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25Why believe in beliefs?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (1): 100-101. 2004.A central pillar of Carpendale & Lewis's (C&L's) argument is Wittgenstein's later work on language. I suggest that this support is not as strong as might be wished, and offer an alternative approach to their conclusion that language learning, especially of folk psychology, involves a socially embedded constructivism.
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1Automata Theory, Artificial Intelligence and Genetic EpistemologyRevue Internationale de Philosophie 36 (4): 549. 1982.
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262The interactivist modelSynthese 166 (3). 2009.A shift from a metaphysical framework of substance to one of process enables an integrated account of the emergence of normative phenomena. I show how substance assumptions block genuine ontological emergence, especially the emergence of normativity, and how a process framework permits a thermodynamic-based account of normative emergence. The focus is on two foundational forms of normativity, that of normative function and of representation as emergent in a particular kind of function. This proc…Read more
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209Some notes on internal and external relations and representationConsciousness and Emotion 4 (1): 101-110. 2003.Internal relations are those relations that are intrinsic to the nature of one or more of the relata. They are a kind of essential relation, rather than an essential property. For example, an arc of a circle is internally related to the center of that circle in the sense that
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137In this paper I wish to address the question of the nature of psychopathology. It might naturally be felt that we already know a great deal about psychopathology, and thus that such a paper would be primarily a review and discussion of the literature; I will argue, however, that the most fundamental form of the question concerning the nature of psychopathology is rarely posed in the literature, that it is prevented from being posed by presuppositions inherent in standard theoretical approaches, …Read more
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23Interactive knowing: The metaphysics of intentionalityIn Roberto Poli & Johanna Seibt (eds.), Theory and Applications of Ontology: Philosophical Perspectives, Springer Verlag. pp. 207--229. 2010.
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60Knowing levels and the child's understanding of mindBehavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (1): 33-34. 1993.
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226EmergenceIn P.B. Andersen, Claus Emmeche, N.O. Finnemann & P.V. Christiansen (eds.), Downward Causation, University of Aarhus Press. pp. 322-348. 2000.* This paper was to have been written jointly with Don Campbell. His tragic death on May 6, 1996, occurred before we had been able to do much planning for the paper. As a result, this is undoubtedly a very different paper than if Don and I had written it together, and, undoubtedly, not as good a paper. Nevertheless, I believe it maintains at least the spirit of what we had discussed. Clearly, all errors are mine alone
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83Troubles with computationalismIn W. O'Donahue & Richard F. Kitchener (eds.), The Philosophy of Psychology, Sage Publications. pp. 173--183. 1996.
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76Autonomy, function, and representationCommunication and Cognition-Artificial Intelligence 17 (3-4): 111-131. 2000.
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129Representational content in humans and machinesJournal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 5 285-33. 1993.This article focuses on the problem of representational content. Accounting for representational content is the central issue in contemporary naturalism: it is the major remaining task facing a naturalistic conception of the world. Representational content is also the central barrier to contemporary cognitive science and artificial intelligence: it is not possible to understand representation in animals nor to construct machines with genuine representation given current (lack of) understanding o…Read more
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40Mechanism is not enoughPragmatics and Cognition 15 (3): 573-585. 2007.I will argue that mechanism is not sufficient to capture representation, thus cognition. More generally, mechanism is not sufficient to capture normativity of any sort. I will also outline a model of emergent normativity, representational normativity in particular, and show how it transcends these limitations of mechanism. To begin, I will address some illustrative attempts to model representation within mechanistically naturalistic frameworks, first rather generally, and then in the cases of th…Read more
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84Information and representation in autonomous agentsCognitive Systems Research 1 (2): 65-75. 2000.Information and representation are thought to be intimately related. Representation, in fact, is commonly considered to be a special kind of information. It must be a _special_ kind, because otherwise all of the myriad instances of informational relationships in the universe would be representational -- some restrictions must be placed on informational relationships in order to refine the vast set into those that are truly representational. I will argue that information in this general sense is …Read more
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50What could cognition be if not computation…Or connectionism, or dynamic systems?Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 35 (1): 53-66. 2015.
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38Benny Shanon, the representational and the presentational: An essay on cognition and the study of the mind, hemel hempstead, hertfordshire, U.k.: Harvester wheatsheaf, 1993, ISBN 0-7450-1095-4; paramus, NJ: Prentice-hall, 1994, VI + 409 pp., $66.00 (paper), ISBN 0-13-302225- (review)Minds and Machines 10 (2): 313-317. 2000.
