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

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (39) ◽  
pp. 819
Author(s):  
Cleverson Leite Bastos ◽  
Tomas Rodolfo Drunkenmolle

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.

Author(s):  
Bence Nanay

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.


Author(s):  
Marileide A. Oliveira ◽  
Erik Arntzen

The concept of meaning has been a traditional object of scientific study over recent decades within the behavioral and cognitive psychology fields. The former defines meaningful events in terms of their existing or acquired behavioral functions. The latter focuses on explanatory models to describe the role of meaningful events in cognitive performance. We performed a literature review of research studies that were published between 2012 and 2017 that investigated the relationship between meaningful events and cognitive processes that are related to language acquisition and behavioral processes, specifically the formation of stimulus equivalence classes. The final sample included 33 articles that were identified by searching three different databases (Web of Science, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar) using specific keywords. The results showed that meaningful events play an important role in cognitive/behavioral processes. More studies were found within the cognitive approach, whereas a stronger effect of meaningful events was observed in studies that employed a behavioral approach.Keywords: Behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology, meaningful events, meaning. 


Author(s):  
O. Rubanets

Conceptualization of the peculiarities of interaction of social and mental representation, revealing features of mental reality, establishing the ontological status of objects of mental reality. Conceptualization of the relationship between social and mental representations is realized. The structure of the representation hierarchy was revealed, the relationship between the representation hierarchy and the mode of being the objects of mental reality was clarified, the role of mental and social representations in the formation of mental reality was revealed. The significance of mental representations in preserving the autonomy of the individual as the basis of a democratic society is revealed. For the first time, the mental reality was investigated on the basis of the interrelation of social and mental representations. A feature of the ontological status of objects of mental reality is determined. Taking into account the peculiarities of mental representation is the basis to research the relationship between social and mental representations. The study of the relationship between social and mental representations can be used in the social practices of a democratic society.


2001 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Savadori ◽  
Eraldo Nicotra ◽  
Rino Rumiati ◽  
Roberto Tamborini

The content and structure of mental representation of economic crises were studied and the flexibility of the structure in different social contexts was tested. Italian and Swiss samples (Total N = 98) were compared with respect to their judgments as to how a series of concrete examples of events representing abstract indicators were relevant symptoms of economic crisis. Mental representations were derived using a cluster procedure. Results showed that the relevance of the indicators varied as a function of national context. The growth of unemployment was judged to be by far the most important symptom of an economic crisis but the Swiss sample judged bankruptcies as more symptomatic than Italians who considered inflation, raw material prices and external accounts to be more relevant. A different clustering structure was found for the two samples: the locations of unemployment and gross domestic production indicators were the main differences in representations.


2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Norman

A series of vignette examples taken from psychological research on motivation, emotion, decision making, and attitudes illustrates how the influence of unconscious processes is often measured in a range of different behaviors. However, the selected studies share an apparent lack of explicit operational definition of what is meant by consciousness, and there seems to be substantial disagreement about the properties of conscious versus unconscious processing: Consciousness is sometimes equated with attention, sometimes with verbal report ability, and sometimes operationalized in terms of behavioral dissociations between different performance measures. Moreover, the examples all seem to share a dichotomous view of conscious and unconscious processes as being qualitatively different. It is suggested that cognitive research on consciousness can help resolve the apparent disagreement about how to define and measure unconscious processing, as is illustrated by a selection of operational definitions and empirical findings from modern cognitive psychology. These empirical findings also point to the existence of intermediate states of conscious awareness, not easily classifiable as either purely conscious or purely unconscious. Recent hypotheses from cognitive psychology, supplemented with models from social, developmental, and clinical psychology, are then presented all of which are compatible with the view of consciousness as a graded rather than an all-or-none phenomenon. Such a view of consciousness would open up for explorations of intermediate states of awareness in addition to more purely conscious or purely unconscious states and thereby increase our understanding of the seemingly “unconscious” aspects of mental life.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5870
Author(s):  
Philipp Kruse

Social Entrepreneurship (SE) describes a new entrepreneurial form combining the generation of financial and social value. In recent years, research interest in SE increased in various disciplines with a particular focus on the characteristics of social enterprises. Whereas a clear-cut definition of SE is yet to be found, there is evidence that culture and economy affect and shape features of SE activity. In addition, sector-dependent differences are supposed. Building on Institutional Theory and employing a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach, this study sheds light on the existence of international and inter-sector differences by examining 161 UK and Indian social enterprises. A content analysis and analyses of variance were employed and yielded similarities as well as several significant differences on an international and inter-sector level, e.g., regarding innovativeness and the generation of revenue. The current study contributes to a more nuanced picture of the SE landscape by comparing social enterprise characteristics in a developed and a developing country on the one hand and different sectors on the other hand. Furthermore, I highlight the benefits of jointly applying qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Future research should pay more attention to the innate heterogeneity among social enterprises and further consolidate and extend these findings.


Dialogue ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Kernohan

In a recent series of papers, Donald Davidson has put forward a challenging and original philosophy of mind which he has called anomalous monism. Anomalous monism has certain similarities to another recent and deservedly popular position: functionalist cognitive psychology. Both functionalism, in its materialist versions, and anomalous monism require token-token psychophysical identities rather than type-type ones. (Token identities are identities between individual events; type identities represent a stronger claim of identities between interesting sorts of events.) Both deny that psychology can be translated into, or scientifically reduced to, neurophysiology. Both are mentalistic theories, allowing psychology to make use of intentional descriptions in its theorizing. Anomalous monism uses a belief/desire/action psychology; cognitive science makes use of information-bearing states. But these similarities must not be allowed to conceal an essential difference between the two positions. Cognitive psychology claims to be a science, making interesting, lawlike generalizations for the purpose of explaining mental activity. Anomalous monism denies that psychology is a science by denying that psychological laws can be formulated. Davidson has other ideas for psychology connected with his work on meaning and truth. Hence, the title of one of his essays on anomalous monism is “Psychology as Philosophy”.


2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 141-161
Author(s):  
Robert N. Mccauley

AbstractThe aims of this paper are to identify three barriers to the development of cognitive approaches to the study of religion and to suggest how each might be circumvented. The first of these barriers is methodological and lurks amid two issues that, historically, have dominated anthropologists' reflections on the relationship of their discipline to psychology. The older of the two can be characterized as the "psychic unity" controversy (see Shore 1995). The second issue is the controversy over the "autonomy of culture". Advocates of the latter thesis are usually unsympathetic to psychological explanations of religious phenomena. In the first section, I shall begin by briefly examining each of those issues and then exploring the connections between the two as well as interesting logical tensions that arise in the face of popular responses to each. In section two, I shall consider a pair of barriers to a cognitive psychology of religion rooted in two strategies that have dominated many psychologists' approaches to the study of religion. I will argue that for some purposes, at least, both strategies should be relaxed. Finally, in section three, I shall briefly sketch one sort of cognitive approach to religious phenomena, suggesting how it handles the two strategic barriers in particular.


2012 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
В. О. Лапіна

У статті здійснено аналіз різних позицій на визначення поняття «мовленнєва компетентність» у науковій літературі з лінгводидактики та психології.Ключові слова: мовленнєва компетентність/компетенція, мовна компетентність/компетенція.  Analysis of different points of view on the definition of `speech competence` in scientific literature on Linguodidactics and Psychology. Key words: speech competence/competency, language competence/competency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-242
Author(s):  
K. Galiyeva ◽  
◽  
S. Isakova ◽  

The article is devoted to the definition of concept in modern linguistics. Various points of view and definitions of the basic concepts are considered: "concept", "conceptual sphere", "content". The aim of the article is to describe and explain such a complex unit as a concept from the point of view of linguistics. The object of research is studied in its various manifestations, the combination of verbal and nonverbal means of information expression in the conceptual sphere is revealed. the relevance of this topic is due to the need for a detailed consideration of the concept of concept based on the works of prominent scientists and linguists. Researchers treat the concept as a cognitive, psycholinguistic, linguocultural, cultural and linguistic phenomenon. The concept is an umbrella term because it "covers" the subject areas of several scientific fields: primarily cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics.


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