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161Representation and the meaning of lifeIn Hugh Clapin (ed.), Representation in Mind, Elsevier. 2004.Also published in Representation in mind : new approaches to mental representation / Hugh Clapin, Phillil Staines, Peter Slezak (eds.) : ISBN 008044394X
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59An interactivist-constructivist approach to intelligence: Self-directed anticipative learningPhilosophical Psychology 13 (1). 2000.This paper outlines an original interactivist-constructivist approach to modelling intelligence and learning as a dynamical embodied form of adaptiveness and explores some applications of I-C to understanding the way cognitive learning is realized in the brain. Two key ideas for conceptualizing intelligence within this framework are developed. These are: intelligence is centrally concerned with the capacity for coherent, context-sensitive, self-directed management of interaction; and the primary…Read more
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70Critical review of 'Practicing Perfection: memory & piano performance'Empirical Musicology Review 3 (3). 2008.How do concert pianists commit to memory the structure of a piece of music like Bach’s Italian Concerto, learning it well enough to remember it in the highly charged setting of a crowded performance venue, yet remaining open to the freshness of expression of the moment? Playing to this audience, in this state, now, requires openness to specificity, to interpretation, a working dynamicism that mere rote learning will not provide. Chaffin, Imreh and Crawford’s innovative and detailed research sugg…Read more
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317The Process Dynamics of Normative FunctionThe Monist 85 (1): 3-28. 2002.Outlines the etiological theory of normative functionality. Analysis of the autonomous system; Function of systems-oriented approaches; Specifications of system identity
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90Neuroscience in context: The new flagship of the cognitive sciencesBiological Theory 1 (1): 78-83. 2006.© 2006 Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research
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Adaptiveness and adaptation: A new autonomy-theoretic analysis and critiqueBiology and Philosophy. forthcoming.
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62Towards a new science of the mind: Wide content and the metaphysics of organizational properties in nonlinear dynamic modelsMind and Language 13 (1): 98-109. 1998.Tim van Gelder, following Brandom, Collins and others, uses the so‐called wide content of capacities which support social, norm governed activities, such as language, to argue for their anti‐natural, abstract, but socially instituted nature and thence for the failure of the entire traditional mind‐body discussion as ill‐posed. We argue that his former conclusion is wrong, that such properties are naturalisable, complicated organisational properties of the complexly organised, non‐linearly intera…Read more
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4112 The Evolutionary Origins of VolitionIn Don Ross, David Spurrett, Harold Kincaid & G. Lynn Stephens (eds.), Distributed Cognition and the Will: Individual Volition and Social Context, Mit Press. pp. 255. 2007.
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44In order to investigate cognition fundamental assumptions must be made about what, in general terms, it is. In cognitive science it is usually assumed that cognition is computational and representational. There have been well known disputes over these assumptions, with rival claims that cognition is dynamical, situated and embodied. In this paper I emphasize the relations between cognition and control. I present a model of cognition that makes the claim that it is a form of high-order control, a…Read more
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460Critical review of Chaffin, Imreh, and Crawford, Practicing Perfection: memory and piano performance.Empirical Musicology Review 3 (3): 163-172. 2008.How do concert pianists commit to memory the structure of a piece of music like Bach’s Italian Concerto, learning it well enough to remember it in the highly charged setting of a crowded performance venue, yet remaining open to the freshness of expression of the moment? Playing to this audience, in this state, now, requires openness to specificity, to interpretation, a working dynamicism that mere rote learning will not provide. Chaffin, Imreh and Crawford’s innovative and detailed research sugg…Read more
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137Self-directedness: A Process Approach to Cognition (review)Global Philosophy 14 (1-3): 157-175. 2004.Standard approaches to cognition emphasise structures (representations and rules) much more than processes, in part because this appears to be necessary to capture the normative features of cognition. However the resultant models are inflexible and face the problem of computational intractability. I argue that the ability of real world cognition to cope with complexity results from deep and subtle coupling between cognitive and non-cognitive processes. In order to capture this, theories of cogni…Read more
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35Neuroscience in Context: The New Flagship of the Cognitive SciencesBiological Theory 1 (1): 78-83. 2006.Cognitive neuroscience has come to be viewed as the flagship of the cognitive sciences and is transforming our understanding of the nature of mind. In this paper we survey several research fields in cognitive neuroscience (lateralization, neuroeconomics, and cognitive control) and note that they are making rapid progress on fundamental issues. Lateralization research is developing a comparative framework for evolutionary analysis, and is identifying individual- and population-level factors that …Read more
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129A complex systems theory of teleologyBiology and Philosophy 11 (3): 301-320. 1996.Part I [sections 2–4] draws out the conceptual links between modern conceptions of teleology and their Aristotelian predecessor, briefly outlines the mode of functional analysis employed to explicate teleology, and develops the notion of cybernetic organisation in order to distinguish teleonomic and teleomatic systems. Part II is concerned with arriving at a coherent notion of intentional control. Section 5 argues that intentionality is to be understood in terms of the representational propertie…Read more
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The interactivist-constructivist approach to evolution and intentionalityContemporary Naturalist Theories of Evolution and Intentionality, Canadian Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
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Review of KM Ford, C. Glymour & PJ Hayes (Eds) Android epistemology (review)Philosophical Psychology 10 130-132. 1997.
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100Color categories in biological evolution: Broadening the paletteBehavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (4): 492-493. 2005.The general structure of Steels & Belpaeme's (S&B's) central premise is appealing. Theoretical stances that focus on one type of mechanism miss the fact that multiple mechanisms acting in concert can provide convergent constraints for a more robust capacity than any individual mechanism might achieve acting in isolation. However, highlighting the significance of complex constraint interactions raises the possibility that some of the relevant constraints may have been left out of S&B's own models…Read more
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505Expanding Expertise: Investigating a Musician’s Experience of Music PerformanceASCS09: Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science 106-113. 2010.Seeking to expand on previous theories, this paper explores the AIR (Applying Intelligence to the Reflexes) approach to expert performance previously outlined by Geeves, Christensen, Sutton and McIlwain (2008). Data gathered from a semi-structured interview investigating the performance experience of Jeremy Kelshaw (JK), a professional musician, is explored. Although JK’s experience of music performance contains inherently uncertain elements, his phenomenological description of an ideal performa…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |