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7.1. Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Miscellaneous (Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Miscellaneous on PhilPapers)

• Nativism in Cognitive Science [41]
• Nativism in Cognitive Science, Misc [0]
• Modularity in Cognitive Science [34]
• Evolution of Cognition [75]
• Evolutionary Psychology [41]
• Evolution of Cognition, Misc [7]
• Rationality and Cognitive Science [30]
• Embodiment and Situated Cognition [76]
• Animal Cognition [30]
• Animal Emotion [2]
• Animal Language [2]
• Animal Cognition, Misc [1]
• Levels of Analysis in Cognitive Science [5]
• Explanation in Cognitive Science [12]
• Representation in Cognitive Science [10]
• Computationalism in Cognitive Science [55]
• Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Misc [40]

• Joel Walmsley (2010). Emergence and Reduction in Dynamical Cognitive Science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper examines the widespread intuition that the dynamical approach to cognitive science is importantly related to emergentism about the mind. The explanatory practices adopted by dynamical cognitive science rule out some conceptions of emergence; covering law explanations require a deducibility relationship between explanans and explanandum, whereas canonical theories of emergence require the absence of such deducibility. A response to this problem – one which would save the intuition that dynamics and emergence are related – is to reconstrue the concept of emergence as a relationship between laws. I call this “nomological emergence” and comment on the extent to which dynamicists would find it acceptable. Alternatively, dynamical cognitive science might be viewed as fitting better with the kind of “functional reductionism” which has recently been developed by authors such as Jaegwon Kim. Which of these two alternatives is preferable remains an open question pending the further development of dynamical cognitive science, particularly in its “non-classical” forms.

Nativism in Cognitive Science

• André Ariew (1996). Innateness and canalization.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Cognitive scientists often employ the notion of innateness without defining it. The issue is, how is innateness defined in biology? Some critics contend that innateness is not a legitimate concept in biology. In this paper I will argue that it is. However, neither the concept of high heritability nor the concept of flat norm of reaction (two popular accounts in the biology literature) define innateness. An adequate account is found in developmental biology. I propose that innateness is best defined in terms of C. H. Waddington's concept of canalization
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/332/
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000330/
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000332/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:332
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:330
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(199609)63:32.0.CO;2-G
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(199609)632.0.CO;2-O
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/188507.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/330/1/PSA_20paper.txt
  http://cogprints.org/330/0/PSA_20paper.txt
  
• Andre Ariew (1999). Innateness is canalization: In defense of a developmental account of innateness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Lorenz proposed in his (1935) articulation of a theory of behavioral instincts that the objective of ethology is to distinguish behaviors that are “innate” from behaviors that are “learned” (or “acquired”). Lorenz’s motive was to open the investigation of certain “adaptive” behaviors to evolutionary theorizing. Accordingly, since innate behaviors are “genetic”, they are open to such investigation. By Lorenz’s light an innate/acquired or learned dichotomy rested on a familiar Darwinian distinction between genes and environments. Ever since Lorenz, ascriptions of innateness have become widespread in the cognitive, behavioral, and biological sciences. The trend continues despite decades of strong arguments that show, in particular, the dichotomy that Lorenz invoked in his theory of behavioral instincts is literally false: no biological trait is the product of genes alone. Some critics suggest that the failure of Lorenz’s account shows that innateness is not well-defined in biology and the practice of ascribing innateness to various biological traits should be dropped from respectable science. Elsewhere (Ariew 1996) I argued that despite the arguments of critics, there really is a biological phenomenon underlying the concept of innateness. On my view, innateness is best understood in terms of C.H. Waddington’s concept of “canalization”, i.e. the degree to which a trait is innate is the degree to which its developmental outcome is canalized. The degree to which a developmental outcome is canalized is the degree to which the developmental process is bound to produce a particular endstate despite environmental fluctuations both in the development’s initial state and during the course of development. The canalization account differs in many ways to the traditional ways that ethologists such as Konrad Lorenz originally understood the concept of innateness. Most importantly, on the canalization account the distinction between innate and acquired is not a dichotomy, as Konrad Lorenz had it, but rather a matter of degree difference that lies along a spectrum with highly canalized development outcomes on the one end and highly environmentally sensitive development outcomes on the other end. Nevertheless, I justified the canalization account on the basis of a set of desiderata or criteria that I suggested falls-out of what seemed uncontroversial about Lorenz’s account of innateness (briefly): innateness is a property of a developing individual, innateness denotes environmental stability, and innate-ascriptions are useful in certain natural selection explanations (more below). From that same set of desiderata I argued (in my 1996) that neither the concept of heritability nor of norms of reactions—two concepts from population genetics—suffice to ground innateness. In this essay, I wish to provide further support of the canalization account in two ways. First, I wish to better motivate the desiderata by revisiting a debate between Konrad Lorenz and Daniel Lehrman over the meaning and explanatory usefulness of innate ascriptions in ethology. Second, I wish to compare my canalization account of innateness with accounts proposed by contemporary philosophers, one by Stephen Stich (1975), another by Elliott Sober (forthcoming), and a third by William Wimsatt (1986)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/332/
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000330/
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000332/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:332
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:330
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(199609)632.0.CO;2-O
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/188507.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/330/1/PSA_20paper.txt
  http://cogprints.org/332/1/Innateness_20for_20Hardcastle.txt
  http://cogprints.org/332/0/Innateness_20for_20Hardcastle.txt
  http://cogprints.org/330/0/PSA_20paper.txt
  
• Mark C. Baker (2006). The innate endowment for language: Underspecified or overspecified?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/tinnm/2005/00000001/00000001/art00012
  
• William Bechtel & Adele Abrahamsen (2005). Mechanistic explanation and the nature-nurture controversy.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Both in biology and psychology there has been a tendency on the part of many investigators to focus solely on the mature organism and ignore development. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that the explanatory framework often invoked in the life sciences for understanding a given phenomenon, according to which explanation consists in identifying the mechanism that produces that phenomenon, both makes it possible to side-step the development issue and to provide inadequate resources for actually explaining development. When biologists and psychologists do take up the question of development, they find themselves confronted with two polarizing positions of nativism and empiricism. However, the mechanistic framework, insofar as it emphasizes organization and recognizes the potential for self-organization, does in fact provide the resources for an account of development which avoids the nativism-empiricism dichotomy
• William P. Bechtel (1996). What knowledge must be in the head in order to acquire language.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Many studies of language, whether in philosophy, linguistics, or psychology, have focused on highly developed human languages. In their highly developed forms, such as are employed in scientific discourse, languages have a unique set of properties that have been the focus of much attention. For example, descriptive sentences in a language have the property of being "true" or "false," and words of a language have senses and referents. Sentences in a language are structured in accord with complex syntactic rules. Theorists focusing on language are naturally led to ask questions such as what constitutes the meanings of words and sentences and how are the principles of syntax encoded in the heads of language users. While there is an important function for inquiries into the highly developed forms of these cultural products (Abrahamsen, 1987), such a focus can be quite misleading when we want to explain how these products have arisen or the human capacity to use language. The problem is that focusing on its most developed forms makes linguistic ability seem to be a _sui generis_ phenomenon, not related to, and hence not explicable in terms of other cognitive capacities. Chomsky's (1980) postulation of a specific language module equipped with specialized resources needed to process language and possessed only by hum ans is not a surprising result
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/~bill/research/LANGUAGE.pdf
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=VI1Jml2ECuwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA45&ots=auCSCoPTWB&sig=F75t6eBFRh2JCTnUza7AwQ-rBH8
  
• Robert Boyd & Peter Richerson (2006). Culture, adaptation, and innateness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://merton.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/boyd/Innateness ver 4.1.pdf
  http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Richerson/adaptation culture innateness.pdf
  http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~pboyer/CEwebsite/Archive/Boyd Culture Adaptation Innateness ver 4.1.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/1452514/2007/00000001/00000001/art00003
  
• Noam A. Chomsky (1967). Recent contributions to the theory of innate ideas.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/Q60H810365TK1263.pdf
  
• John M. Collins (2003). Cowie on the poverty of stimulus.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   My paper defends the use of the poverty of stimulus argument (POSA) for linguistic nativism against Cowie's (1999) counter-claim that it leaves empiricism untouched. I first present the linguistic POSA as arising from a reflection on the generality of the child's initial state in comparison with the specific complexity of its final state. I then show that Cowie misconstrues the POSA as a direct argument about the character of the pld. In this light, I first argue that the data Cowie marshals about the pld does not begin to suggest that the POSA is unsound. Second, through a discussion of the so-called `auxiliary inversion rule', I show, by way of diagnosis, that Cowie misunderstands both the methodology of current linguistics and the complexity of the data it is obliged to explain
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/u12785k346104ng7/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=404684&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/U12785K346104NG7.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/2003/00000136/00000002/00404684
  
• Stephen Crain, Andrea Gualmini & Paul M. Pietroski (2005). Brass tacks in linguistic theory: Innate grammatical principles.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: _In the normal course of events, children manifest linguistic competence equivalent to that of adults in just a few years. Children can produce and understand novel sentences, they can judge that certain strings of words are true or false, and so on. Yet experience appears to dramatically underdetermine the com- petence children so rapidly achieve, even given optimistic assumptions about children’s nonlinguistic capacities to extract information and form generalizations on the basis of statistical regularities in the input. These considerations underlie various (more specific) poverty of stimulus arguments for the innate specification of linguistic principles. But in our view, certain features of nativist arguments have not yet been fully appreciated. We focus here on three (related) kinds of poverty of stimulus argument, each of which has been supported by the findings of psycholinguistic investigations of child language
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/~scrain/LSA/papers/brasstacks.pdf
  http://www.wam.umd.edu/~pietro/research/papers/brasstacks.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/tinnm/2005/00000001/00000001/art00013
  
• Stephen Crain & Paul M. Pietroski (2005). Innate Ideas.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: We think this is Chomsky's view, and also the view he finds in certain historical figures who participated in debates about innate ideas. Chomsky's contribution to the traditional debate lies in (i) his articulation and defense of a detailed nativist program in linguistics, showing _how_ experience plays only a restricted role in a broadly rationalist account of the acquisition of linguistic knowledge, and (ii) the framework this program suggests, given its empirical success, for the more general study of human cognition. Linguistics -- where this includes not just the study of expressions and their properties, but also related work in psycholinguistics -- provides a case study of how to investigate _which aspects of_ human thought are due largely to human nature. Earlier chapters have addressed (i). We'll try to give the flavor of (ii) by discussing some historically important examples, and then by reviewing some recent discoveries, inspired by the Chomskian approach to human psychology, about the properties of linguistic expressions that have a direct bearing on logical reasoning.
• Stephen Crain & Paul M. Pietroski (2002). Why language acquisition is a snap.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Nativists inspired by Chomsky are apt to provide arguments with the following general form: languages exhibit interesting generalizations that are not suggested by casual (or even intensive) examination of what people actually say; correspondingly, adults (i.e., just about anyone above the age of four) know much more about language than they could plausibly have learned on the basis of their experience; so absent an alternative account of the relevant generalizations and speakers' (tacit) knowledge of them, one should conclude that there are substantive "universal" principles of human grammar and, as a result of human biology, children can only acquire languages that conform to these principles. According to Pullum and Scholz, linguists need not suppose that children are innately endowed with "specific contingent facts about natural languages." But Pullum and Scholz don't consider the kinds of facts that really impress nativists. Nor do they offer any plausible acquisition scenarios that would culminate in the acquisition of languages that exhibit the kinds of rich and interrelated generalizations that are exhibited by natural languages. As we stress, good poverty-of-stimulus arguments are based on specific principles - - confirmed by drawing on (negative and crosslinguistic) data unavailable to children -- that help explain a range of independently established linguistic phenomena. If subsequent psycholinguistic experiments show that very young children already know such principles, that strengthens the case for nativism; and if further investigation shows that children sometimes "try out" constructions that are unattested in the local language, but only if such constructions are attested in other human languages, then the case for nativism is made stronger still. We illustrate these points by considering an apparently disparate -- but upon closer inspection, interestingly related -- cluster of phenomena involving: negative polarity items, the interpretation of 'or', binding theory, and displays of Romance and Germanic constructions in child- English..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/~scrain/papers/SNAP.pdf
  http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/~scrain/LSA/papers/SNAP.pdf
  http://www.wam.umd.edu/~pietro/research/papers/SNAP.pdf
  http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~rvogel/grundlagen/cp02.pdf
  
• Denise D. Cummins, Robert E. Cummins & Pierre Poirier (2003). Cognitive evolutionary psychology without representational nativism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A viable evolutionary cognitive psychology requires that specific cognitive capacities be (a) heritable and (b) ‘quasi-independent’ from other heritable traits. They must be heritable because there can be no selection for traits that are not. They must be quasi-independent from other heritable traits, since adaptive variations in a specific cognitive capacity could have no distinctive consequences for fitness if effecting those variations required widespread changes in other unrelated traits and capacities as well. These requirements would be satisfied by innate cognitive modules, as the dominant paradigm in evolutionary cognitive psychology assumes. However, those requirements would also be satisfied by heritable learning biases, perhaps in the form of architec- tural or chronotopic constraints, that operated to increase the canalization of specific cognitive capacities in the ancestral environment (Cummins and Cummins 1999). As an organism develops, cognitive capacities that are highly canalized as the result of heritable learning biases might result in an organism that is behaviourally quite similar to an organism whose innate modules come on line as the result of various environ- mental triggers. Taking this possibility seriously is increasingly important as the case against innate cognitive modules becomes increasingly strong
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=200306640198CI
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(qpklsmuvkrawsrnsetwrkp45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,10;journal,12,38;linkingpublicationresults,1:100672,1
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/FQ3QBLT394VVXU0Q.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/FQ3QBLT394VVXU0Q.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/teta/2003/00000015/00000002/art00002
  
• Susan Dwyer (2006). How good is the linguistic analogy?   (More)
• Lorne Falkenstein (2004). Nativism and the nature of thought in Reid's account of our knowledge of the external world.   (More)
• Simon Fitzpatrick (online). Nativism, empiricism and ockham's razor.   (More)
• Jerry A. Fodor (2001). Doing without what's within: Fiona Cowie's critique of nativism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://host.uniroma3.it/progetti/kant/field/cowiesymp_fodor.htm
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/110/437/99
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oup/mind/2001/00000110/00000437/art00099
  
