•  72
    Dispensing with the dynamic unconscious
    with Jon Jureidini
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 9 (2): 141-153. 2002.
    In recent years, a number of contemporary proponents of psychoanalysis have sought to derive support for their conjectures about the _dynamic_ unconscious from the empirical evidence in favor of the _cognitive_ unconscious. It is our contention, however, that far from supporting the dynamic unconscious, recent work in cognitive science suggests that the time has come to dispense with this concept altogether. In this paper we defend this claim in two ways. First, we argue that any attempt to shor…Read more
  •  37
    Philosophy at the University of Adelaide
    with C. Mortensen, G. Nerlich, and G. Cullity
    Chris Mortensen, Graham Nerlich, Garrett Cullity and Gerard O'Brien.
  •  22
    Vehicles of consciousness
    with Jon Opie
    In Tim Bayne, Axel Cleeremans & Patrick Wilken (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, Oxford University Press. 2010.
  •  180
    The disunity of consciousness
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (3): 378-95. 1998.
    It is commonplace for both philosophers and cognitive scientists to express their allegiance to the "unity of consciousness". This is the claim that a subject’s phenomenal consciousness, at any one moment in time, is a single thing. This view has had a major influence on computational theories of consciousness. In particular, what we call single-track theories dominate the literature, theories which contend that our conscious experience is the result of a single consciousness-making process or m…Read more
  •  54
    Internalizing communication
    with Jon Opie
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (6): 694-695. 2002.
    Carruthers presents evidence concerning the cross-modular integration of information in human subjects which appears to support the “cognitive conception of language.” According to this conception, language is not just a means of communication, but also a representational medium of thought. However, Carruthers overlooks the possibility that language, in both its communicative and cognitive roles, is a nonrepresentational system of conventional signals – that words are not a medium we think in, b…Read more
  •  95
    Connectionist vehicles, structural resemblance, and the phenomenal mind
    Communication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 34 (1-2): 13-38. 2001.
    We think the best prospect for a naturalistic explanation of phenomenal consciousness is to be found at the confluence of two influential ideas about the mind. The first is the _computational _ _theory of mind_: the theory that treats human cognitive processes as disciplined operations over neurally realised representing vehicles.1 The second is the _representationalist theory of _ _consciousness_: the theory that takes the phenomenal character of conscious experiences (the “what-it-is-likeness”…Read more
  •  161
    How do connectionist networks compute?
    with Jonathan Opie
    Cognitive Processing 7 (1): 30-41. 2006.
    Although connectionism is advocated by its proponents as an alternative to the classical computational theory of mind, doubts persist about its _computational_ credentials. Our aim is to dispel these doubts by explaining how connectionist networks compute. We first develop a generic account of computation—no easy task, because computation, like almost every other foundational concept in cognitive science, has resisted canonical definition. We opt for a characterisation that does justice to the e…Read more
  •  122
    Radical connectionism: Thinking with (not in) language
    Language and Communication 22 (3): 313-329. 2002.
    In this paper we defend a position we call radical connectionism. Radical connectionism claims that cognition _never_ implicates an internal symbolic medium, not even when natural language plays a part in our thought processes. On the face of it, such a position renders the human capacity for abstract thought quite mysterious. However, we argue that connectionism is committed to an analog conception of neural computation, and that representation of the abstract is no more problematic for a syste…Read more
  •  114
    Eliminative materialism and our psychological self-knowledge
    Philosophical Studies 52 (1): 49-70. 1987.
    The project of the paper is a critical examination of the "strong thesis of eliminative materialism" in the philosophy of mind--The claim that all the mental entities that constitute the framework of commonsense psychology are, In principle at least, Eliminable from our ontology. The central conclusion reached is that the traditional formulation of this thesis is demonstrably untenable as it rests on a mistaken view of the relationship between our psychological self-Knowledge and language
  •  40
    A conflation of folk psychologies
    Prospects for Intentionality Working Papers in Philosophy 3 42-51. 1993.
    Stich begins his paper "What is a Theory of Mental Representation?" by noting that while there is a dizzying range of theories of mental representation in today's philosophical market place, there is very little self-conscious reflection about what a theory of mental representation is supposed to do. This is quite remarkable, he thinks, because if we bother to engage in such reflection, some very surprising conclusions begin to emerge. The most surprising conclusion of all, according to Stich, i…Read more