-
113Concepts: Where Fodor went wrongPhilosophical Psychology 12 (1): 5-23. 1999.In keeping with other recent efforts, Fodor's CONCEPTS focuses on the metaphysics of conceptual content, bracketing such epistemological questions as, "How can we know the contents of our concepts?" Fodor's metaphysical account of concepts, called "informational atomism," stipulates that the contents of a subject's concepts are fixed by the nomological lockings between the subject and the world. After sketching Fodor's "what else?" argument in support of this view, we offer a number of related c…Read more
-
67The Psychology of Personhood: Philosophical, Historical, Social-Developmental, and Narrative Perspectives (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2012.Machine generated contents note: 1. Introducing persons and the psychology of personhood Jack Martin and Mark H. Bickhard; Part I. Philosophical, Conceptual Perspectives: 2. The person concept and the ontology of persons Michael A. Tissaw; 3. Achieving personhood: the perspective of hermeneutic phenomenology Charles Guignon; Part II. Historical Perspectives: 4. Historical psychology of persons: categories and practice Kurt Danziger; 5. Persons and historical ontology Jeff Sugarman; 6. Critical p…Read more
-
28On Emergence, AgainMetaphysica 24 (2): 381-406. 2023.The aim of the present paper is twofold. First, we are interested in assessing the validity of one version of Kim’s argument against genuine higher level causation. Second, we discuss Wilson’s proposal to consider a weaker notion of emergence as genuinely metaphysical and compatible with Non-Reductive Physicalism. Our conclusion is that both proposals fail: the first in preempting genuine (strong) emergent causation, whereas the second in ensuring a genuinely metaphysical status to weak emergenc…Read more
-
17Encultured minds, not error reduction mindsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 43. 2020.There are serious theoretical problems with the free-energy principle model, which are shown in the current article. We discuss the proposed model's inability to account for culturally emergent normativities, and point out the foundational issues that we claim this inability stems from.
-
22Encodingism is not just a bad metaphorBehavioral and Brain Sciences 42. 2019.Brette's criticism of the coding metaphor focuses on its presence in neurosciences. We argue that this problematic view, which we call “encodingism,” is pernicious in any model of cognition that adopts it. We discuss some of the more specific problems it begets and then elaborate on Brette's action-based alternative to the coding framework.
-
11Book reviews (review)Philosophical Psychology 8 (1): 105-116. 1995.Sensory Qualities Austen Clark Oxford, Clarendon, 1993 pp. xii + 250Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics Mark Johnson University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1993 pp. xiv + 287Understanding Origins Francisco J. Varela & Jean‐Pierre Dupuy (Eds) Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1992.
-
426Physicalism, Emergence and Downward CausationAxiomathes 21 (1): 33-56. 2011.The development of a defensible and fecund notion of emergence has been dogged by a number of threshold issues neatly highlighted in a recent paper by Jaegwon Kim. We argue that physicalist assumptions confuse and vitiate the whole project. In particular, his contention that emergence entails supervenience is contradicted by his own argument that the ‘microstructure’ of an object belongs to the whole object, not to its constituents. And his argument against the possibility of downward causation …Read more
-
47Does Process Matter? An Introduction to the Special Issue on InteractivismAxiomathes 21 (1): 1-2. 2011.
-
5Anticipation and RepresentationIn Roberto Poli (ed.), Handbook of Anticipation: Theoretical and Applied Aspects of the Use of Future in Decision Making, Springer Verlag. pp. 323-338. 2019.Anticipation or prediction is generally assumed to be based on some sort of representation. Such representations will be involved, for example, in a model – causal, statistical, dynamic, and other kinds of model – of the system or phenomena to be anticipated. This form of anticipation certainly exists, and is quite important.I will argue, however, that there is a more basic form of anticipation that does not require representation, but is, in fact, constitutive of representation. The intuition u…Read more
-
Naturalism, emergence, and brute factsIn Elly Vintiadis & Constantinos Mekios (eds.), Brute Facts, Oxford University Press. 2018.