• Christopher D. Green & John Vervaeke (1997). But what have you done for us lately?: Some recent perspectives on linguistic nativism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The problem with many contemporary criticisms of Chomsky and linguistic nativism is that they are based upon features of the theory that are no longer germane; aspects that have either been superseded by more adequate proposals, or that have been dropped altogether under the weight of contravening evidence. In this paper, rather than rehashing old debates that are voluminously documented elsewhere, we intend to focus on more recent developments. To this end, we have put a premium on references from the 1990s and the latter half of the 1980s. First, we will describe exactly what is now thought to be innate about language, and why it is thought to be innate rather than learned. Second, we will examine the evidence that many people take to be the greatest challenge to the nativist claim: ape language. Third, we will briefly consider how an innate language organ might have evolved. Fourth we will look at how an organism might communicate without benefit of the innate language structure proposed by Chomsky, and examine a number of cases in which this seems to be happening. Finally we will try to sum up our claims and characterize what we believe will be the most fruitful course of debate for the immediate future
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://htpprints.yorku.ca/archive/00000004/
  http://www.yorku.ca/christo/papers/innate.htm
  http://htpprints.yorku.ca/archive/00000004/00/innate.htm
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1178
  
• Paul Griffiths, Edouard Machery & Stefan Linquist (2009). The vernacular concept of innateness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The proposal that the concept of innateness expresses a 'folk biological' theory of the 'inner natures' of organisms was tested by examining the response of biologically naive participants to a series of realistic scenarios concerning the development of birdsong. Our results explain the intuitive appeal of existing philosophical analyses of the innateness concept. They simultaneously explain why these analyses are subject to compelling counterexamples. We argue that this explanation undermines the appeal of these analyses, whether understood as analyses of the vernacular concept or as explications of that concept for the purposes of science
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00004245/03/000_01_11.doc
  http://www.duke.edu/~spl3/The vernacular concept of innateness.PDF
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00004245/02/Data_set_Study_1.xls
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00003384/01/innateness_submitted.pdf
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00004245/01/Griffiths,_Machery_&_Linquist_In_Press.pdf
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122663279/PDFSTART
  http://www.duke.edu/~spl3/The%20vernacular%20concept%20of%20innateness.PDF
  http://www.pitt.edu/~machery/papers/Folk concept of innateness_machery.pdf
  
• Paul Griffiths (2002). What is innateness?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In behavioral ecology some authors regard the innateness concept as irretrievably confused whilst others take it to refer to adaptations. In cognitive psychology, however, whether traits are 'innate' is regarded as a significant question and is often the subject of heated debate. Several philosophers have tried to define innateness with the intention of making sense of its use in cognitive psychology. In contrast, I argue that the concept is irretrievably confused. The vernacular innateness concept represents a key aspect of 'folkbiology', namely, the explanatory strategy that psychologists and cognitive anthropologists have labeled 'folk essentialism'. Folk essentialism is inimical to Darwinism, and both Darwin and the founders of the modern synthesis struggled to overcome this way of thinking about living systems. Because the vernacular concept of innateness is part of folkbiology, attempts to define it more adequately are unlikely to succeed, making it preferable to introduce new, neutral terms for the various, related notions that are needed to understand cognitive development
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=5002464025
  http://paul.representinggenes.org/webpdfs/Griff.02.Innateness.pdf
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000108/00/What_is_innateness.pdf
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/documents/disk0/00/00/01/08/PITT-PHIL-SCI00000108-00/What_is_innateness.pdf
  
• Steven Gross (2001). Review of What's Within? Nativism Reconsidered.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Fiona Cowie’s _What’s Within_ consists of three parts. In the first, she examines the early modern rationalist- empiricist debate over nativism, isolating what she considers the two substantive “strands” (67)¹ that truly separated them: whether there exist domain-specific learning mechanisms, and whether concept acquisition is amenable to naturalistic explanation. She then turns, in the book’s succeeding parts, to where things stand today with these issues. The second part argues that Jerry Fodor’s view of concepts is continuous with traditional nativism in that it precludes a naturalistic story of concept acquisition. Cowie objects, however, to Fodor’s path to this conclusion and thus sees no reason to endorse it. The third part assesses Chomskyan nativism as a contemporary instance of positing domain- specific learning mechanisms. Though she is highly critical of how “poverty of the stimulus” arguments and the like have been used to lend credence to stronger conclusions, she holds that such arguments do indeed support the nativist’s domain-specificity claim. Cowie’s reconsideration of nativism thus limits itself to concepts and language (a few exceptions aside: there are two brief forays into face recognition and a mention of pathogen response). The terrain she does cover, however, is vast; and Cowie’s illuminating discussions will stimulate anyone interested in the area. As I focus on a few large-scale qualms in what follows, let me mention in particular that much of what is of interest in Cowie’s book is to be found in her detailed consideration of specific arguments
• Jim Hurford (ms). Functional innateness: Explaining the critical period for language acquisition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In recent years, several explanations have been offered for the critical period in language acquisition, itself, a priori a somewhat surprising phenomenon. Two such explanations are considered here. Both studies use computer simulations, but the factors they model are very different. Hurford (1991) simulates the phylogenetic evolution over hundreds of generations of a species in which the timing of life history traits is under genetic control. The period when an individual is most proficient at language acquisition is just such a life history trait, and is capable of adaptive evolution. Evolutionary simulations lead to a concentration of language acquisition proficiency in the period up to puberty, with a subsequent tailing off. Elman (1993) demonstrates `the advantages of starting small' in neural networks learning mini-languages with many of the complex interacting grammatical factors found in real languages. A neural network which starts mature, with a full adult `working memory' cannot acquire such complex grammatical competence, whereas a net whose attention span is initially limited and then grows with maturation can acquire the appropriate grammar. This explains, in adaptive terms, the existence of a period in which an organism's characteristics, relevant to the language learning task, change, increasing a certain capacity (`working memory') from an immature to an adult value. These accounts are complementary and mutually compatible. An evolutionary account is proposed, in which genetically controlled `working memory' size in relation to life history is the variable operated on by natural selection. This account promises to produce a more detailed explanation of the critical period, which can be related to a wider range of data, including the coincidence with puberty and the involvement of sentence processing in language acquisition The relationships between Elman's `working memory' and the distinct psychological concept of working memory are also explored
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~jim/milwaukee.abs.html
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000194/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:194
  http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/localcopy/psgz/hurford99functionalInnateness.ps.gz
  http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~junwang4/langev/localcopy/ps/hurford99functionalInnateness.ps
  http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/01/94/cog00000194-00/milwaukee.paper.s.ps
  http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~junwang4/langev/alt/hurford99functionalInnateness/Hurford--1999--FunctionalInnatenessExplainingTheCriticalPeriodForLanguageAcquisition.ps
  http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~junwang4/langev/alt/hurford99functionalInnateness/Hurford--1999--FunctionalInnatenessExplainingTheCriticalPeriodForLanguageAcquisition--FunctionalismAndFormalismInLinguisticsVolumeIICaseStudies--pp341-363.ps
  
• Kent Johnson (2004). Gold's theorem and cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A variety of inaccurate claims about Gold's Theorem have appeared in the cognitive science literature. I begin by characterizing the logic of this theorem and its proof. I then examine several claims about Gold's Theorem, and I show why they are false. Finally, I assess the significance of Gold's Theorem for cognitive science
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/423752
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/423752
  
• Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Kim Plunkett & Mark H. Johnson (1998). What does it mean to claim that something is 'innate'? Response to Clark, Harris, Lightfoot and Samuels.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0017.00095
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/1998/00000013/00000004/art00009
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/1998/00000013/00000004/art00095
  
• Frank Keil (online). Nurturing nativism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: empiricist approaches to knowledge acquisition. I say " appears" because so often the debaters seem to be talking past each other, arguing about different things or misunderstanding each other in such basic ways that the debates can seem to an observer as incoherent. For these reasons there has been a powerful need for a systematic treatment of the different senses of nativism and empiricism that considers both their historical contexts and their current manifestations. Cowie's book offers such a treatment, one that goes far beyond prior attempts. It is a remarkably clear and insightful exposition and critique of nativist views from earliest writings to the most current debates. It helps all of us understand better what others are talking about when they don't subscribe to our brand of nativism or empiricism. It also reveals just how much theoretical and empirical work needs to be done before we can get a clear handle what is really the truth about the innateness of language, mathematics, folks psychology, and many other potential domains. Yet, despite these powerful virtues, the book also falls short on some key issues that seem necessary to laying an agenda for future empirical or theoretical work on nativism. I will tend to focus in this essay on those missing links, while also repeatedly stating that this book represents a major leap forward in making sense of what it means to say that some aspect of the mind is innate. Mystery and Modularity
• Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis (2003). Radical concept nativism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12208650&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/00100277/2002/00000086/00000001/art00127
  
• Matteo Mameli & Patrick Bateson (2006). Innateness and the sciences.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The concept of innateness is a part of folk wisdom but is also used by biologists and cognitive scientists. This concept has a legitimate role to play in science only if the colloquial usage relates to a coherent body of evidence. We examine many different candidates for the post of scientific successor of the folk concept of innateness. We argue that none of these candidates is entirely satisfactory. Some of the candidates are more interesting and useful than others, but the interesting candidates are not equivalent to each other and the empirical and evidential relations between them are far from clear. Researchers have treated the various scientific notions that capture some aspect of the folk concept of innateness as equivalent to each other or at least as tracking properties that are strongly correlated with each other. But whether these correlations exist is an empirical issue. This empirical issue has not been thoroughly investigated because in the attempt to create a bridge between the folk view and their theories, researchers have often assumed that the properties must somehow cluster. Rather than making further attempts to import the folk concept of innateness into the sciences, efforts should now be made to focus on the empirical questions raised by the debates and pave the way to a better way of studying the development of living organisms. Such empirical questions must be answered before it can be decided whether a good scientific successor – in the form of a concept that refers to a collection of biologically significant properties that tend to co-occur – can be identified or whether the concept of innateness deserves no place in science
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/gmm32/MAMELI_INNATENESS_2006.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/fk28p8p30730l355/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/FK28P8P30730L355.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/biph/2006/00000021/00000002/00005144
  
• Matteo Mameli & David Papineau (2006). The new nativism: A commentary on Gary Marcus's The Birth of the Mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Gary Marcus has written a very interesting book about mental development from a nativist perspective. For the general readership at which the book is largely aimed, it will be interesting because of its many informative examples of the development of cognitive structures and because of its illuminating explanations of ways in which genes can contribute to these developmental processes. However, the book is also interesting from a theoretical point of view. Marcus tries to make nativism compatible with the central arguments that anti-nativists use to attack nativism and with many recent discoveries about genetic activity and brain development. In so doing, he reconfigures the nativist position to a considerable extent
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/b63161l3n887p2lq/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/B63161L3N887P2LQ.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/biph/2006/00000021/00000004/00001800
  
• Gary F. Marcus (2005). What developmental biology can tell us about innateness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/tinnm/2005/00000001/00000001/art00003
  
• James A. McGilvray (2006). On the innateness of language.   (More)
• K. Moutoussis, Alexander Maier, Semir Zeki & Nikos K. Logothetis (2005). Seeing invisible motion: Responses of area v5 neurons in the awake-behaving macaque.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Moutoussis, K., A. Maier, S. Zeki and N. K. Logothetis: Seeing invisible motion: responses of area V5 neurons in the awake-behaving macaque. Soc. for Neurosci. Abstr. 390.11, 1 (11 2005) Abstract
• Shaun Nichols (2005). Innateness and moral psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Although linguistic nativism has received the bulk of attention in contemporary innateness debates, moral nativism has perhaps an even deeper ancestry. If linguistic nativism is Cartesian, moral nativism is Platonic. Moral nativism has taken a backseat to linguistic nativism in contemporary discussions largely because Chomsky made a case for linguistic nativism characterized by unprecedented rigor. Hence it is not surprising that recent attempts to revive the thesis that we have innate moral knowledge have drawn on Chomsky’s framework. I’ll argue, however, that the recent attempts to use Chomsky-style arguments in support of innate moral knowledge are uniformly unconvincing. The central argument in the Chomskian arsenal, of course, is the Poverty of the Stimulus (POS) argument. In section 1, I will set out the basic form of the POS argument and the conclusions about domain specificity and innate propositional knowledge that are supposed to follow. In section 2, I’ll distinguish 3 hypotheses about innateness and morality: rule nativism, moral principle nativism, and moral judgment nativism. In sections 3-5 I’ll then consider each of these hypotheses in turn. I’ll argue that while there is some reason to favor rule nativism, the arguments that moral principles and moral judgment derive from innate moral knowledge don’t work. The capacity for moral judgment is better explained by appeal to innate affective systems rather than innate moral knowledge. In the final section, I’ll suggest that the role of such affective mechanisms in structuring the mind complicates the standard picture about poverty of the stimulus arguments and nativism. For the affective mechanisms that influence cognitive structures can make contributions that are neither domain general nor domain specific
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/tinnm/2005/00000001/00000001/art00024
  
• Paul M. Pietroski & Stephen Crain (2005). Innate ideas.   (More)
• David Pitt (2000). Nativism and the theory of content.   (More)
• Jesse J. Prinz (2009). Against moral nativism.   (More)
• Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002). Empirical assessment of stimulus poverty arguments.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~rvogel/grundlagen/ps02.pdf
  
• William Ramsey & Stephen P. Stich (1990). Connectionism and three levels of nativism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Along with the increasing popularity of connectionist language models has come a number of provocative suggestions about the challenge these models present to Chomsky's arguments for nativism. The aim of this paper is to assess these claims. We begin by reconstructing Chomsky's argument from the poverty of the stimulus and arguing that it is best understood as three related arguments, with increasingly strong conclusions. Next, we provide a brief introduction to connectionism and give a quick survey of recent efforts to develop networks that model various aspects of human linguistic behavior. Finally, we explore the implications of this research for Chomsky's arguments. Our claim is that the relation between connectionism and Chomsky's views on innate knowledge is more complicated than many have assumed, and that even if these models enjoy considerable success the threat they pose for linguistic nativism is small
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/p66n338hjq44332p/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/P66N338HJQ44332P.pdf
  
• Robert D. Rupert (2009). Innateness and the situated mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: forthcoming in P. Robbins and M. Aydede (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (Cambridge UP)
• Richard Samuels (2004). Innateness in cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: has a more specific role to play in the development of Of course, the conclusion to draw is not that innateness innate cognitive structure. In particular, a common claim claims are trivially false or that they cannot be character-
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://matrix.aklab.psych.ubc.ca/uploads/Christine_Innateness_TICS.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15301754&dopt=Citation
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1364661304000270
  