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35The interactivist approach to development generates a framework of types of constraints on what can be constructed. The four constraint types are based on: (1) what the constructed systems are about; (2) the representational relationship itself; (3) the nature of the systems being constructed; and (4) the process of construction itself. We give illustrations of each constraint type. Any developmental theory needs to acknowledge all four types of constraint; however, some current theories conflat…Read more
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229Social Ontology as ConventionTopoi 27 (1-2): 139-149. 2008.I will argue that social ontology is constituted as hierarchical and interlocking conventions of multifarious kinds. Convention, in turn, is modeled in a manner derived from that of David K. Lewis. Convention is usually held to be inadequate for models of social ontologies, with one primary reason being that there seems to be no place for normativity. I argue that two related changes are required in the basic modeling framework in order to address this (and other) issue(s): (1) a shift to an int…Read more
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180Process and emergence: Normative function and representationAxiomathes - An International Journal in Ontology and Cognitive Systems 14 135-169. 2004.Emergence seems necessary for any naturalistic account of the world — none of our familiar world existed at the time of the Big Bang, and it does now — and normative emergence is necessary for any naturalistic account of biology and mind — mental phenomena, such as representation, learning, rationality, and so on, are normative. But Jaegwon Kim’s argument appears to render causally efficacious emergence impossible, and Hume’s argument appears to render normative emergence impossible, and, in its…Read more
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77Levels of representationalityJournal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 10 (2): 179-215. 1998.The dominant assumptions -- throughout contemporary philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence -- about the ontology underlying intentionality, and its core of representationality, is that of encodings -- some sort of informational or correspondence or covariation relationship between the represented and its representation that constitutes that representational relationship. There are many disagreements concerning details and implementations, and even some suggestions…Read more
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37The interactivist approach to development generates a framework of types of constraints on what can be constructed. The four constraint types are based on: (1) what the constructed systems are about; (2) the representational relationship itself; (3) the nature of the systems being constructed; and (4) the process of construction itself. We give illustrations of each constraint type. Any developmental theory needs to acknowledge all four types of constraint; however, some current theories conflat…Read more
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76Function, anticipation, representationAIP Conference Proceedings 573 459-469. 2001.Function emerges in certain kinds of far-from-equilibrium systems. One important kind of function is that of interactive anticipation, an adaptedness to temporal complexity. Interactive anticipation is the locus of the emergence of normative representational content, and, thus, of representation in general: interactive anticipation is the naturalistic core of the evolution of cognition. Higher forms of such anticipation are involved in the subsequent macro-evolutionary sequence of learning, emot…Read more
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75Variations in Variation and Selection: The Ubiquity of the Variation-and-Selective-Retention Ratchet in Emergent Organizational Complexity (review)Foundations of Science 8 (3): 215-282. 2003.The variation and selection form of explanationcan be prescinded from the evolutionary biologyhome ground in which it was discovered and forwhich it has been most developed. When this isdone, variation and selection explanations arefound to have potential application to a widerange of phenomena, far beyond the classicalbiological ground and the contemporaryextensions into epistemological domains. Itappears as the form of explanation most suitedto phenomena of fit. It is also found toparticipate …Read more
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459 The emergent ontology of personsIn Jack Martin & Mark H. Bickhard (eds.), The Psychology of Personhood: Philosophical, Historical, Social-Developmental and Narrative Perspectives, Cambridge University Press. pp. 165. 2012.
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90An integration of motivation and cognitionIn L. Smith, C. Rogers & P. Tomlinson (eds.), Development and Motivation: Joint Perspectives, Leicester: British Psychological Society. pp. 41-56. 2003.
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Representation in natural and artificial agentsIn Edwina Taborsky (ed.), Semiosis. Evolution. Energy: Towards a Reconceptualization of the Sign, Shaker Verlag. pp. 15--26. 1999.
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13On the concept of conceptJournal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 31 (2): 102-105. 2011.This commentary is in two parts: 1) a short review of problems with representational theories of mind, and 2) a critique and diagnosis of what I claim are fundamental problems with Wittgensteinian notions of grammatical analysis. These problems turn on an incomplete characterization of normativity in Wittgenstein's work. 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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37Is cognition an autonomous subsystemIn S. O'Nuillain, Paul McKevitt & E. MacAogain (eds.), Two Sciences of Mind, John Benjamins. pp. 115--131. 1997.
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35We all believe an unbounded number of things about the way the world is and about the way the world works. For example, I believe that if I move this book into the other room, it will not change color -- unless there is a paint shower on the way, unless I carry an umbrella through that shower, and so on; I believe that large red trucks at high speeds can hurt me, that trucks with polka dots can hurt me, and so on; that if I move this book, the room will stay in place -- unless there is a pressur…Read more
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