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407Causal theories of mental contentPhilosophy Compass 3 (2). 2008.Causal theories of mental content (CTs) ground certain aspects of a concept's meaning in the causal relations a concept bears to what it represents. Section 1 explains the problems CTs are meant to solve and introduces terminology commonly used to discuss these problems. Section 2 specifies criteria that any acceptable CT must satisfy. Sections 3, 4, and 5 critically survey various CTs, including those proposed by Fred Dretske, Jerry Fodor, Ruth Garrett Millikan, David Papineau, Dennis Stampe, D…Read more
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59Massively representational minds are not always driven by goals, conscious or otherwiseBehavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (2): 145-146. 2014.
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114The best test theory of extension: First principle(s)Mind and Language 14 (3). 1999.This paper presents the leading idea of my doctoral dissertation and thus has been shaped by the reactions of all the members of my thesis committee: Charles Chastain, Walter Edelberg, W. Kent Wilson, Dorothy Grover, and Charles Marks. I am especially grateful for the help of Professors Chastain, Edelberg, and Wilson; each worked closely with me at one stage or another in the development of the ideas contained in the present work. Shorter versions of this paper were presented at the 47th Annual …Read more
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203Realization, Completers, and C eteris Paribus Laws in PsychologyBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (1): 1-11. 2007.University of Colorado, Boulder If there are laws of psychology, they would seem to hold only ceteris paribus (c.p., hereafter), i.e., other things being equal. If a person wants that q and believes that doing a is the most efficient way to make it the case that q, then she will attempt to do a—but not, however, if she believes that a carries with it consequences much more hated than q is liked, or she believes she is incapable of doing a, or she gets distracted from her goal that q, or she sudd…Read more
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584LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (3): 559-562. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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189Empirical Arguments for Group Minds: A Critical AppraisalPhilosophy Compass 6 (9): 630-639. 2011.This entry addresses the question of group minds, by focusing specifically on empirical arguments for group cognition and group cognitive states. Two kinds of positive argument are presented and critically evaluated: the argument from individually unintended effects and the argument from functional similarity. A general argument against group cognition – which appeals to Occam’s razor – is also discussed. In the end, much turns on the identification of a mark of the cognitive; proposed marks are…Read more
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1277Cognitive systems and the supersized mind (review)Philosophical Studies 152 (3). 2011.In Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension (Clark, 2008), Andy Clark bolsters his case for the extended mind thesis and casts a critical eye on some related views for which he has less enthusiasm. To these ends, the book canvasses a wide range of empirical results concerning the subtle manner in which the human organism and its environment interact in the production of intelligent behavior. This fascinating research notwithstanding, Supersizing does little to assuage my…Read more
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629This is a long-abandoned draft, written in 2013, of what was supposed to be a paper for an edited collection (one that, in the end, didn't come together). The paper "Group Minds and Natural Kinds" descends from it.
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49Review of Raymond W. Gibbs, jr., Embodiment and Cognitive Science (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (8). 2006.
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275Frege’s puzzle and Frege cases: Defending a quasi-syntactic solutionCognitive Systems Research 9 76-91. 2008.There is no doubt that social interaction plays an important role in language-learning, as well as in concept acquisition. In surprising contrast, social interaction makes only passing appearance in our most promising naturalistic theories of content. This is particularly true in the case of mental content (e.g., Cummins, 1996; Dretske, 1981, 1988; Fodor, 1987, 1990a; Millikan, 1984); and insofar as linguistic content derives from mental content (Grice, 1957), social interaction seems missing fr…Read more
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688Causal Theories of IntentionalityIn Hal Pashler (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Mind, Sage Publications. forthcoming.This entry surveys a range of proposed solutions to the problem of intentionality, that is, the problem of explaining how human thoughts can be about, or be directed toward, objects. The family of solutions described here takes the content of a mental representation—what that concept represents or is about—to be a function of causal relations between mental representations and their typically external objects. This emphasis on causal relations should be understood broadly, however, so as to cove…Read more
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698Against Group Cognitive StatesIn Gerhard Preyer, Frank Hindriks & Sara Rachel Chant (eds.), From Individual to Collective Intentionality, Oxford University Press. pp. 97-111. 2014.
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1110The Causal Theory of Properties and the Causal Theory of Reference, or How to Name Properties and Why It MattersPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (3). 2008.forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
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240Representation in extended cognitive systems : does the scaffolding of language extend the mind?In Richard Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind, Mit Press. 2010.forthcoming in R. Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind
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1385Memory, Natural Kinds, and Cognitive Extension; or, Martians Don’t Remember, and Cognitive Science Is Not about CognitionReview of Philosophy and Psychology 4 (1): 25-47. 2013.This paper evaluates the Natural-Kinds Argument for cognitive extension, which purports to show that the kinds presupposed by our best cognitive science have instances external to human organism. Various interpretations of the argument are articulated and evaluated, using the overarching categories of memory and cognition as test cases. Particular emphasis is placed on criteria for the scientific legitimacy of generic kinds, that is, kinds characterized in very broad terms rather than in terms o…Read more
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1108Embodiment, Consciousness, and the Massively Representational MindPhilosophical Topics 39 (1): 99-120. 2011.In this paper, I claim that extant empirical data do not support a radically embodied understanding of the mind but, instead, suggest (along with a variety of other results) a massively representational view. According to this massively representational view, the brain is rife with representations that possess overlapping and redundant content, and many of these represent other mental representations or derive their content from them. Moreover, many behavioral phenomena associated with attention…Read more
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145Cognitive Systems and the Extended MindOup Usa. 2009.Robert Rupert argues against the view that human cognitive processes comprise elements beyond the boundary of the organism, developing a systems-based conception in place of this extended view. He also argues for a conciliatory understanding of the relation between the computational approach to cognition and the embedded and embodied views.
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332The functionalist's bodyAvant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 5 (2): 258-268. 2014.Interview with professor Robert D Rupert.
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179Systems, Functions, and Intrinsic Natures: On Adams and Aizawa's The Bounds of Cognition (review)Philosophical Psychology 23 (1): 113-123. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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198On the relationship between naturalistic semantics and individuation criteria for terms in a language of thoughtSynthese 117 (1): 95-131. 1998.Naturalistically minded philosophers hope to identify a privileged nonsemantic relation that holds between a mental representation m and that which m represents, a relation whose privileged status underwrites the assignment of reference to m. The naturalist can accomplish this task only if she has in hand a nonsemantic criterion for individuating mental representations: it would be question-begging for the naturalist to characterize m, for the purpose of assigning content, as 'the representation…Read more
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124Innateness and the situated mindIn P. Robbins & M. Aydede (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, Cambridge University Press. pp. 96--116. 2009.forthcoming in P. Robbins and M. Aydede (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (Cambridge UP)
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1982Challenges to the hypothesis of extended cognitionJournal of Philosophy 101 (8): 389-428. 2004.
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Philosophy of Language |
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Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
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