• Barbara C. Scholz & Geoffrey K. Pullum (2006). Irrational nativist exuberance.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=OR-ApDfUMUkC&oi=fnd&pg=RA1-PT3&ots=LNjHRvPcnL&sig=uuLkh_UmGbs6n5ngDLceO8QTS8M
  
• John Tooby, Leda Cosmides & H. Clark Barrett (2005). Resolving the debate on innate ideas: Learnability constraints and the evolved interpenetration of motivational and conceptual functions.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In P. Carruthers, S. Laurence, & S. Stich (Eds.). The innate mind: Structure and content. (pp. 305-337). New York: Oxford University Press
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/tinnm/2005/00000001/00000001/art00022
  
• Jonathan M. Weinberg & Ron Mallon (2006). Innateness as closed process invariance.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Controversies over the innateness of cognitive processes, mechanisms, and structures play a persistent role in driving research in philosophy as well as the cognitive sciences, but the appropriate way to understand the category of the innate remains subject to dispute. One venerable approach in philosophy and cognitive science merely contrasts innate features with those that are learned. In fact, Jerry Fodor has recently suggested that this remains our best handle on innateness

Nativism in Cognitive Science, Misc

Modularity in Cognitive Science

• H. Clark Barrett (2005). Enzymatic computation and cognitive modularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Currently, there is widespread skepticism that higher cognitive processes, given their apparent flexibility and globality, could be carried out by specialized computational devices, or modules. This skepticism is largely due to Fodor’s influential definition of modularity. From the rather flexible catalogue of possible modular features that Fodor originally proposed has emerged a widely held notion of modules as rigid, informationally encapsulated devices that accept highly local inputs and whose opera- tions are insensitive to context. It is a mistake, however, to equate such features with computational devices in general and therefore to assume, as Fodor does, that higher cognitive processes must be non-computational. Of the many possible non-Fodorean architectures, one is explored here that offers possible solutions to computational problems faced by conventional modular systems: an ‘enzymatic’ architecture. Enzymes are computational devices that use lock-and-key template matching to iden- tify relevant information (substrates), which is then operated upon and returned to a common pool for possible processing by other devices. Highly specialized enzymes can operate together in a common pool of information that is not pre-sorted by information type. Moreover, enzymes can use molecular ‘tags’ to regulate the operations of other devices and to change how particular substrates are construed and operated upon, allowing for highly interactive, context-specific processing. This model shows how specialized, modular processing can occur in an open system, and suggests that skepti- cism about modularity may largely be due to failure to consider alternatives to the standard model
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://repositories.cdlib.org/postprints/1124/
  http://www.anthro.ucla.edu/faculty/barrett/barrett-enzymes.pdf
  http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/barrett/barrett-enzymes.pdf
  http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3210&context=postprints
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0268-1064.2005.00285.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2005/00000020/00000003/art00001
  
• Mark H. Bickhard (2003). An integration of motivation and cognition.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpsoc/dmjp/2003/00000001/00000001/art00005
  
• Peter Carruthers (2008). An architecture for dual reasoning.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In J. Evans and K. Frankish (eds.), In Two Minds: dual processes and beyond. Oxford University Press, 2008. (In draft.)
• Clark H. Barrett (2005). Enzymatic computation and cognitive modularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Currently, there is widespread skepticism that higher cognitive processes, given their apparent flexibility and globality, could be carried out by specialized computational devices, or modules. This skepticism is largely due to Fodor’s influential definition of modularity. From the rather flexible catalogue of possible modular features that Fodor originally proposed has emerged a widely held notion of modules as rigid, informationally encapsulated devices that accept highly local inputs and whose opera- tions are insensitive to context. It is a mistake, however, to equate such features with computational devices in general and therefore to assume, as Fodor does, that higher cognitive processes must be non-computational. Of the many possible non-Fodorean architectures, one is explored here that offers possible solutions to computational problems faced by conventional modular systems: an ‘enzymatic’ architecture. Enzymes are computational devices that use lock-and-key template matching to iden- tify relevant information (substrates), which is then operated upon and returned to a common pool for possible processing by other devices. Highly specialized enzymes can operate together in a common pool of information that is not pre-sorted by information type. Moreover, enzymes can use molecular ‘tags’ to regulate the operations of other devices and to change how particular substrates are construed and operated upon, allowing for highly interactive, context-specific processing. This model shows how specialized, modular processing can occur in an open system, and suggests that skepti- cism about modularity may largely be due to failure to consider alternatives to the standard model
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.anthro.ucla.edu/faculty/barrett/barrett-enzymes.pdf
  http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/barrett/barrett-enzymes.pdf
  http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3210&context=postprints
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0268-1064.2005.00285.x
  
• Peter Carruthers (2003). Is the mind a system of modules shaped by natural selection?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This chapter defends the positive thesis which constitutes its title. It argues first, that the mind has been shaped by natural selection; and second, that the result of that shaping process is a modular mental architecture. The arguments presented are all broadly empirical in character, drawing on evidence provided by biologists, neuroscientists and psychologists (evolutionary, cognitive, and developmental), as well as by researchers in artificial intelligence. Yet the conclusion is at odds with the manifest image of ourselves provided both by introspection and by common-sense psychology. The chapter concludes by sketching how a modular architecture might be developed to account for the patently unconstrained character of human thought, which has served as an assumption in a number of recent philosophical attacks on mental modularity
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philosophy.georgetown.edu/news_events/papers_2002-2003/shaped_modules.rtf
  
• Peter Carruthers (2003). Moderately massive modularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper will sketch a model of the human mind according to which the mind’s structure is massively, but by no means wholly, modular. Modularity views in general will be motivated, elucidated, and defended, before the thesis of moderately massive modularity is explained and elaborated
• Peter Carruthers (2004). Practical reasoning in a modular mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   This paper starts from an assumption defended in the author's previous work. This is that distinctivelyhuman flexible and creative theoretical thinking can be explained in terms of the interactions of a variety of modular systems, with the addition of just a few amodular components and dispositions. On the basis of that assumption it is argued that distinctively human practical reasoning, too, can be understood in modular terms. The upshot is that there is nothing in the human psyche that requires any significant retreat from a thesis of massively modular mental organization
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/pcarruthers/Practical-reason.htm
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2004.00258.x/enhancedabs/
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2004.00258.x
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118773726/PDFSTART
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2004/00000019/00000003/art00001
  
• Peter Carruthers (2006). Simple heuristics meet massive modularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This chapter investigates the extent to which claims of massive modular organization of the mind (espoused by some members of the evolutionary psychology research program) are consistent with the main elements of the simple heuristics research program. A number of potential sources of conflict between the two programs are investigated and defused. However, the simple heuristics program turns out to undermine one of the main arguments offered in support of massive modularity, at least as the latter is generally understood by philosophers. So one result of the argument will be to force us to re-examine the way in which the notion of modularity in cognitive science should best be characterized, if the thesis of massive modularity isn’t to be abandoned altogether. What is at stake in this discussion, is whether there is a well-motivated notion of ‘module’ such that we have good reason to think that the human mind must be massively modular in its organization. I shall be arguing (in the end) that there is
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.dept.shef.ac.uk/AHRB-Project/Papers/CarruthersSheffield04Abstract.pdf
  
• Peter Carruthers (2006). The case for massively modular models of mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: My charge in this chapter is to set out the positive case supporting massively modular models of the human mind.1 Unfortunately, there is no generally accepted understanding of what a massively modular model of the mind is. So at least some of our discussion will have to be terminological. I shall begin by laying out the range of things that can be meant by ‘modularity’. I shall then adopt a pair of strategies. One will be to distinguish some things that ‘modularity’ definitely can’t mean, if the thesis of massive modularity is to be even remotely plausible. The other will be to look at some of the arguments that have been offered in support of massive modularity, discussing what notion of ‘module’ they might warrant. It will turn out that there is, indeed, a strong case in support of massively modular models of the mind on one reasonably natural understanding of ‘module’. But what really matters in the end, of course, is the substantive question of what sorts of structure are adequate to account for the organization and operations of the human mind, not whether or not the components appealed to in that account get described as ‘modules’. So the more interesting question before us is what the arguments that have been offered in support of massive modularity can succeed in showing us about those structures, whatever they get called
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/taotm/2006/00000001/00000001/art00001
  
• Clark H. Barrett & R. Kurzban (2006). Modularity in cognition: Framing the debate.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Modularity has been the subject of intense debate in the cognitive sciences for more than 2 decades. In some cases, misunderstandings have impeded conceptual progress. Here the authors identify arguments about modularity that either have been abandoned or were never held by proponents of modular views of the mind. The authors review arguments that purport to undermine modularity, with particular attention on cognitive architecture, development, genetics, and evolution. The authors propose that modularity, cleanly defined, provides a useful framework for directing research and resolving debates about individual cognitive systems and the nature of human evolved cognition. Modularity is a fundamental property of living things at every level of organization; it might prove indispensable for understanding the structure of the mind as well
• John M. Collins (2005). On the input problem for massive modularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Jerry Fodor argues that the massive modularity thesis – the claim that (human) cognition is wholly served by domain specific, autonomous computational devices, i.e., modules – is a priori incoherent, self-defeating. The thesis suffers from what Fodor dubs the input problem: the function of a given module (proprietarily understood) in a wholly modular system presupposes non-modular processes. It will be argued that massive modularity suffers from no such a priori problem. Fodor, however, also offers what he describes as a really real input problem (i.e., an empirical one). It will be suggested that this problem is real enough, but it does not selectively strike down massive modularity – it is a problem for everyone
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/g325414402267151/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=DO00001346&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/G325414402267151.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/2005/00000015/00000001/00001346
  
• N. K. Logothetis D. A. Leopold (1999). Multistable phenomena: Changing views in perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Traditional explanations of multistable visual phenomena (e.g. ambiguous figures, perceptual rivalry) suggest that the basis for spontaneous reversals in perception lies in antagonistic connectivity within the visual system. In this review, we suggest an alternative, albeit speculative. explanation for visual multistability - that spontaneous alternations reflect responses to active, programmed events initiated by brain areas that integrate sensory and non-sensory information to coordinate a diversity of behaviors. Much evidence suggests that perceptual reversals are themselves more closely related to the expression of a behavior than to passive sensory responses: (1) they are initiated spontaneously, often voluntarily, and are influenced by subjective variables such as attention and mood; (2) the alternation process is greatly facilitated with practice and compromised by lesions in non- visual cortical areas; (3) the alternation process has temporal dynamics similar to those of spontaneously initiated behaviors; (4) functional imaging reveals that brain areas associated with a variety of cognitive behaviors are specifically activated when vision becomes unstable. In this scheme, reorganizations of activity throughout the visual cortex, concurrent with perceptual reversals, are initiated by higher, largely non- sensory brain centers. Such direct intervention In the processing of the sensory input by brain structures associated with planning and motor programming might serve an important role in perceptual organization, particularly in aspects related to selective attention
• Jerry A. Fodor (1986). The modularity of mind.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.getabstract.com/www/general/ShowAbstract.jsp?dataId=4643
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=e7nrSeibJZYC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&ots=olYK_zXHbY&sig=G192IInba3L-Xe9YhZmWItFOvzY
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=e7nrSeibJZYC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&ots=olZHVyTC9-&sig=YJwA2IJN6GSKy3uagbiZ2lxjAjE
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=e7nrSeibJZYC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&ots=olZIWuWA7_&sig=SkqIZ9W_QqsVZXL_vbN-kbqDweA
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=e7nrSeibJZYC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&ots=olYK1zTH80&sig=kTK0NyEYMhINuvWZjTYqOg_ipyM
  
• K. Moutoussis, G. A. Keliris, Z. Kourtzi & N. K. Logothetis (2005). A binocular rivalry study of motion perception in the human brain.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The relationship between brain activity and conscious visual experience is central to our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying perception. Binocular rivalry, where monocular stimuli compete for perceptual dominance, has been previously used to dissociate the constant stimulus from the varying percept. We report here fMRI results from humans experiencing binocular rivalry under a dichoptic stimulation paradigm that consisted of two drifting random dot patterns with different motion coherence. Each pattern had also a different color, which both enhanced rivalry and was used for reporting which of the two patterns was visible at each time. As the perception of the subjects alternated between coherent motion and motion noise, we examined the effect that these alternations had on the strength of the MR signal throughout the brain. Our results demonstrate that motion perception is able to modulate the activity of several of the visual areas which are known to be involved in motion processing. More specifically, in addition to area V5 which showed the strongest modulation, a higher activity during the perception of motion than during the perception of noise was also clearly observed in areas V3A and LOC, and less so in area V3. In previous studies, these areas had been selectively activated by motion stimuli but whether their activity reflects motion perception or not remained unclear; here we show that they are involved in motion perception as well. The present findings therefore suggest a lack of a clear distinction between ?processing? versus ?perceptual? areas in the brain, but rather that the areas involved in the processing of a specific visual attribute are also part of the neuronal network that is collectively responsible for its perceptual representation
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6T0W-4FR8PHD-2-C&_cdi=4873&_user=29041&_orig=search&_coverDate=08/31/2005&_qd=1&_sk=999549982&view=c&wchp=dGLbVlz-zSkWz&md5=0b2a898551e3037d4564421c43e885c6&ie=/sdarticle.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15924938&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=15924938&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0042698905001069
  
• Kirk Ludwig & Susan Schneider (2008). Fodor's challenge to the classical computational theory of mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In The Mind Doesn’t Work that Way, Jerry Fodor argues that mental representations have context sensitive features relevant to cognition, and that, therefore, the Classical Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) is mistaken. We call this the Globality Argument. This is an in principle argument against CTM. We argue that it is self-defeating. We consider an alternative argument constructed from materials in the discussion, which avoids the pitfalls of the official argument. We argue that it is also unsound and that, while it is an empirical issue whether context sensitive features of mental representations are relevant to cognition, it is empirically implausible
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/kludwig/Papers/FCCCTM-Mind-and-Language.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00332.x
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119401014/PDFSTART
  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sls/Fodors Challenge.doc
  
