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79Three-concept Monte: Explanation, implementation, and systematicitySynthese 101 (3): 347-63. 1994.Fodor and Pylyshyn (1988), Fodor and McLaughlin (1990) and McLaughlin (1993) challenge connectionists to explain systematicity without simply implementing a classical architecture. In this paper I argue that what makes the challenge difficult for connectionists to meet has less to do with what is to be explained than with what is to count as an explanation. Fodor et al. are prepared to admit as explanatory, accounts of a sort that only classical models can provide. If connectionists are to mee…Read more
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24Does cognitive science need “real” intentionality?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13 (4): 616-617. 1990.
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16Connectionism and systematicityIn L. Nadel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Nature Publishing Group. 2003.
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21The alleged evidence for representationalismIn Stuart Silvers (ed.), Rerepresentation, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1989.
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Is there vindication through representationalism?In Barry M. Loewer (ed.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics, Blackwell. 1991.
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70Could Competent Speakers Really Be Ignorant of Their Language?Croatian Journal of Philosophy 6 (3): 457-467. 2006.This paper defends the commonsense conception of linguistic competence according to which linguistic competence involves propositional knowledge of language. More specifically, the paper defends three propositions challenged by Devitt in his Ignorance af Language. First, Chomskian linguists were right to embrace this commonsense conception of linguistic cornpetence. Second, the grammars that these linguists propose make a substantive claim about the computational processes that are presumed to c…Read more
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25On the hypothesis that grammars are mentally representedBehavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3): 405-406. 1983.
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80Measurement and Computational SkepticismNoûs 51 (4): 832-854. 2017.Putnam and Searle famously argue against computational theories of mind on the skeptical ground that there is no fact of the matter as to what mathematical function a physical system is computing: both conclude (albeit for somewhat different reasons) that virtually any physical object computes every computable function, implements every program or automaton. There has been considerable discussion of Putnam's and Searle's arguments, though as yet there is little consensus as to what, if anything,…Read more
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Does linguistic competence require knowledge of language?In Alex Barber (ed.), Epistemology of language, Oxford University Press. 2003.
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2The case for linguistic nativismIn Robert J. Stainton (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science, Wiley-blackwell. 2006.
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Perceptual Individualism: Reply to Burge [1988]In Robert H. Grimm & Daniel Davy Merrill (eds.), Contents of Thought, Tucson. 1988.
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48Are the grammatical sentences of a language a recursive set?Synthese 40 (2). 1979.Many believe that the grammatical sentences of a natural language are a recursive set. In this paper I argue that the commonly adduced grounds for this belief are inconclusive, if not simply unsound. Neither the native speaker's ability to classify sentences nor his ability to comprehend them requires it. Nor is there at present any reason to think that decidability has any bearing on first-language acquisition. I conclude that there are at present no compelling theoretical grounds for requiring…Read more
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146The measure of mind: propositional attitudes and their attributionOxford University Press. 2007.A prospective introduction -- The received view -- Troubles with the received view -- Are propositional attitudes relations? -- Foundations of a measurement-theoretic account of the attitudes -- The basic measurement-theoretic account -- Elaboration and explication of the proposed measurement-theoretic account.
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109Can connectionists explain systematicity?Mind and Language 12 (2): 154-77. 1997.Classicists and connectionists alike claim to be able to explain systematicity. The proposed classicist explanation, I argue, is little more than a promissory note, one that classicists have no idea how to redeem. Smolensky's (1995) proposed connectionist explanation fares little better: it is not vulnerable to recent classicist objections, but it nonetheless fails, particularly if one requires, as some classicists do, that explanations of systematicity take the form of a‘functional analysis’. N…Read more
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21Troubles with representationalismSocial Research: An International Quarterly 51 (4): 1065-97. 1984.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |