What are the prospects for a cognitive science of meaning? As stated, we think this question is ill posed, for it invites the conflation of several importantly different semantic concepts. In this paper, we want to distinguish the sort of meaning that is an explanandum for cognitive science—something we are going to call meaning—from the sort of meaning that is an explanans in cognitive science—something we are not going to call meaning at all, but rather content. What we are going (...) to call meaning is paradigmatically a property of linguistic expressions or acts: what one’s utterance or sentence means, and what one means by it. What we are going to call content is a property of, among other things, mental representations and indicator signals. We will argue that it is a mistake to identify meaning with content, and that, once this is appreciated, some serious problems emerge for grounding meaning in the sorts of content that cognitive science is likely to provide. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Functional Attribution: Meeting the Explanatory Constraint Functional Attribution: Normativity Postscript: Counterpoint Notes References.

The Knowledge Argument of Frank Jackson has not persuaded physicalists, but their replies have not dispelled the intuition that someone raised in a black and white environment gains genuinely new knowledge when she sees colors for the first time. In what follows, we propose an explanation of this particular kind of knowledge gain that displays it as genuinely new, but orthogonal to both physicalism and phenomenology. We argue that Mary’s case is an instance of a common phenomenon in which something (...) new is learned as the result of exploiting representational resources that were not previously exploited, and that this results in gaining genuinely new information. (shrink)

An anthology presenting dozens of provocative literary and historical writings drawn from 250 years of American history to increase cultural literacy.

The current debate over systematicity concerns the formal conditions a scheme of mental representation must satisfy in order to explain the systematicity of thought.1 The systematicity of thought is assumed to be a pervasive property of minds, and can be characterized (roughly) as follows: anyone who can think T can think systematic variants of T, where the systematic variants of T are found by permuting T’s constituents. So, for example, it is an alleged fact that anyone who can think the (...) thought that John loves Mary can think the thought that Mary loves John, where the latter thought is a systematic variant of the former. (shrink)

Robert Roth, among the first few Catholics to write favorably, even if critically, about American pragmatism, presents here a creative piece of comparative philosophy in which he achieves a long-term goal of attempting a reconciliation between pragmatism and a classical spiritual and religious perspective. The title, Radical Pragmatism, is an adaptation of William James’s "radical empiricism." James had argues that the classical empiricists, Locke and Hume, did not go far enough in their account of experience. They missed some (...) of its most important aspects, namely connections and relations, and as a result they were left with discrete sense data and sense objects. (shrink)

It has been commonplace in epistemology since its inception to idealize away from computational resource constraints, i.e., from the constraints of time and memory. One thought is that a kind of ideal rationality can be specified that ignores the constraints imposed by limited time and memory, and that actual cognitive performance can be seen as an interaction between the norms of ideal rationality and the practicalities of time and memory limitations. But a cornerstone of naturalistic epistemology is that normative assessment (...) is constrained by capacities: you cannot require someone to do something they cannot or, as it is usually put, ought implies can. This much we take to be uncontroversial. We argue that differences in architectures, goals and resources imply substantial differences in capacity, and that some of these differences are ineliminable. It follows that some differences in goals and architectural and computational resources matter at the normative level: they constrain what principles of normative epistemology can be used to describe and prescribe their behavior. As a result, we can expect there to be important epistemic differences between the way brains, individuals, and science work. (shrink)

This paper considers two ways functions figure into scientific explanations: (i) via laws?events are causally explained by subsuming those events under functional laws; and (ii) via designs?capacities are explained by specifying the functional design of a system. We argue that a proper understanding of how functions figure into design explanations of capacities makes it clear why such functions are ill-suited to figure into functional-cum-causal law explanations of events, as those explanations are typically understood. We further argue that a proper understanding (...) of how functions enter into design explanations of capacities enables us to show why two prominent objections to functionalism in the philosophy mind?the argument from metaphysically necessary effects (Bennett, 2007; Rupert, 2006) and causal exclusion (Kim, 1993, 1998; Malcolm, 1968)?are misguided when interpreted as posing a threat to functional explanation in science across the board. If those arguments pose a threat at all, they pose it to instances of (i); however, a great number of the functional explanations we find in psychology?and the sciences generally?are instances of (ii). (shrink)

Scholarly tributes of the international world of academe in Philosophy, the History of Ideas and Religion on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of service of Professor Arthur Hyman to the Philosophy Department at Columbia University.

THERE is no trap that is easier to stumble into than that of trying to show whether one philosopher did or did not answer the problem of another philosopher. The trap consists in the tendency to think that both philosophers handled the problem in precisely the same way, even though they represent two quite different traditions. This is especially true of thinkers like David Hume and Charles Sanders Peirce. John Smith has shown quite convincingly that we cannot understand the American (...) pragmatists by limiting discussion to the epistemological questions of the British empiricist tradition stemming from Hume, Mill, and Russell. And A. J. Ayer can be faulted for attempting to do just that. However, it is possible for one to treat of Peirce's answer to Hume on necessary connection without falling into the trap. First of all, both philosophers raised the same kind of question. It is clear that Peirce had Hume specifically in mind when on many an occasion he attacked nominalism and defended real connections. But they differed in that Peirce defended his position from a broader perspective enabling him to arrive at a more satisfactory conclusion. To establish this thesis, it will be necessary to focus on several aspects of their thought that bear upon the topic under discussion. Undoubtedly the task of selection and interpretation of details has many a trap of its own, but it is hoped that the more obvious ones can be avoided. (shrink)

This volume contributes to the remarkable resurgence in interest for American pragmatism and its proponents by focusing on the influence of British empiricism, ...

In “On Begging the Systematicity Question,” Wayne Davis criticizes the suggestion of Cummins et al. that the alleged systematicity of thought is not as obvious as is sometimes supposed, and hence not reliable evidence for the language of thought hypothesis. We offer a brief reply.

This book addresses what is generally regarded as the most crucial and yet most controversial problem in Hume's philosophy, namely, the nature of his scepticism and realism. John Wright argues against those who emphasize either the sceptical or realist strains in Hume's thought or who despair of ever finding any consistency in it. The paradoxical title of the book indicates the author's claim to have reconciled these two strains into a unified theory.

"In an age of bewildering change and frightening insecurity, the meaning of person is crucial to an understanding of man's nature, not only in terms of his individual essentiality, but also as his nature bears upon, and is affected by, his constantly changing environment and the communal relationships which exist between persons. The present volume focuses upon this important question and offers answers from a variety of philosophical traditions which will enhance our understanding of man and person. Among the philosophical (...) issues raised are those involved in epistemology, social change, community, psychoanalysis, religion, moral commitment, political theory, peace, immorality, and technology. The essays constitute a dialogue, as it were, with the problems raised by Kant, Freud, Dewey, Whitehead, Skinner, Lonergan, Rahner, Macmurray, Rawls, and others. Many argue that man as a person what he is, and can be understood as such, only in terms of changing conditions and interpersonal relationships: Person and Community will contribute greatly to the insight and enjoyment of anyone concerned with this contention."-Publisher. (shrink)