• Fiona Macpherson (forthcoming). 'Cognitive penetration of colour experience: Rethinking the issue in light of an indirect mechanism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Can the phenomenal character of perceptual experience be altered by the states of one’s cognitive system, for example, one’s thoughts or beliefs? Ifone thinks that this can happen [at least in certain ways that are identWed in the paper] then one thinks that there can be cognitive penetration of perceptual experience; otherwise, one thinks that perceptual experience is cognitivelv impenetrable. I claim that there is one alleged case ofcognitive penetration that cannot be explained away by the standard strategies one can typicallv use to explain away alleged cases. The case is one in which it seems subjects’ beliefs about the typical colour of objects ajfects their colour experience. I propose a two-step mechanism of indirect cognitive penetration that explains how cognitive penetration may occur. I show that there is independent evidence that each step in this process can occur. I suspect that people who are opposed to the idea that perceptual experience is cognitivelv penetrable will be less opposed to the idea when they come to consider this indirect mechanism and that those who are generallv sympathetic to the idea ofcognitive penetrability will welcome the elucidation ofthis plausible mechanism
• Edouard Machery (online). Massive modularity and brain evolution.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Quartz (2002) argues that some recent findings about the evolution of the brain (Finlay & Darlington, 1995) are inconsistent with evolutionary psychologists’ massive modularity hypothesis. In substance, Quartz contends that since the volume of the neocortex evolved in a concerted manner, natural selection did not act on neocortical systems independently of each other, which is a necessary condition for the massive modularity of our cognition to be true. I argue however that Quartz’s argument fails to undermine the massive modularity hypothesis
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.pitt.edu/~machery/papers/Evolutionary psychology and brain evolution machery 2007.pdf
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002972/01/Evolutionary_Psychology_and_Brain_Evolution_PSA_2006_machery.pdf
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/525624
  
• Alexander Maier, Melanie Wilke, Nikos K. Logothetis & David A. Leopold (2003). Perception of temporally interleaved ambiguous patterns.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Background: Continuous viewing of ambiguous patterns is characterized by wavering perception that alternates between two or more equally valid visual solutions. However, when such patterns are viewed intermittently, either by repetitive presentation or by periodic closing of the eyes, perception can become locked or "frozen" in one configuration for several minutes at a time. One aspect of this stabilization is the possible existence of a perceptual memory that persists during periods in which the ambiguous stimulus is absent. Here, we use a novel paradgim of temporally interleaved ambiguous stimuli to explore the nature of this memory, with particular regard to its potential impact on perceptual organization. Results: We found that the persistence of a perceptual configuration was robust to interposed visual patterns and, further, that at least three ambiguous patterns, when interleaved in time, could undergo parallel, stable time courses. Then, using an interleaved presentation paradigm, we established that the occasional reversal in one pattern could be coupled with that of its interleaved counterpart, and that this coupling was a function of the structural similarity between the patterns. Conclusions: We postulate that the stabilization observed with repetitive presentation of ambiguous patterns can be at least partially accounted for by processes that retain a recent perceptual interpretation, and we speculate that such memory may be important in natural vision. We further propose tha the interleaved paradigm introduced here may be of great value to gauge aspects of stimulus similarity that appeal to particular mechanisms of perceptual organization
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/fulltext?uid=PIIS0960982203004147
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12842006&dopt=Abstract
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12842006&dopt=Citation
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982203004147
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/09609822/2003/00000013/00000013/art00414
  
• Matteo Mameli (2002). Modules and mindreaders.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: There are many interesting empirical and theoretical issues concerning the evolution of cognition. Despite this, recent books on the topic concentrate on two problems. One is mental modularity. The other is what distinguishes human from non-human minds. While it is easy to understand why people are interested in human uniqueness, it is not clear why modularity is the centre of attention. Fodor (2000) has a nice argument for why people _should_ be interested in modularity
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/r74j5078k853wk5x/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=334262&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/R74J5078K853WK5X.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/biph/2001/00000016/00000003/00334262
  
• Ron McClamrock (2003). Modularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Marr (for whom the boundary of the visual module the cognitive impenetrability of the systems of
• Marcin Miłkowski (2008). When Weak Modularity is Robust Enough?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper, I suggest that the notion of module explicitly defined by Peter Carruthers in The Architecture of The Mind (Carruthers 2006) is not really In use in the book. Instead, a more robust notion seems to be actually in play. The more robust notion, albeit implicitly assumed, seems to be far more useful for making claims about the modularity of mind. Otherwise, the claims would become trivial. This robust notion will be reconstructed and improved upon by putting it into a more general framework of mental architecture. I defend the view that modules are the outcome of structural rather than functional decomposition and that they should be conceived as near decomposable systems.
• Mitch Parsell (2005). Context-sensitive inference, modularity, and the assumption of formal processing.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Performance on the Wason selection task varies with content. This has been taken to demonstrate that there are different cognitive modules for dealing with different conceptual domains. This implication is only legitimate if our underlying cognitive architecture is formal. A non-formal system can explain content-sensitive inference without appeal to independent inferential modules
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713997459~fulltext=713240930
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/713997459.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2005/00000018/00000001/art00003
  
• Jesse J. Prinz (2006). Is the mind really modular?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: When Fodor titled his (1983) book the _Modularity of Mind_, he overstated his position. His actual view is that the mind divides into systems some of which are modular and others of which are not. The book would have been more aptly, if less provocatively, called _The Modularity of Low-Level Peripheral Systems_. High-level perception and cognitive systems are non-modular on Fodor’s theory. In recent years, modularity has found more zealous defenders, who claim that the entire mind divides into highly specialized modules. This view has been especially popular among Evolutionary Psychologists. They claim that the mind is massively modular (Cosmides and Tooby, 1994; Sperber, 1994; Pinker, 1997; see also Samuels, 1998). Like a Swiss Army Knife, the mind is an assembly of specialized tools, each of which has been designed for some particular purpose. My goal here is to raise doubts about both peripheral modularity and massive modularity. To do that, I will rely on the criteria for modularity laid out by Fodor (1983). I will argue that neither input systems, nor central systems are modular on any of these criteria
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=OR-ApDfUMUkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1983&ots=LNjHRvVdqH&sig=SOdhq2cw2TRmA9nbtg01Nlpqtxw
  
• Philip Robbins (online). Modularity of Mind.   (More)
• Richard Samuels (2006). Is the human mind massively modular?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Among the most pervasive and fundamental assumptions in cognitive science is that the human mind (or mind-brain) is a mechanism of some sort: a physical device com- posed of functionally specifiable subsystems. On this view, functional decomposition – the analysis of the overall system into functionally specifiable parts – becomes a central project for a science of the mind, and the resulting theories of cognitive archi- tecture essential to our understanding of human psychology
• Richard Samuels (2005). The complexity of cognition: Tractability arguments for massive modularity.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/tinnm/2005/00000001/00000001/art00008
  
• Susan Schneider, Yes, it does: A diatribe on Jerry Fodor's the mind doesn't work that way.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way is an expose of certain theoretical problems in cognitive science, and in particular, problems that concern the Classical Computational Theory of Mind (CTM). The problems that Fodor worries plague CTM divide into two kinds, and both purport to show that the success of cognitive science will likely be limited to the modules. The first sort of problem concerns what Fodor has called “global properties”; features that a mental sentence has which depend on how the sentence interacts with a larger plan (i.e., set of sentences), rather than the type identity of the sentence alone. The second problem concerns what many have called, “The Relevance Problem”: the problem of whether and how humans determine what is relevant in a computational manner. However, I argue that the problem that Fodor believes global properties pose for CTM is a non-problem, and that further, while the relevance problem is a serious research issue, it does not justify the grim view that cognitive science, and CTM in particular, will likely fail to explain cognition
• Lee Spector (2002). Hierarchy helps it work that way.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Jerry Fodor argues, in The mind doesn't work that way (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000, that the computational theory of mind is undermined by the pervasive context sensitivity of human cognition. His objections can be easily met, however, by noting the properties of appropriately structured representation hierarchies
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://helios.hampshire.edu/lspector/pubs/spector-hierarchy.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713690560~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/QLCQR04LXJLPUM31.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/QLCQR04LXJLPUM31.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2002/00000015/00000002/art00001
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a713690560~fulltext=713240930
  
• Dan Sperber (2005). Modularity and relevance: How can a massively modular mind be flexible and context-sensitive.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://perso.club-internet.fr/sperber/relevance and modularity.htm
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/disk0/00/00/04/49/ijn_00000449_00/ijn_00000449_00.htm
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/tinnm/2005/00000001/00000001/art00005
  
• Kim Sterelny (2004). Language, modularity, and evolution.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Language is at the core of the cognitive revolution that has transformed that discipline over the last forty years or so, and it is also the central paradigm for the most prominent attempt to synthesise psychology and evolutionary theory. A single and distinctively modular view of language has emerged out of both these perspectives, one that encourages a certain idealisation. Linguistic competence is uniform, independent of other cognitive capacities, and with a developmental trajectory that is largely independent of environmental input (Pinker 1994; Pinker 1997). Thus language is seen as a paradigm of John Tooby and Leda Cosmides’ concept of “evoked culture”: linguistic experience serves only to select a specific item from a menu of innately available options (Tooby and Cosmides 1992). In explaining this concept, they appeal to the metaphor of a jukebox. The human genome pre-stores a set of options, and the different experiences provided by different cultures select different elements out of this option set. I think an appropriate evolutionary perspective on language substantially undercuts this idealisation and the evoked culture model of language. Variability between speakers; the sensitivity of linguistic development to environmental input; and the limits of encapsulation are not noise. They are central to the language and its evolution
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.vuw.ac.nz/phil/staff/documents/sterelny-papers/macdonald.pdf
  http://www.victoria.ac.nz/phil/staff/documents/sterelny-papers/macdonald.pdf
  
• John Sutton (ms). Review of Jerry Fodor, the mind doesn’t work that way: The scope and limits of computational psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This review sketches Fodor's critique of evolutionary psychology and the 'massive modularity' thesis; queries his views on abduction in central processes; and suggests that his pessimism about the scope of computational psychology undermines his realism about folk psychology
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/1360/1/Fodorreview.htm
  
• Daniel A. Weiskopf (2002). On Fodor's The Mind Doesn't Work That Way.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The "New Synthesis" in cognitive science is committed to the computational theory of mind (CTM), massive modularity, nativism, and adaptationism. In The mind doesn't work that way , Jerry Fodor argues that CTM has problems explaining abductive or global inference, but that the New Synthesis offers no solution, since massive modularity is in fact incompatible with global cognitive processes. I argue that it is not clear how global human mentation is, so whether CTM is imperiled is an open question. Massive modularity also lacks some of the invidious commitments Fodor ascribes to it. Furthermore, Fodor's anti-adaptationist arguments are in tension with his nativism about the contents of modular systems. The New Synthesis thus has points worth preserving
• Robert A. Wilson (2008). The drink you have when you're not having a drink.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The Architecture of the Mind is itself built on foundations that deserve probing. In this brief commentary I focus on these foundations—Carruthers’ conception of modularity, his arguments for thinking that the mind is massively modular in structure, and his view of human cognitive architecture
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2008.00343.x
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/120085766/PDFSTART
  
• Robert A. Wilson (2005). What computers (still, still) can't do: Jerry Fodor on computation and modularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Fodor's thinking on modularity has been influential throughout a range of the areas studying cognition, chiefly as a prod for positive work on modularity and domain-specificity. In _The Mind Doesn't Work That Way_, Fodor has developed the dark message of _The Modularity of Mind_ regarding the limits to modularity and computational analyses. This paper offers a critical assessment of Fodor's scepticism with an eye to highlighting some broader issues in play, including the nature of computation and the role of recent empirical developments in the cognitive sciences in assessing Fodor's position

Evolution of Cognition

• Anthony P. Atkinson & M. Wheeler (2003). Evolutionary psychology's grain problem and the cognitive neuroscience of reasoning.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rESRnRXastAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA61&ots=3fPYuiUWY3&sig=BgG5emRnUOdpZKdXAgjqdRwPK5A
  
• Anthony P. Atkinson & M. Wheeler (2004). The grain of domains: The evolutionary-psychological case against domain-general cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Prominent evolutionary psychologists have argued that our innate psychological endowment consists of numerous domainspecific cognitive resources, rather than a few domaingeneral ones. In the light of some conceptual clarification, we examine the central inprinciple arguments that evolutionary psychologists mount against domaingeneral cognition. We conclude (a) that the fundamental logic of Darwinism, as advanced within evolutionary psychology, does not entail that the innate mind consists exclusively, or even massively, of domainspecific features, and (b) that a mixed innate cognitive economy of domainspecific and domaingeneral resources remains a genuine conceptual possibility. However, an examination of evolutionary psychology's 'grain problem' reveals that there is no way of establishing a principled and robust distinction between domainspecific and domaingeneral features. Nevertheless, we show that evolutionary psychologists can and do live with this grain problem without their whole enterprise being undermined
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2004.00252.x
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2004.00252.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2004/00000019/00000002/art00002
  
• Scott Atran (2005). Adaptationism for human cognition: Strong, spurious, or weak?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Strong adaptationists explore complex organic design as taskspecific adaptations to ancestral environments. This strategy seems best when there is evidence of homology. Weak adaptationists don't assume that complex organic (including cognitive and linguistic) functioning necessarily or primarily represents taskspecific adaptation. This approach to cognition resembles physicists' attempts to deductively explain the most facts with fewest hypotheses. For certain domainspecific competencies (folkbiology) strong adaptationism is useful but not necessary to research. With grouplevel belief systems (religion) strong adaptationism degenerates into spurious notions of social function and cultural selection. In other cases (language, especially universal grammar) weak adaptationism's 'minimalist' approach seems productive
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://hal.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/05/36/19/PDF/ijn_00000574_00.pdf
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/05/36/19/PDF/ijn_00000574_00.pdf
  http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/05/36/19/PDF/ijn_00000574_00.pdf
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/disk0/00/00/05/74/ijn_00000574_00/ijn_00000574_00.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.0268-1064.2005.00277.x/abs/
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0268-1064.2005.00277.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2005/00000020/00000001/art00004
  
• Carl T. Bergstrom & Peter Godfrey-Smith (1998). On the evolution of behavioral complexity in individuals and populations.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   A wide range of ecological and evolutionary models predict variety in phenotype or behavior when a population is at equilibrium. This heterogeneity can be realized in different ways. For example, it can be realized through a complex population of individuals exhibiting different simple behaviors, or through a simple population of individuals exhibiting complex, varying behaviors. In some theoretical frameworks these different realizations are treated as equivalent, but natural selection distinguishes between these two alternatives in subtle ways. By investigating an increasingly complex series of models, from a simple fluctuating selection model up to a finite population hawk/dove game, we explore the selective pressures which discriminate between pure strategists, mixed at the population level, and individual mixed strategists. Our analysis reveals some important limitations to the ESS framework often employed to investigate the evolution of complex behavior
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://leonia.zoology.washington.edu/publications/BergstromAndGodfreySmith98.pdf
  http://octavia.zoology.washington.edu/publications/BergstromAndGodfreySmith98.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/n20p26118gt35523/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/N20P26118GT35523.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/biph/1998/00000013/00000002/00133153
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~pgs/BergstromPGS_ESS.pdf
  
