Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Technology and Mental Mechanisms

Thomas Raleigh;

doi:10.5840/techne2018122092

Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Technology and Mental Mechanisms

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology ◽

10.5840/techne2018122092 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 22 (3) ◽

pp. 447-471

Author(s):

Thomas Raleigh ◽

Keyword(s):

Mechanistic Explanations ◽

Thematic Unity ◽

The Mind

This article provides a survey of Wittgenstein’s remarks in which he discusses various kinds of technology. I argue that throughout his career, his use of technological examples displays a thematic unity: technologies are invoked in order to illustrate a certain mechanical conception of the mind. I trace how his use of such examples evolved as his views on the mind and on meaning changed. I also discuss an important and somewhat radical anti-mechanistic strain in his later thought and suggest that Wittgenstein’s attitude to mechanistic explanations in psychology was ultimately quite ambivalent.

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Explaining Cognitive Phenomena with Internal Representations: A Mechanistic Perspective

Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric ◽

10.1515/slgr-2015-0004 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 63-90 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Paweł Gładziejewski

Keyword(s):

Error Detection ◽

Internal Representation ◽

Functional Architecture ◽

Internal Representations ◽

Cognitive Mechanism ◽

Mechanistic Explanations ◽

Structural Resemblance ◽

The Mind ◽

Action Guidance

AbstractDespite the fact that the notion of internal representation has - at least according to some - a fundamental role to play in the sciences of the mind, not only has its explanatory utility been under attack for a while now, but it also remains unclear what criteria should an explanation of a given cognitive phenomenon meet to count as a (truly, genuinely, nontrivially, etc.) representational explanation in the first place. The aim of this article is to propose a solution to this latter problem. I will assume that representational explanations should be construed as a form of mechanistic explanations and proceed by proposing a general sketch of a functional architecture of a representational cognitive mechanism. According to the view on offer here, representational mechanisms are mechanisms that meet four conditions: the structural resemblance condition, the action-guidance condition, the decouplability condition, and the error-detection condition.

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Literalism and Mechanistic Explanation

10.1093/oso/9780198809524.003.0008 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Carrie Figdor

Keyword(s):

Mathematical Models ◽

Mechanistic Explanation ◽

Psychological Explanation ◽

Mechanistic Explanations ◽

The Mind ◽

Psychological Capacities

Chapters 8 and 9 present objections to Literalism inspired by its implications. Chapter 8 presents the homuncular functionalist view of psychological explanation, which holds that in order to naturalize the mind we need to posit “homunculi”, or ever-simpler capacities, to avoid explaining intelligence with intelligence. Otherwise one commits the homuncular fallacy. The Literalist responds that the fallacy is not a fallacy. Many contemporary mechanistic explanations commonly ascribe the same capacities at many levels in the same decomposition, and there is no plausible way to carve out an exception for psychology. It reinterprets the demand for “discharging” the psychological capacities in terms of finding mathematical models to illuminate old concepts rather than inventing new ones. It also argues that decompositional hierarchies of simple and basic capacities and simple and basic objects are not mirror images of each other.

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The Explanatory Autonomy of Cognitive Models

10.1093/oso/9780199685509.003.0003 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel A. Weiskopf

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Models ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Complete Picture ◽

Neural Models ◽

Brain System ◽

Mechanistic Explanations ◽

Behavioral Phenomena ◽

The Mind

Psychology and neuroscience offer distinctive ways of modeling the mind/brain. However, cognitive and neural models often have significantly different structures, raising challenging questions about how they should be integrated to provide a complete picture of how the mind/brain system is organized. According to a certain mechanistic perspective, cognitive models should be viewed as being sketchy, incomplete versions of the fuller and more adequate models produced by neuroscience. Psychology is essentially an approximation to the mechanistic explanations given in neuroscience. Cognitive models are inherently inadequate, pending their gaps being filled in by a completed neuroscientific model. I argue that cognitive models are autonomous: they are sufficient in themselves to give adequate explanations of psychological and behavioral phenomena. In particular, they are not mere sketches, or approximations to underlying neuroscientific explanations. I offer a criterion for how psychological entities and processes may be real despite not mapping onto entities in neural mechanisms.

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“Coloured Images” in the “Black Dark”: Samuel Beckett's Later Fiction

PMLA ◽

10.2307/461946 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 92 (2) ◽

pp. 273-284

Author(s):

Laura Barge

Keyword(s):

Self Perception ◽

Outer World ◽

Thematic Unity ◽

Innovative Fiction ◽

The Mind

Although much comment on Beckett’s prose from How It Is (1961) through The Lost Ones (1970) has appeared, uncertainty as to the artistic intent of this innovative fiction has hindered definitive analysis. An understanding of the pieces as further developments of the Beckettian hero’s progressive withdrawal from an absurd macrocosm and descent toward the ever-receding core of the microcosmic self not only defines meaning in each piece but also reveals a thematic unity binding these works together and to the earlier fiction. Trapped in the mind but unable to escape a suffering awareness of the outer world, the figures portrayed undergo Beckett’s own particular brand of crucifying self-perception.

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How Homo economicus lost her mind and how we can revive her

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x1800033x ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 41 ◽

Author(s):

Peter DeScioli

Keyword(s):

Economic Thought ◽

History Of Economic Thought ◽

Homo Economicus ◽

Economic Theories ◽

Target Article ◽

History Of ◽

The Mind ◽

And Behavior

AbstractThe target article by Boyer & Petersen (B&P) contributes a vital message: that people have folk economic theories that shape their thoughts and behavior in the marketplace. This message is all the more important because, in the history of economic thought, Homo economicus was increasingly stripped of mental capacities. Intuitive theories can help restore the mind of Homo economicus.

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