-
12Emergent Mental PhenomenaIn Inês Hipólito, Robert William Clowes & Klaus Gärtner (eds.), The Mind-Technology Problem : Investigating Minds, Selves and 21st Century Artefacts, Springer Verlag. pp. 49-63. 2021.The possibilities, if any, of ‘artificial’ mental phenomena, including consciousness, depend on what the metaphysical nature of such phenomena are. I will outline a model of metaphysical emergence, and, based on that, emergent mental phenomena, with a focus on cognition and consciousness. This model suggests that ‘artificial’ mental phenomena are possible, though not with current technology. Furthermore, such ‘artificial’ mental phenomena would require, in effect, the creation of artificial life…Read more
-
45Representing is something that we do, not a structure that we “use”: Reply to GładziejewskiNew Ideas in Psychology 1 (49): 27-37. 2018.The interactivist model of representation makes foundational criticisms of assumptions concerning representation that have been standard since the pre-Socratics and presents a positive model that differs from others on offer in several ways. The interactivist model of representation (or re- presenting), consequently, does not fit well within standard categories (though it is closest to the general pragmatist framework), and, consequently, is often miscategorized and misunderstood. A recent pape…Read more
-
68Toward a Model of Functional Brain Processes I: Central Nervous System Functional Micro-architectureAxiomathes 25 (3): 217-238. 2015.Standard semantic information processing models—information in; information processed; information out —lend themselves to standard models of the functioning of the brain in terms, e.g., of threshold-switch neurons connected via classical synapses. That is, in terms of sophisticated descendants of McCulloch and Pitts models. I argue that both the cognition and the brain sides of this framework are incorrect: cognition and thought are not constituted as forms of semantic information processing, a…Read more
-
55Toward a Model of Functional Brain Processes II: Central Nervous System Functional Macro-architectureAxiomathes 25 (4): 377-407. 2015.The first paper in this pair (Bickhard in Axiomathes, 2015) developed a model of the nature of representation and cognition, and argued for a model of the micro-functioning of the brain on the basis of that model. In this sequel paper, starting with part III, this model is extended to address macro-functioning in the CNS. In part IV, I offer a discussion of an approach to brain functioning that has some similarities with, as well as differences from, the model presented here: sometimes called th…Read more
-
The Anticipatory Brain: Two ApproachesIn Vincent C. Müller (ed.), Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence, Springer. 2016.
-
24Information, Representation, BiologyBiosemiotics 10 (2): 179-193. 2017.Biosemiotics contains at its core fundamental issues of naturalism: are normative properties, such as meaning, referent, and others, part of the natural world, or are they part of a second, intentional and normative, metaphysical realm — one that might be analogically applied to natural phenomena, such as within biological cells — but a realm that nevertheless remains metaphysically distinct? Such issues are manifestations of a fundamental metaphysical split between a “natural” realm and a realm…Read more
-
Sean O Nuallain, The Search for Mind: A New Foundation for Cognitive ScienceMinds and Machines 7 125-128. 1997.