• Angelo Cangelosi, Alberto Greco & Stevan Harnad (2002). Symbol grounding and the symbolic theft hypothesis.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Scholars studying the origins and evolution of language are also interested in the general issue of the evolution of cognition. Language is not an isolated capability of the individual, but has intrinsic relationships with many other behavioral, cognitive, and social abilities. By understanding the mechanisms underlying the evolution of linguistic abilities, it is possible to understand the evolution of cognitive abilities. Cognitivism, one of the current approaches in psychology and cognitive science, proposes that symbol systems capture mental phenomena, and attributes cognitive validity to them. Therefore, in the same way that language is considered the prototype of cognitive abilities, a symbol system has become the prototype for studying language and cognitive systems. Symbol systems are advantageous as they are easily studied through computer simulation (a computer program is a symbol system itself), and this is why language is often studied using computational models
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://eprints.resist.ecs.soton.ac.uk/6470/
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=571370
  http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00006470/
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00002132/
  http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/21/32/
  http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad01.cangelosi-greco.pdf
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk:6470
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:2132
  
• Dr Wayne Christensen (ms). The decoupled representation theory of the evolution of cognition - a critical assessment.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Sterelny’s Thought in a Hostile World (2003) presents a complex, systematically structured theory of the evolution of cognition centered on a concept of decoupled representation. Taking Godfrey-Smith’s (1996) analysis of the evolution of behavioral flexibility as a framework, the theory describes increasingly complex grades of representation beginning with simple detection and culminating with decoupled representation, said to be belief-like, and it characterizes selection forces that drive evolutionary transformations in these forms of representation. Sterelny’s ultimate explanatory target is the evolution of human agency. This paper develops a detailed analysis of the main cognitive aspects. It is argued that some of the major claims are not correct: decoupled representation as defined doesn’t capture belief-like representation, and, properly understood, decoupled representation turns out to be ubiquitous amongst multicellular animals. However some of the key ideas are right, or along the right lines, and suggestions are made for modifying and expanding the conceptual framework
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/61/2/361
  
• Paul Coates (2003). Review of Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion?.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A cluster of experiments on “Change Blindness”, “Inattentional Blindness” and associated phenomena appear to demonstrate extremely counter intuitive results. According to one plausible characterisation, these results show that we consciously take in far less of the visual world than it seems we are aware of. It is worth briefly summarising the results of two recent sets of experiments, in order to give a flavour of this work. In ‘Gorillas in our Midst’ (Simons, D. and Chabris, C., Perception, 1999, 28), subjects were asked to perform a task that involved watching a video of a casual basketball game that lasts for about a minute. The task involves counting the number of consecutive passes between members of the one of the teams. While the basketball is being thrown from player to player, something unexpected takes place: a person dressed in a black gorilla-suit walks through the play, stops briefly in the centre of the picture, thumps his chest, and then walks off. Although most subjects correctly record the number of passes made by the team, at least half of these subjects fail to notice the gorilla-suited interloper, who is visible for about nine seconds. When shown the video sequence a second time they are amazed to observe what they had previously overlooked
• Denise D. Cummins & Robert E. Cummins (1999). Biological preparedness and evolutionary explanation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It is commonly supposed that evolutionary explanations of cognitive phenomena involve the assumption that the capacities to be explained are both innate and modular. This is understandable: independent selection of a trait requires that it be both heritable and largely decoupled from other `nearby' traits. Cognitive capacities realized as innate modules would certainly satisfy these contraints. A viable evolutionary cognitive psychology, however, requires neither extreme nativism nor modularity, though it is consistent with both. In this paper, we seek to show that rather weak assumptions about innateness and modularity are consistent with evolutionary explanations of cognitive capacities. Evolutionary pressures can affect the degree to which the development of a capacity is canalized by biasing acquisition/ learning in ways that favor development of concepts and capacities that proved adaptive to an organism's ancestors. q 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/dcummins/www/HomePage/CogArticle.pdf
  
• Denise D. Cummins & Robert E. Cummins (2005). Innate modules vs innate learning biases.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Proponents of the dominant paradigm in evolutionary psychology argue that a viable evolutionary cognitive psychology requires that specific cognitive capacities be heritable and “quasi-independent” from other heritable traits, and that these requirements are best satisfied by innate cognitive modules. We argue here that neither of these are required in order to describe and explain how evolution shaped the mind
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rcummins/www/HomePage/Papers/CogProc.pdf
  
• Paul Sheldon Davies (1996). Preface: Evolutionary theory in cognitive psychology.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/index/EKNYYDMAXFTD34R5.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/p62353g160v4154t/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/W81367752L8R21W4.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/P62353G160V4154T.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/1996/00000006/00000004/00118930
  
• Ruth G. Millikan (1997). On cognitive luck: Externalism in an evolutionary frame.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Steven Pinker (1995) chides the educated layman for imagining Darwin's theory to go this way (the vertical lines are "begats"): [Figure #1] Pinker says, "evolution did not make a ladder; it made a bush" (p. 343), and he gives us the following diagrams instead, showing how it went, in increasing detail, down to us
• Peter Godfrey-Smith (2002). Environmental complexity and the evolution of cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: One problem faced in discussions of the evolution of intelligence is the need to get a precise fix on what is to be explained. Terms like "intelligence," "cognition" and "mind" do not have simple and agreed-upon meanings, and the differences between conceptions of intelligence have consequences for evolutionary explanation. I hope the papers in this volume will enable us to make progress on this problem. The present contribution is mostly focused on these basic and foundational issues, although the last section of the paper will look at some specific models and programs of empirical work
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://star.tau.ac.il/~eshel/Bio_complexity/7.Complexity/ComplexityCog.pdf
  http://star.tau.ac.il/~eshel/Bio_complexity/1.Introduction/ComplexityCog.pdf
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~pgs/OnlinePapers/PGSComplexityAndCog2002.pdf
  
• Peter Godfrey-Smith (2002). On the evolution of representational and interpretive capacities.   (More)
• Mark Greenberg (2004). Goals versus memes: Explanation in the theory of cultural evolution.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Darwinian theories of culture need to show that they improve upon the commonsense view that cultural change is explained by humans? skillful pursuit of their conscious goals. In order for meme theory to pull its weight, it is not enough to show that the development and spread of an idea is, broadly speaking, Darwinian, in the sense that it proceeds by the accumulation of change through the differential survival and transmission of varying elements. It could still be the case that the best explanation of why the idea has developed and spread is the conscious pursuit of human goals. Meme theory has the potential to do explanatory work in diverse ways. It can challenge the goal-based account of cultural change directly. Other possibilities for meme theory include explaining the acquisition of our goals and showing that memes and genes evolve together, each affecting the selective forces acting on the other. Raising the question of meme theory?s explanatory payoff brings out the importance of the ?selfish-meme? idea and the idea of non-content biases. Both have the potential to challenge the claim that our goals are in the driver?s seat. In order to show that a Darwinian theory of culture is more than an idle redescription, however, it is necessary to make the case that it offers explanatory gain over its competitors, in particular over the common sense goal-based account
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://phonline.org/paper.php?keynum=507
  http://repositories.cdlib.org/uclalaw/plltwps/5-13
  http://repositories.cdlib.org/uclalaw/plltwps/5-13/
  http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=797143
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tjreR_o3xcMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA339&dq=Goals+versus+memes+Greenberg&ots=jFhfFp9ad_&sig=dFzM0qsl10Qw7xhG1-_V-C0l0X4
  
• Marc D. Hauser & Elizabeth Spelke (2004). Evolutionary and developmental foundations of human knowledge.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What are the brain and cognitive systems that allow humans to play baseball, compute square roots, cook soufflés, or navigate the Tokyo subways? It may seem that studies of human infants and of non-human animals will tell us little about these abilities, because only educated, enculturated human adults engage in organized games, formal mathematics, gourmet cooking, or map-reading. In this chapter, we argue against this seemingly sensible conclusion. When human adults exhibit complex, uniquely human, culture-specific skills, they draw on a set of psychological and neural mechanisms with two distinctive properties: they evolved before humanity and thus are shared with other animals, and they emerge early in human development and thus are common to infants, children, and adults. These core knowledge systems form the building blocks for uniquely human skills. Without them we wouldn’t be able to learn about different kinds of games, mathematics, cooking, or maps. To understand what is special about human intelligence, therefore, we must study both the core knowledge systems on which it rests and the mechanisms by which these systems are orchestrated to permit new kinds of concepts and cognitive processes. What is core knowledge? A wealth of research on non-human primates and on human infants suggests that a system of core knowledge is characterized by four properties (Hauser, 2000; Spelke, 2000). First, it is domain-specific: each system functions to represent particular kinds of entities such as conspecific agents, manipulable objects, places in the environmental layout, and numerosities. Second, it is task-specific: each system uses its representations to address specific questions about the world, such as “who is this?” [face recognition], “what does this do?” [categorization of artifacts], “where am I?” [spatial orientation], and “how many are here?” [enumeration]. Third, it is relatively encapsulated: each uses only a subset of the information delivered by an animal’s input systems and sends information only to a subset of the animal’s output systems.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/publications/learnconcepts/Hauser&Spelke.CogNeuro.pdf
  
• Edouard Machery & H. Clark Barrett (2006). Debunking Adapting Minds.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: David Buller’s recent book, _Adapting Minds_, is a philosophical critique of the field of evolutionary psychology. Buller argues that evolutionary psychology is utterly bankrupt from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. Although _Adapting Minds _has been well received in both the academic press and the popular media, we argue that Buller’s critique of evolutionary psychology fails
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.anthro.ucla.edu/faculty/barrett/debunking Adapting Minds Machery Barrett.pdf
  
• Matteo Mameli (online). Evolution and psychology in philosophical perspective.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: evolution has resulted in a restricted set of basic Humans are evolved organisms. This means that innate mental abilities and, in so far as human human minds have an evolutionary origin and psychological traits are concerned, in nothing that human psychological traits are, in one way else. This basic set comprises sensory skills and a or another, the product of evolution. This chap- small number of general-purpose rules for learn-
• Matteo Mameli (2002). Mindreading, mindshaping, and evolution.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I present and apply some powerful tools for studying human evolution and the impact of cultural resources on it. The tools in question are a theory of niche construction and a theory about the evolutionary significance of extragenetic (and, in particular, of psychological and social) inheritance. These tools are used to show how culturally transmitted resources can be recruited by development and become generatively entrenched. The case study is constituted by those culturally transmitted items that social psychologists call ‘expectancies’. Expectancy effects are mindshaping effects of our mindreading dispositions. I show how expectancies may have been recruited by important human developmental processes (like those involved in language acquisition and those responsible for gender differences) and how they may have become entrenched. If the hypothesis is correct, the relation between mindreading and human evolution is more intricate than usually thought
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/gmm32/MAMELI_MINDSHAPING_2001.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/qn3710311433401m/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=338130&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/QN3710311433401M.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/biph/2001/00000016/00000005/00338130
  
• Kelby Mason, Chandra Sripada & Stephen P. Stich (forthcoming). The philosophy of psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The 20^th century has been a tumultuous time in psychology – a century in which the discipline struggled with basic questions about its intellectual identity, but nonetheless managed to achieve spectacular growth and maturation. It’s not surprising, then, that psychology has attracted sustained philosophical attention and stimulated rich philosophical debate. Some of this debate was aimed at understanding, and sometimes criticizing, the assumptions, concepts and explanatory strategies prevailing in the psychology of the time. But much philosophical work has also been devoted to exploring the implications of psychological findings and theories for broader philosophical questions like: Are humans really rational animals? How malleable is human nature? and Do we have any innate knowledge or innate ideas? One particularly noteworthy fact about philosophy of psychology in the 20^th century is that, in the last quarter of the century, the distinction between psychology and the philosophy of psychology began to dissolve as philosophers played an increasingly active role in articulating and testing empirical theories about the mind and psychologists became increasingly interested in the philosophical underpinnings and implications of their work. Our survey is divided into five sections, each focusing on an important theme in 20^th century psychology which has been the focus of philosophical attention and has benefited from philosophical scrutiny
• S. Okasha (2003). Fodor on cognition, modularity, and adaptationism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper critically examines Jerry Fodor's latest attacks on evolutionary psychology. Contra Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Fodor argues (i) there is no reason to think that human cognition is a Darwinian adaptation in the first place, and (ii) there is no valid inference from adaptationism about the mind to massive modularity. However, Fodor maintains (iii) that there is a valid inference in the converse direction, from modularity to adaptationism, but (iv) that the language module is an exception to the validity of this inference. I explore Fodor's arguments for each of these claims, and the interrelations between them. I argue that Fodor is incorrect on point (i), correct on point (ii), partially correct on point (iii), and incorrect on point (iv). Overall, his critique fails to show that adopting a broadly Darwinian approach to cognition is intellectually indefensible
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?PHOS700107PDF
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/367870
  
• Steven Pinker & Paul Bloom (1990). Natural language and natural selection.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/99/index.html
  http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.pinker.html
  http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/99/bbs00000499-00/bbs.pinker.html
  http://www.phonetik.uni-muenchen.de/~hoole/kurse/hs_evolution/pinkerbloom_bbs_13_4_1990.pdf
  
• Robert J. Richards (2005). Darwin's metaphysics of mind.   (More)
• Kim Sterelny (2006). The evolution and evolvability of culture.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Joseph Henrich and Richard McElreath begin their survey of theories of cultural evolution with a striking historical example. They contrast the fate of the Bourke and Wills expedition — an attempt to explore some of the arid areas of inland Australia — with the routine survival of the local aboriginals in exactly the same area. That expedition ended in failure and death, despite the fact that it was well equipped, and despite the fact that those on the expedition were tough and experienced. For survival in such areas depended on accumulated local knowledge. The locals had learned how detoxify seeds before making bread from them, and how to catch the local fish. Bourke and Wills and their companions lacked this local knowledge, and died as a result (Henrich and McElreath 2003)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.vuw.ac.nz/phil/staff/documents/sterelny-papers/spandrels.pdf
  http://www.ceacb.ucl.ac.uk/cultureclub/files/2004-2005/CC2004-10-21-Sterelny-Cultural_Spandrels_V5A.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0268-1064.2006.00309.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2006/00000021/00000002/art00001
  
