it cannot. Finally, in section 5 we will claim that cognitive science is better off when embracing heterogeneity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew T. Carlson ◽  
Antonio Fábregas ◽  
Michael T. Putnam

What is the nature and function of mental representations in cognitive science, and in human language in particular? How do they come into existence and interact, and how is the information attributed to them stored in and retrieved from the human mind? Some theories treat constructions as primitive entities used for structure-building, central in both production and comprehension, while other theories only admit construction-like entities as devices to map the structure into semantics or to relate them to specific morphophonological exponents. In this positional piece, we seek to elucidate areas of commonality across what have traditionally been divergent approaches to the role of constructions in language. Here we outline a robust specification of the differences in how chunks of structure containing information are treated in the two main approaches, and we seek to offer a path toward a more unified theoretical stance.


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