-
35Action, Anticipation, and Construction: The Cognitive CoreConstructivist Foundations 9 (1): 62-63. 2013.Open peer commentary on the article “A Computational Constructivist Model as an Anticipatory Learning Mechanism for Coupled Agent–Environment Systems” by Filipo Studzinski Perotto. Upshot: Interaction-based models of cognition force anticipatory and constructivist models. The CALM model offers significant development of such models within a machine learning framework. It is suggested that moving to an entirely interactive-based model offers still further advantages
-
285Consciousness and reflective consciousnessPhilosophical Psychology 18 (2): 205-218. 2005.An interactive process model of the nature of representation intrinsically accounts for multiple emergent properties of consciousness, such as being a contentful experiential flow, from a situated and embodied point of view. A crucial characteristic of this model is that content is an internally related property of interactive process, rather than an externally related property as in all other contemporary models. Externally related content requires an interpreter, yielding the familiar regress …Read more
-
102Part II: Applications of process-based theories: Process and emergence: Normative function and representation (review)Axiomathes 14 (1-3): 121-155. 2004.Kim's argument appears to render causally efficacious emergence impossible: Hume's argument appears to render normative emergence impossible, and, in its general form, it precludes any emergence at all. I argue that both of these barriers can be overcome, and, in fact, that they each constitute reductions of their respective underlying presuppositions. In particular, causally efficacious ontological emergence can be modeled, but only within a process metaphysics, thus avoiding Kim's argument, an…Read more
-
241The 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
-
228Motivation and Emotion: An Interactive Process ModelIn Ralph D. Ellis (ed.), The Caldron of Consciousness: Motivation, Affect and Self-Organization, John Benjamins. pp. 161. 2000.In this chapter, I outline dynamic models of motivation and emotion. These turn out not to be autonomous subsystems, but, instead, are deeply integrated in the basic interactive dynamic character of living systems. Motivation is a crucial aspect of particular kinds of interactive systems -- systems for which representation is a sister aspect. Emotion is a special kind of partially reflective interaction process, and yields its own emergent motivational aspects. In addition, the overall model acc…Read more
-
34Variations in Variation and Selection: The Ubiquity of the Variation-and-Selective-Retention Ratchet in Emergent Organizational Complexity, Part II: Quantum Field Theory (review)Foundations of Science 8 (3): 283-293. 2003.If the general arguments concerning theinvolvement of variation and selection inexplanations of ``fit'' are valid, then variationand selection explanations should beappropriate, or at least potentiallyappropriate, outside the paradigm historisticdomains of biology and knowledge. In thisdiscussion, I wish to indicate some potentialroles for variation and selection infoundational physics â specifically inquantum field theory. I will not be attemptingany full coherent ontology for quantum fieldth…Read more
-
263How does the environment affect the person?In L. T. Winegar & Jaan Valsiner (eds.), Children's Development Within Social Contexts: Metatheoretical, Theoretical and Methodological Issues, Erlbaum. 1992.How Does the Environment Affect the Person? Mark H. Bickhard invited chapter in Children's Development within Social Contexts: Metatheoretical, Theoretical and Methodological Issues, Erlbaum. edited by L. T. Winegar, J. Valsiner, in press
-
116The Emergence of Contentful ExperienceIn Tadashi Kitamura (ed.), What Should Be Computed to Understand and Model Brain Function?: From Robotics, Soft Computing, Biology and Neuroscience to Cognitive Philosophy, World Scientific. 2001.There are many facets to mental life and mental experience. In this chapter, I attempt to account for some central characteristics among those facets. I argue that normative function and representation are emergent in particular forms of the self-maintenance of far from thermodynamic equilibrium systems in their essential far-from-equilibrium conditions. The nature of representation that is thereby modeled
-
128A Process Model of the Emergence of RepresentationIn George L. Farre & Tarkko Oksala (eds.), Emergence, Complexity, Hierarchy, Organization, Selected and Edited Papers From the ECHO III Conference, Acta Polytechnica Scandinavica. pp. 3-7. 1998.Two challenges to the very possibility of emergence are addressed, one metaphysical and one logical. The resolution of the metaphysical challenge requires a shift to a process metaphysics, while the logical challenge highlights normative emergence, and requires a shift to more powerful logical tools -- in particular, that of implicit definition. Within the framework of a process metaphysics, two levels of normative emergence are outlined: that of function and that of representation
-
179Some Consequences (and Enablings) of Process MetaphysicsAxiomathes 21 (1): 3-32. 2011.The interactivist model has explored a number of consequences of process metaphysics. These include reversals of some fundamental metaphysical assumptions dominant since the ancient Greeks, and multiple further consequences throughout the metaphysics of the world, minds, and persons. This article surveys some of these consequences, ranging from issues regarding entities and supervenience to the emergence of normative phenomena such as representation, rationality, persons, and ethics
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States of America