• John Tooby & Leda Cosmides (1998). Evolutionizing the cognitive sciences: A reply to Shapiro and Epstein.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/Evol_cogn.pdf
  http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/steen/cogweb/Abstracts/Tooby_Cosmides_98.html
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0017.00073
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/1998/00000013/00000002/art00003
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/1998/00000013/00000002/art00073
  
• Oscar Vilarroya (2001). From functional mess to bounded functionality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some evolutionary psychologists contend that the best way to discover the functions of our present psychological systems is by appealing to the notion of functional mesh, that is, the assumed tight fit between a trait's design and the adaptive problem it is supposed to solve. In this paper, I argue that there exist theoretical considerations and empirical evidence that undermine this assumption of optimal design. Instead, I suggest that cognitive systems are constrained by what I call bounded functionality. This proposal makes use of Jacob's (1977) notion of evolution as a bricoleur and Simon's (1981) idea that problems can have ``satisficing'' solutions. Functional mesh will thus be shown to neglect constraints that are necessary to explain the evolution of psychological mechanisms
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/t860165374368888/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/T860165374368888.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/2001/00000011/00000002/00281195
  
• M. Wheeler & Anthony P. Atkinson (2001). Domains, brains and evolution.   (More)
• James F. Woodward & Fiona Cowie (2004). The mind is not (just) a system of modules shaped (just) by natural selection.   (More)

Evolutionary Psychology

• Andre Ariew (2003). Natural selection doesn't work that way: Jerry Fodor vs. evolutionary psychology on gradualism and saltationism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In Chapter Five of The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way, Jerry Fodor argues that since it is likely that human minds evolved quickly as saltations rather than gradually as the product of an accumulation of small mutations, evolutionary psychologists are wrong to think that human minds are adaptations. I argue that Fodor’s requirement that adaptationism entails gradualism is wrongheaded. So, while evolutionary psychologists may be wrong to endorse gradualism—and I argue that they are wrong—it does not follow that they are wrong to endorse an adaptationist explanation for how the human mind evolved
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent?func=synergy&synergyAction=showEnhancedAbstract&doi=10.1111/1468-0017.00238
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1468-0017.00238/enhancedabs/
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0017.00238
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2003/00000018/00000005/art00002
  
• Jesse M. Bering & Todd K. Shackelford (2004). The causal role of consciousness: A conceptual addendum to human evolutionary psychology.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.uic.edu/classes/psych/Health/Readings/Bering, Consciousness in evolution, RevGenPsy, 2004.pdf
  
• David J. Buller (1999). Defreuding evolutionary psychology: Adaptation and human motivation.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000326
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:326
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6oMmmBNg4yMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA99&ots=Rpog4NPJFs&sig=rhqK0GNH5cDCRenlytBq5pQsZzs
  
• David J. Buller & Valerie Gray Hardcastle (2000). Evolutionary psychology, meet developmental neurobiology: Against promiscuous modularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Evolutionary psychologists claim that the mind contains “hundreds or thousands” of “genetically specified” modules, which are evolutionary adaptations for their cognitive functions. We argue that, while the adult human mind/brain typically contains a degree of modularization, its “modules” are neither genetically specified nor evolutionary adaptations. Rather, they result from the brain’s developmental plasticity, which allows environmental task demands a large role in shaping the brain’s information-processing structures. The brain’s developmental plasticity is our fundamental psychological adaptation, and the “modules” that result from it are adaptive responses to local conditions, not past evolutionary environments. If different individuals share common environ- ments, however, they may develop similar “modules,” and this process can mimic the development of genetically specified modules in the evolutionary psychologist’s sense
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/qt4144x64j342878/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=311109&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/QT4144X64J342878.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/bram/2000/00000001/00000003/00311109
  
• David J. Buller (2005). Evolutionary psychology: The emperor's new paradigm.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://host.uniroma3.it/progetti/kant/field/ep.htm
  http://tv.isg.si/site/ftpaccess/elogedusavoir/Evolutionary psychology - the emperor's new paradigm.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15925806&dopt=Citation
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S136466130500104X
  
• David J. Buller (1997). Individualism and evolutionary psychology (or: In defense of "narrow" functions).   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Millikan and Wilson argue, for different reasons, that the essential reference to the environment in adaptationist explanations of behavior makes (psychological) individualism inconsistent with evolutionary psychology. I show that their arguments are based on misinterpretations of the role of reference to the environment in such explanations. By exploring these misinterpretations, I develop an account of explanation in evolutionary psychology that is fully consistent with individualism. This does not, however, constitute a full-fledged defense of individualism, since evolutionary psychology is only one explanatory paradigm among many in psychology
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/03/28/
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000328/00/indy&ep.htm
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:328
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(199703)64:1<74:IAEP(I>2.0.CO;2-N
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(199703)64:1<74:IAEP(I>2.0.CO;2-N
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/392536
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/188370.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/328/1/indy%26ep.htm
  http://cogprints.org/328/0/indy%26ep.htm
  
• Leda Cosmides & John Tooby (online). Evolutionary psychology: A Primer.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html
  http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/steen/cogweb/ep/EP-primer.html
  http://psychology.psy.sunysb.edu/ewaters/552/PDF_Files/EvolPsych.PDF
  http://www.psychology.sunysb.edu/ewaters/552/PDF_Files/EvolPsych.PDF
  http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/steen/cogweb/ep/EP-primer_contents.html
  http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3psy/courses03w/351s/Articles/EvolPsychPrimer.pdf
  
• Denise D. Cummins, Robert E. Cummins & Pierre Poirier (2003). Cognitive evolutionary psychology without representational nativism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A viable evolutionary cognitive psychology requires that specific cognitive capacities be (a) heritable and (b) ‘quasi-independent’ from other heritable traits. They must be heritable because there can be no selection for traits that are not. They must be quasi-independent from other heritable traits, since adaptive variations in a specific cognitive capacity could have no distinctive consequences for fitness if effecting those variations required widespread changes in other unrelated traits and capacities as well. These requirements would be satisfied by innate cognitive modules, as the dominant paradigm in evolutionary cognitive psychology assumes. However, those requirements would also be satisfied by heritable learning biases, perhaps in the form of architec- tural or chronotopic constraints, that operated to increase the canalization of specific cognitive capacities in the ancestral environment (Cummins and Cummins 1999). As an organism develops, cognitive capacities that are highly canalized as the result of heritable learning biases might result in an organism that is behaviourally quite similar to an organism whose innate modules come on line as the result of various environ- mental triggers. Taking this possibility seriously is increasingly important as the case against innate cognitive modules becomes increasingly strong
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=200306640198CI
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(qpklsmuvkrawsrnsetwrkp45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,10;journal,12,38;linkingpublicationresults,1:100672,1
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/FQ3QBLT394VVXU0Q.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/FQ3QBLT394VVXU0Q.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/teta/2003/00000015/00000002/art00002
  
• Eric Dietrich (1994). AI and the tyranny of Galen, or why evolutionary psychology and cognitive ethology are important to artificial intelligence.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Concern over the nature of AI is, for the tastes many AI scientists, probably overdone. In this they are like all other scientists. Working scientists worry about experiments, data, and theories, not foundational issues such as what their work is really about or whether their discipline is methodologically healthy. However, most scientists aren’t in a field that is approximately fifty years old. Even relatively new fields such as nonlinear dynamics or branches of biochemistry are in fact advances in older established sciences and are therefore much more settled. Of course, by stretching things, AI can be said to have a history reaching back t o Charles Babbage, and possibly back beyond that to Leibnitz. However, all of that is best viewed as prelude. AI’s history is punctuated with the invention of the computer (and, if one wants t o stretch our history back to the 1930s, the development of the notion of computation by Turing, Church, and others). Hence, AI really began (or began in earnest) sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s (some mark the conference a t Dartmouth in the summer of 1957 as the moment of our birth). And since those years we simply have not had time to settle into a routine science attacking reasonably well understood questions (for example, many of the questions some of us regard as supreme are regarded by others as inconsequential or mere excursions)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/777915170.pdf
  
• Stephen M. Downes, Evolutionary psychology, adaptation and design.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: People do lots of things and we have thousands of resources to explain our behavior. The social sciences, widely construed, include explanations of human behavior that invoke culture, religion, beliefs, desires, social institutions, race, gender and so on. In this paper I ignore all such explanations of human behavior. This is not because such explanations are all invalid or inferior, it is because they are not my current focus. A complete account of many components of human behavior will doubtless include reference to all manner of biological and cultural factors. Sarah Hrdy’s (1999) account of motherhood provides an example of the fusion of many different explanatory resources to account for a suite of human behavior. While some may criticize the details of her account, it is hard to deny that the scope of explanatory resources she appeals to is very broad
• Daniel Fessler (2006). Steps toward an evolutionary psychology of a culture dependent species.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fessler/pubs/FesslerStepsTowardEvPsych.pdf
  
• M. Forster & Lawrence A. Shapiro (2000). Prediction and accommodation in evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Ketelaar and Ellis have provided a remarkably clear and succinct statement of Lakatosian philosophy of science and have also argued compellingly that the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution fills the Lakatosian criteria of progressivity. We find ourselves in agreement with much of what Ketelaar and Ellis say about Lakatosian philosophy of science, but have some questions about (1) the place of evolutionary psychology in a Lakatosian framework, and (2) the extent to which evolutionary psychology truly predicts new findings
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philosophy.wisc.edu/forster/papers/Lakatos.htm
  http://philosophy.wisc.edu/forster/papers/Lakatos.pdf
  http://philosophy.wisc.edu/Forster/papers/Lakatos.pdf
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1047-840X(2000)11:1<31:PAAIEP>2.0.CO;2-P
  
• Bradley Franks (2005). The role of "the environment" in cognitive and evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Evolutionary psychology is widely understood as involving an integration of evolutionary theory and cognitive psychology, in which the former promises to revolutionise the latter. In this paper, I suggest some reasons to doubt that the assumptions of evolutionary theory and of cognitive psychology are as directly compatible as is widely assumed. These reasons relate to three different problems of specifying adaptive functions as the basis for characterising cognitive mechanisms: the disjunction problem, the grain problem and the environment problem. Each of these problems can be understood as arising from incommensurate characterisations of the nature and role of 'the environment' in the two approaches. Purported solutions to the problems appear to require detailed information concerning the EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptedness), with the disjunction problem placing the lowest requirement, the environment problem placing the highest requirement, and the grain problem placing an intermediate one. In each case, such information is not likely to be forthcoming, because it may require iterating through successively more distant EEA's with no principled stopping point. This produces a dilemma for evolutionary psychology - either to solve these apparently insoluble problems, or to attempt to avoid them but in doing so forego detailed evolutionary constraints on cognition
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713997464~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/H13763437G53T001.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/713997464.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2005/00000018/00000001/art00004
  
• John Gardner (online). Evolutionary psychology.   (More)
• Philip Gerrans (2007). Mechanisms of madness: Evolutionary psychiatry without evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Delusions are currently characterised as false beliefs produced by incorrect inference about external reality (DSM IV). This inferential conception has proved hard to link to explanations pitched at the level of neurobiology and neuroanatomy. This paper provides that link via a neurocomputational theory, based on evolutionary considerations, of the role of the prefrontal cortex in regulating offline cognition. When pathologically neuromodulated the prefrontal cortex produces hypersalient experiences which monopolise offline cognition. The result is characteristic psychotic experiences and patterns of thought. This bottom-up account uses neural network theory to integrate recent theories of the role of dopamine in delusion with the insights of inferential accounts. It also provides a general model for evolutionary psychiatry which avoids theoretical problems imported from evolutionary psychology
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/G38121M9586G7L56.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/biph/2007/00000022/00000001/00009025
  
• Philip Gerrans (2002). The theory of mind module in evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Evolutionary Psychology is based on the idea that the mind is a set of special purpose thinking devices or modules whose domain-specific structure is an adaptation to ancestral environments. The modular view of the mind is an uncontroversial description of the periphery of the mind, the input-output sensorimotor and affective subsystems. The novelty of EP is the claim that higher order cognitive processes also exhibit a modular structure. Autism is a primary case study here, interpreted as a developmental failure of a module devoted to social intelligence or Theory of Mind. In this article I reappraise the arguments for innate modularity of TOM and argue that they fail. TOM ability is a consequence of domain general development scaffolded by early, innately specified, sensorimotor abilities. The alleged Modularity of TOM results from interpreting the outcome of developmental failures characteristic of autism at too high a level of cognitive abstraction
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/mt53714528870818/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=385831&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/MT53714528870818.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/biph/2002/00000017/00000003/00385831
  
• C. Grace & James P. Moreland (2002). Intelligent design psychology and evolutionary psychology on consciousness: Turning water into wine.   (More)
• Paul Griffiths (online). Evo-devo meets the mind: Toward a developmental evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: _The emerging discipline of evolutionary developmental biology has opened up many new _ _lines of investigation into morphological evolution. Here I explore how two of the core _ _theoretical concepts in ‘evo-devo’ – modularity and homology – apply to evolutionary _ _psychology. I distinguish three sorts of module - developmental, functional and mental _ _modules and argue that mental modules need only be ‘virtual’ functional modules. _ _Evolutionary psychologists have argued that separate mental modules are solutions to _ _separate evolutionary problems. I argue that the structure of developmental modules in _ _an organism helps determine what counts as a separate evolutionary problem for that _ _organism. I suggest that homology as an organizing principle for research in _ _evolutionary psychology, has been severely neglected in favor of analogy (adaptive _ _function). I consider some arguments suggesting that determining homology is less _ _epistemically demanding than determining adaptive function and argue that _ _psychological categories defined by homology are, in fact, more suitable objects of _ _psychological - and particularly neuropsychological - investigation than categories _ _defined by analogy. _
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.duke.edu/philosophy/bio/assets/evodevogriffiths.pdf
  http://www.uq.edu.au/biohumanities/webpdfs/Evo-Devo_meets_the_mind.PDF
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000567/00/Evo-Devo_meets_the_mind.PDF
  http://eprints1.library.pitt.edu/archive/00000567/00/Evo-Devo_meets_the_mind.PDF
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/documents/disk0/00/00/05/67/PITT-PHIL-SCI00000567-00/Evo-Devo_meets_the_mind.PDF
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TDDy2p705wYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA195&ots=ldaWSP6uyM&sig=ZD426vfjRod5RpWlwADZi59ApuA
  
• Paul E. Griffiths, Evolutionary psychology: History and current status.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The development of evolutionary approaches to psychology from Classical Ethology through Sociobiology to Evolutionary Psychology is outlined and the main tenets of today's Evolutionary Psychology briefly examined: the heuristic value of evolutionary thinking for psychology, the massive modularity thesis and the monomorphic mind thesis
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000393/00/Evopsych.PDF
  
• Paul Edmund Griffiths, Ethology, sociobiology and evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In the years leading up to the Second World War the ethologists Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen, created the tradition of rigorous, Darwinian research on animal behavior that developed into modern behavioral ecology. At first glance, research on specifically human behavior seems to exhibit greater discontinuity that research on animal behavior in general. The 'human ethology' of the 1960s appears to have been replaced in the early 1970s by a new approach called ‘sociobiology’. Sociobiology in its turn appears to have been replaced by an approach calling itself Evolutionary Psychology. Closer examination, however, reveals a great deal of continuity between these schools. At present, whilst Evolutionary Psychology is the most visible form of evolutionary psychology, empirical and theoretical research on the evolution of mind and behavior is marked by a diversity of ideas and approaches and it is far from clear which direction(s) the field will take in future
• Simon J. Hampton (2006). Can evolutionary psychology learn from the instinct debate?   (More)
• Nicholas Humphrey (ms). Great expectations: The evolutionary psychology of faith- healing and the placebo effect.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I said that the cure itself is a certain leaf, but in addition to the drug there is a certain charm, which if someone chants when he makes use of it, the medicine altogether restores him to health, but without the charm there is no profit from the leaf
• John Jackson, Definitional argument in evolutionary psychology and cultural anthropology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: An old aphorism claims that “The person who defines the terms of the debate can win it.” This paper argues that the debate between evolutionary psychologists and cultural anthropologists over the biological explanation of human behavior is framed by a larger definitional dispute over the question, “What is culture?” Both disciplines attempt to define “culture” to build their disciplines, but were engaged in different kinds of arguments by definition. Definitional arguments often take one of two forms. A real definition takes the form “What is X?” In this view, we should use the word “X” in a particular way because that is what X really is. The other form of definitional argument, pragmatic definition, takes the form, “How should we use the term X?” In this view, an arguer puts for reasons for using the term “X” in a particular way. Evolutionary psychologists are engaged in argument by real definition. In their “manifesto” for evolutionary psychology, Tooby and Cosmides argue that the explanations of social or cultural behavior in the social sciences are “incoherent” because they attempt to explain such behavior “psychological phenomena without describing or even mentioning the evolved mechanisms their theories would require to be complete or coherent” (p.37). Because humans are biological creatures, cultural explanations must include biology because culture really is biological. Hence, biology is a necessary part of explanations of human culture. Cultural anthropologists engaged in argument by persuasive definition. A close examination of Kroeber’s writings reveals, however, that he readily acknowledged that humans were biological and culture rested on a biological foundation. He argued that we should treat culture as autonomous in our explanatory schemes because that would bring benefits to the biological sciences as well as the human sciences. In his writings, Kroeber reveals himself as a staunch Darwinian who argues for the autonomy of cultural anthropology on pragmatic, not on ontological grounds. Hence, the historical caricature of his work by evolutionary psychology fails
• Mostyn W. Jones (1995). Inadequacies in current theories of imagination.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Interest in imagination dates back to Plato and Aristotle, but full-length works have been devoted to it only relatively recently by Sartre, McKellar, Furlong, Casey, Johnson, Warnock, Brann, and others. Despite their length and variety, however, these current theories take overly narrow views of this complex phenomenon. (1) Their definitions of “imagination” neglect the multiplicity of its meanings and tend to focus narrowly on the power of imaging alone (which produces images and imagery). But imagination in the fullest, most encompassing sense centers instead on creativity, which involves both imaging and reasoning powers. (2) Current accounts of the operations of imagination narrowly construe it in fixed, immutable terms. But it’s instead a dynamic, evolving synergy of its psychological roots (images and symbols) and sociobiological roots (cultures and instincts). This synergy has transformed the roles of images and symbols in imagination (as Vygotsky, Goody, etc. note). For example, in the shift from mytheopic to scientific imagination, literacy and formal education fostered abstract symbolic thinking (reason), which differs from mytheopic thinking based on richly concrete associations (imagery). The result was “more than cool reason”, but experimental studies (by Perkins, Clement, etc.) show that it’s also more than just dreamy imagery. It’s a dynamic synergy of the two that has transformed both. (3) Current evaluations of imagination’s potentials are also narrow. They tend to focus on its role in mental life while ignoring social and political life. Also, they tend to follow romantic and existentialist customs of extolling imagination’s virtues without soberly critiquing its limitations. Again, they ignore the synergy of psychological, sociological and biological forces that shape mental and social evolution, and promote and constrain imagination in complex ways. For example, Sartre surreally asks us to choose our own nature with an imagination emancipated from institutional and instinctual strictures. Yet making intelligible choices depends on these strictures. (4) In conclusion, current theories define imagination narrowly in terms of imaging, they describe its operations in fixed and immutable terms, and they evaluate its potentials without examining the full interplay of forces shaping it. These shortcomings are remedied by a broader perspective that defines imagination more adequately and comprehensively, and that recognizes it’s complex roots, dynamic operations, and evolving potentials.
• Marc F. Krellenstein (ms). What have we learned from evolutionary psychology?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Evolutionary psychology claims biological inclinations for certain behaviors (e.g., a desire for more frequent sex and more sexual partners by males as compared to females), and the origin of these inclinations in natural selection. Jerry Fodor’s recent book, The Mind Doesn’t Work that Way (2000), grants the nativist case for such biological grounding but disputes the presumed certainty of its origin in natural selection. Nevertheless, there is today a consensus that at least some of the claims of evolutionary psychology are true, and their broad appeal suggests that many see them as easy insights into and possible license for some controversial behaviors. Evolutionary psychologists, on the other hand, caution that an origin in natural selection implies only an inclination for certain behaviors, and not that the behaviors will be true of all people, will lead to happiness or are morally correct. But such cautions can be as facile as the simplistic positions they are intended to counter. A biological basis implies tendencies to behaviors that will be pleasurable when engaged in, and that can be modified to an extent and at a psychic cost that is, at best, not fully understood. Also, while it is true that naturally selected behaviors are not necessarily moral, the implications of current evolutionary psychology cast doubt on any absolute foundation for morality at all, as well as suggesting limits on our ability to fully understand both ourselves and the universe around us. However, this does not mean that our (relative) values or apparent free will are any less real or important for us
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00003556/
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001954/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1954
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1954
  http://cogprints.org/1954/1/cogprints.txt
  http://cogprints.org/1954/0/cogprints.txt
  
• Neil Levy (2004). Evolutionary psychology, human universals, and the standard social science model.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Proponents of evolutionary psychology take the existence of humanuniversals to constitute decisive evidence in favor of their view. Ifthe same social norms are found in culture after culture, we have goodreason to believe that they are innate, they argue. In this paper Ipropose an alternative explanation for the existence of humanuniversals, which does not depend on them being the product of inbuiltpsychological adaptations. Following the work of Brian Skyrms, I suggestthat if a particular convention possesses even a very small advantageover competitors, whatever the reason for that advantage, we shouldexpect it to become the norm almost everywhere. Tiny advantages aretranslated into very large basins of attraction, in the language of gametheory. If this is so, universal norms are not evidence for innatepsychological adaptations at all. Having shown that the existence ofuniversals is consistent with the so-called Standard Social ScienceModel, I turn to a consideration of the evidence, to show that thisstyle of explanation is preferable to the evolutionary explanation, atleast with regard to patterns of gender inequality
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/q73x267217844228/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5146139&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/Q73X267217844228.pdf
  
• Elisabeth A. Lloyd (1999). Evolutionary psychology: The burdens or proof.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   I discuss two types of evidential problems with the most widely touted experiments in evolutionary psychology, those performed by Leda Cosmides and interpreted by Cosmides and John Tooby. First, and despite Cosmides and Tooby's claims to the contrary, these experiments don't fulfil the standards of evidence of evolutionary biology. Second Cosmides and Tooby claim to have performed a crucial experiment, and to have eliminated rival approaches. Though they claim that their results are consistent with their theory but contradictory to the leading non-evolutionary alternative, Pragmatic Reasoning Schemas theory, I argue that this claim is unsupported. In addition, some of Cosmides and Tooby's interpretations arise from misguided and simplistic understandings of evolutionary biology. While I endorse the incorporation of evolutionary approaches into psychology, I reject the claims of Cosmides and Tooby that a modular approach is the only one supported by evolutionary biology. Lewontin's critical examinations of the applications of adaptationist thinking provide a background of evidentiary standards against which to view the currently fashionable claims of evolutionary psychology
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l0q123855k2h21mv/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=207082&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/L0Q123855K2H21MV.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/biph/1999/00000014/00000002/00207082
  
• Edouard Machery (web). Discovery and confirmation in evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The defining insight of evolutionary psychology consists of bringing considerations drawn from evolutionary biology to bear on the study of human psychology. So characterized, evolutionary psychology encompasses a large range of views about the nature and evolution of human psychology as well as diverging opinions about the proper method for studying them.¹ In this article, I propose to clarify and evaluate various aspects of evolutionary psychologists’ methodology, with a special focus on their heuristics of discovery—i.e., their methods for developing plausible hypotheses—and their strategies of confirmation—i.e., their methods for providing empirical support for these hypotheses.² I will also evaluate several well-known objections raised against evolutionary psychology. Note that because views about psychology and evolution differ among evolutionary psychologists, I do not pretend to cover every method used in evolutionary psychology.³
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.pitt.edu/AFShome/m/a/machery/public/html/papers/Discovery_and_Confirmation_in_Evolutionary_Psychology_FINAL.pdf
  
• Ronald Mallon & Stephen P. Stich (2000). The odd couple: The compatibility of social construction and evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Evolutionary psychology and social constructionism are widely regarded as fundamentally irreconcilable approaches to the social sciences. Focusing on the study of the emotions, we argue that this appearance is mistaken. Much of what appears to be an empirical disagreement between evolutionary psychologists and social constructionists over the universality or locality of emotional phenomena is actually generated by an implicit philosophical dispute resulting from the adoption of different theories of meaning and reference. We argue that once this philosophical dispute is recognized, it can be set to the side. When this is done, it becomes clear that the two approaches to the emotions complement, rather than compete with, one another
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ArchiveFolder/Research Group/Publications/Odd/OddCouple.html
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(200003)67:1<133:TOCTCO>2.0.CO;2-D
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(200003)67:1<133:TOCTCO>2.0.CO;2-D
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/392765
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/188617.pdf
  
• Matteo Mameli (online). Sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and adaptive thinking.   (More)
• Danielle Meijer (2007). Adapting minds: Evolutionary psychology and the persistent Quest for human nature.   (More)
• Alain Morin (ms). Evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A review of The Face in the Mirror: The Search for the Origins of Consciousness by Julian Paul Keenan with Gordon C. Gallup Jr. and Dean Falk. Ecco, New York, 2003. ISBN 006001279X
• John T. Mullen (2007). Can evolutionary psychology confirm original sin?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Christian responses to the developing field of evolutionary psychology tend to be defensive, focusing on the task of showing that Christians have not beenpresented with any reason to abandon any central beliefs of the Christian faith. A more positive response would seek to show that evolutionary psychologycan provide some sort of epistemic support for one or more distinctively Christian doctrines. This paper is an attempt to supply such a response by focusing on the distinctively Christian doctrine of original sin, which presents itself as an especially likely candidate for support from evolutionary psychology. I consider five versions of the doctrine in order of increasing content, arguing that all but the last can receive such support. However, in order to argue for the fourth version (which includes the doctrine traditionally described as “original guilt”), I enlist the aid of a Molinist understanding of divine providence. A consequence of this application of Molinism is that God holds us morally accountable, not only for what we actually do, but also for what we would do in any non-actual conditions, and that He acts on His knowledge of what we would do in such conditions. Because many may find this consequence problematic, I also argue that it is both morally acceptableand necessary for the perfection of the relationship between God and human beings. The last version of original sin that I consider insists that it must be thecausal product of the first sin of the first human being(s), but I argue that this is not a reasonable alternative if original sin is to be equated with behavioraltendencies inherited from an evolutionary ancestry
• Dominic Murphy (2000). Darwin in the madhouse: Evolutionary psychology and the classification of mental disorders.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Recent years have witnessed a ground swell of interest in the application of evolutionary theory to issues in psychopathology (Nesse & Williams 1995, Stevens & Price 1996, McGuire & Troisi 1998). Much of this work has been aimed at finding adaptationist explanations for a variety of mental disorders ranging from phobias to depression to schizophrenia. There has, however, been relatively little discussion of the implications that the theories proposed by evolutionary psychologists might have for the classification of mental disorders. This is the theme we propose to explore. We'll begin, in Section 2, by providing a brief overview of the account of the mind advanced by evolutionary psychologists. In Section 3 we'll explain why issues of taxonomy are important and why the dominant approach to the classification of mental disorders is radically and alarmingly unsatisfactory. We will also indicate why we think an alternative approach, based on theories in evolutionary psychology, is particularly promising. In Section 4 we'll try to illustrate some of the virtues of the evolutionary psychological approach to classification. The discussion in Section 4 will highlight a quite fundamental distinction between those disorders that arise from the malfunction of a component of the mind and those that can be traced to the fact that our minds must now function in environments that are very different from the environments in which they evolved. This mis-match between the current and ancestral environments can, we maintain, give rise to serious mental disorders despite the fact that, in one important sense, there is nothing at all wrong with the people suffering the disorder. Their minds are functioning exactly as Mother Nature intended them to. In Section 5, we'll give a brief overview of some of the ways in which the sorts of malfunctions catalogued in Section 4 might arise, and sketch two rather different strategies for incorporating this etiologically
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ArchiveFolder/Research Group/Publications/Mad/Madhouse.html
  
• Steven Quartz, Jackie Sullivan, Peter Machamer & Andrea Scarantino, Session 5: Development, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Proceedings of the Pittsburgh Workshop in History and Philosophy of Biology, Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, March 23-24 2001 Session 5: Development, Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology
• Steven M. Rosen (1999). Evolution of Attentional Processes in the Human Organism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This article explores the evolution of human attention, focusing particularly on the phylogenetic and ontogenetic implications of the work of the American social psychiatrist Trigant Burrow. Attentional development is linked to the emergence of visual perspective, and this, in turn, is related to Burrow's notion of `ditention' (divided or partitive attention). Burrow's distinction between `ditention' and `cotention' (total organismic awareness) is examined, and, expanding on this, a threefold pattern of perceptual change is identified: prototention-->ditention-->cotention. Next, ditentive visual perspective is related to binocular convergence, and the author makes use of the perspectivally ambiguous, `non-convergent' Gestalt figure known as the Necker Cube to illustrate cotention. The paper concludes by proposing that the shift from the currently pervasive ditentive pattern of awareness to a cotentive mode could have a salutary effect on human society.
• Warren Schmaus (2003). Is Durkheim the enemy of evolutionary psychology?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: an exemplar of an approach that takes the human mind to be largely the product of social and cultural factors with negligible contributions from biology. The author argues that on the contrary, his sociological theory of the categories is compatible with the possibility of innate cognitive capacities, taking causal cognition as his example. Whether and to what extent there are such innate capacities is a question for research in the cognitive neurosciences. The extent to which these innate capacities can then be explained by natural selection remains an open question for empirical investigation. Key Words: categories • causality • cognition • Durkheim • evolutionary psychology
• Larry Shapiro (web). Evolutionary psychology.   (More)
• Cosma Shalizi, Evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The study of how our minds have evolved, and the traces left by that evolution. The most important seems to be that we don't have a general, content-neutral intelligence, but a gang or collection of specialized intelligences bent and stretched into unnatural poses for things like math. Logically, all this is quite separate from the question of whether or not we use evolutionary processes in our thinking, whether the mind is a Darwin machine, but I think all the advocates of the latter support evolutionary psychology as well
• Stephen P. Stich & Ron Mallon (2000). The odd couple: The compatibility of social construction and evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Evolutionary psychology and social constructionism are widely regarded as fundamentally irreconcilable approaches to the social sciences. Focusing on the study of the emotions, we argue that this appearance is mistaken. Much of what appears to be an empirical disagreement between evolutionary psychologists and social constructionists over the universality or locality of emotional phenomena is actually generated by an implicit philosophical dispute resulting from the adoption of different theories of meaning and reference. We argue that once this philosophical dispute is recognized, it can be set to the side. When this is done, it becomes clear that the two approaches to the emotions complement, rather than compete with, one another
• K. C. Stotz & Paul E. Griffiths (2002). Dancing in the dark: Evolutionary psychology and the argument from design.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The Narrow Evolutionary Psychology Movement represents itself as a major reorientation of the social/behavioral sciences, a group of sciences previously dominated by something called the ‘Standard Social Science Model’ (SSSM; Cosmides, Tooby, and Barkow, 1992). Narrow Evolutionary Psychology alleges that the SSSM treated the mind, and particularly those aspects of the mind that exhibit cultural variation, as devoid of any marks of its evolutionary history. Adherents of Narrow Evolutionary Psychology often suggest that the SSSM owed more to ideology than to evidence. It was the child of the 1960s, representing a politically motivated insistence on the possibility of changing social arrangements such as gender roles:

  ‘Not so long ago jealousy was considered a pointless, archaic institution in need
  of reform. But like other denials of human nature from the 1960s, this bromide
  has not aged well.’ (Stephen Pinker, endorsement for Buss, 2000))

  This view of history does not ring true to those, like the authors, who have worked in traditions of evolutionary theorizing about the mind that have a continuous history through the 1960s and beyond: traditions such as evolutionary epistemology (Stotz, 1996; Callebaut and Stotz, 1998) and psychoevolutionary research into emotion (Griffiths
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.uq.edu.au/biohumanities/webpdfs/Dancing.pdf
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/documents/disk0/00/00/01/83/
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000183/00/Dancing.pdf
  http://eprints1.library.pitt.edu/archive/00000183/00/Dancing.pdf
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/documents/disk0/00/00/01/83/PITT-PHIL-SCI00000183-00/Dancing.pdf
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X5t1brOYACsC&oi=fnd&pg=PA135&ots=grpK9QBxdE&sig=aHvVXvUfLv9PUODYYdlFX8KNaAs
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=fyo49LA-1r0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA135&ots=NBiTRwDC2Y&sig=CqKhhZgWTjerYEWPMsIPhPLFWVQ
  
• Chuck Ward, Evolutionary psychology and the problem of neural plasticity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Evolutionary psychology as commonly presented is committed to the view that our cognitive architecture consists of a set of genetically pre-specified, domain specific, computational modules that are adaptations to the environment of our Pleistocene ancestors. These commitments yield a picture in which the underlying computational design of the human mind is genetically transmitted while cultural variation results from differential experiential inputs being processed through this common architecture. This view has been criticized from a developmental point of view. This paper develops some of those criticisms specifically as they relate to the plasticity of neural structures and their responsiveness to social interactions. In best case scenarios the confirmation of adaptive explanations involves identifying the specific causal mechanisms of selection. This is illustrated in examples from ecological genetics. This is not possible in the case of evolutionary psychology. Instead claims that certain computational modules evolved as adaptations in the ancestral environment are supported by their cross-cultural occurrence in modern populations. However, evidence suggests that behavior itself, and cultural practices, are factors that influence the development of neural structures and the cognitive processes they instantiate. So while genes are playing a role in the development of the brain, they do not really encode its neural architecture. When selection favors one set of neural characteristics over alternatives, the genes that played a role in the development of those structures are passed on. But this does not guarantee replication of the structures themselves. What is being selected? Not genes, but organisms with certain neurological and behavioral tendencies in particular environments. Variation in the genetic determinants of neurological structure is not a necessary condition for natural selection to act on behavior. The necessary condition, as Darwin originally put the point, is that traits are heritable. Certainly heritability implies some genetic transmission between generations. But heritability of neural structure requires more than a genetic determinant because neural structures are so plastic. Some regulation of the experiential environment in which those genes act is also necessary. This suggests that an adequate account of the evolution of behavior requires a multi-level approach that recognizes that gene action and social behavior are related by a kind of causal reciprocity. Such an account would be quite different than the evolutionary psychologists’ model of culture being layered over the top of an underlying cognitive computer that is genetically propagated
• David Sloan Wilson, Eric Dietrich & Anne B. Clark (2003). On the inappropriate use of the naturalistic fallacy in evolutionary psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The naturalistic fallacy is mentionedfrequently by evolutionary psychologists as anerroneous way of thinking about the ethicalimplications of evolved behaviors. However,evolutionary psychologists are themselvesconfused about the naturalistic fallacy and useit inappropriately to forestall legitimateethical discussion. We briefly review what thenaturalistic fallacy is and why it is misusedby evolutionary psychologists. Then we attemptto show how the ethical implications of evolvedbehaviors can be discussed constructivelywithout impeding evolutionary psychologicalresearch. A key is to show how ethicalbehaviors, in addition to unethical behaviors,can evolve by natural selection
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.unil.ch/webdav/site/determinismes/shared/documents05/sem1/WilsonDietrichClark.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/p4548478788x3287/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/P4548478788X3287.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/biph/2003/00000018/00000005/05104197
  

Evolution of Cognition, Misc

• Claudia Lorena García (2007). Cognitive Modularity, Biological Modularity and Evolvability.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: There is an argument that has recently been deployed in favor of thinking that the mind is mostly (or even exclusively) composed of cognitive modules; an argument that draws from some ideas and concepts of evolutionary and of developmental biology. In a nutshell, the argument concludes that a mind that is massively composed of cognitive mechanisms that are cognitively modular (henceforth, c-modular) is more evolvable than a mind that is not c-modular (or that is scarcely c-modular), since a cognitive mechanism that is c-modular is likely to be biologically modular (henceforth, b-modular), and b-modular characters are more evolvable (e.g., Sperber 2002, Carruthers 2005). In evolutionary biology, the evolvability of a character in an organism is understood as the “organism’s capacity to facilitate the generation of non-lethal selectable phenotypic variation from random mutation” with respect to that character. Here I will argue that the notion of cognitive modularity needed to make this argument plausible will have to be understood in terms of the biological notion of variational independence; that is, it will have to be understood in such a way that a cognitive feature is c-modular only if few or no other morphological changes (cognitive and not) are significantly correlated with variations of that feature arising in members of the relevant population. I will also argue that all –except for (possibly) one—of the connotations contained in a cluster of notions of cognitive modularity widely accepted in some of the mainstream currents of thought in classical cognitive science, are simply irrelevant to the argument. In order to argue for this, I will have to examine the question as to whether there are any strong theoretical connections between (1) those connotations and (2) notions of modularity accepted in biology, specially in evolutionary and in developmental biology, that are thought to be most relevant to arguments to the effect that biological modularity enhances evolvability.
• Ben Jeffares (online). The Evolution of Technical Competence: Economic and Strategic Thinking.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper will outline a series of changes in the archaeological record related to Hominins. I argue that these changes underlie the emergence of the capacity for strategic thinking. The paper will start by examining the foundation of technical skills found in primates, and then work through various phases of the archaeological and paleontological record. I argue that the key driver for the development of strategic thinking was the need to expand range sizes and cope with increasingly heterogeneous environments.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/news/conferences/2009/ASCS2009/pdfs/Jeffares.pdf
  
• Christophe Menant, Evolution of meaningful information generation through the evolution of life (2003).   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper, we use the Meaning Generator System (MGS) presented at Gathering in Biosemiotics 2 [1] to analyse the evolution of meaningful information generation through different steps of the evolution of life. Taking as a starting point the usage of MGS for vital constraint satisfaction in basic life (paramecium), we develop its application for more complex living elements up to the case of non-human primate. The thread we follow is relative to the identification of new constraints that can appear through evolution of life, and correspondingly participate to generation of new types of meaningful information. We show that beside the complexification of vital constraints to be satisfied, and in addition to the corresponding enrichment of their satisfaction processes, there is a step in evolution that naturally introduces some specific new constraint in living elements. This step is the one corresponding to the performance of self-representation. Self-representation appeared in evolution at the level of non-human primates. We present the content of self-representation and show that it has a direct consequence on the living element in terms of a new type of constraint to be satisfied. We show that this new constraint participates to the generation of a new set of meaningful information via the MGS, and that the satisfaction of the constraint introduces some natural formulation of emotion generation during the evolution of life. [1] http://www.biosemiotics-semiotics.fr.st/
• Christophe Menant (ms). From biosemiotics to semiotics (2002).   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Biosemiotics and Semiotics have similarities and differences. Both deal with signal and meaning. One difference is that Biosemiotics covers a domain (life) that is less complex that the one addressed by Semiotics (human). We believe that this difference can be used to have Biosemiotics bringing added value to Semiotics. This belief is based on the fact that a theory of meaning is easier to build up for living elements than for humans, and that the results obtained for life can make available some tools for a higher level of complexity. Semiotic has been encountering some difficulties to deliver a scientific theory of meaning that can be efficient at the level of human mind. The obstacles come from our ignorance on the nature of human. As it is true that we do not understand the nature of human mind on a scientific basis. On the other hand, the nature and properties of life are better understood. And we can propose a modelization for a generation of meaningful information in the field of elementary life. Once such a modelization is established, it is possible to look at extending it to the domain of human life. Such an approach on a theory of meaning (begininig in Biosemiotics and aiming at Semiotics), is what we present in this paper. Taking an elementary living element as reference, we introduce the bases of a systemic theory of meaning. Using a simple living system submitted to a constraint, we define a meaningful information, a meaning generator system and some elements related to meaningful information transmission. We then try to identify the hypothesis that need to be taken into account so the results obtained for living elements can be extended to human
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/5484/1/C._Menant_Biosemiotics_2002.pdf
  
• Christophe Menant (2005). Information and meaning in life, humans and robots (2005).   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Information and meaning exist around us and within ourselves, and the same information can correspond to different meanings. This is true for humans and animals, and is becoming true for robots. We propose here an overview of this subject by using a systemic tool related to meaning generation that has already been published (C. Menant, Entropy 2003). The Meaning Generator System (MGS) is a system submitted to a constraint that generates a meaningful information when it receives an incident information that has a relation with the constraint. The content of the meaningful information is explicited, and its function is to trigger an action that will be used to satisfy the constraint of the system. The MGS has been introduced in the case of basic life submitted to a "stay alive" constraint. We propose here to see how the usage of the MGS can be extended to more complex living systems, to humans and to robots by introducing new types of constraints, and integrating the MGS into higher level systems. The application of the MGS to humans is partly based on a scenario relative to the evolution of body self-awareness toward self-consciousness that has already been presented (C. Menant, Biosemiotics 2003, and TSC 2004). The application of the MGS to robots is based on the definition of the MGS applied to robots functionality, taking into account the origins of the constraints. We conclude with a summary of this overview and with themes that can be linked to this systemic approach on meaning generation
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.mdpi.org/fis2005/F.45.paper.pdf
  http://www.mdpi.net/fis2005/F.45.paper.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/4531/1/F.45.paper.pdf
  
• Christophe Menant (ms). Introduction to a Systemic Theory of Meaning (Jan 2010 update).   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://crmenant.free.fr/ResUK/MGS.pdf
  
• Christophe Menant, Proposal for an approach to artificial consciousness based on self-consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Current research on artificial consciousness is focused on phenomenal consciousness and on functional consciousness. We propose to shift the focus to self-consciousness in order to open new areas of investigation. We use an existing scenario where self-consciousness is considered as the result of an evolution of representations. Application of the scenario to the possible build up of a conscious robot also introduces questions relative to emotions in robots. Areas of investigation are proposed as a continuation of this approach
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/6013/
  http://cogprints.org/6013/1/FS01MenantCh20070905074007.pdf
  http://www.aaai.org/Papers/Symposia/Fall/2007/FS-07-01/FS07-01-020.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/5866/3/FS01MenantCh20070905074007.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/5999/1/FS01MenantCh20070905074007.pdf
  

Rationality and Cognitive Science

• Anthony P. Atkinson & M. Wheeler (2003). Evolutionary psychology's grain problem and the cognitive neuroscience of reasoning.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rESRnRXastAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA61&ots=3fPYuiUWY3&sig=BgG5emRnUOdpZKdXAgjqdRwPK5A
  
• Jose Luis Bermudez (2002). Rationality and psychological explanation without language.   (More)
• Mark H. Bickhard (1992). How does the environment affect the person?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: 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
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.lehigh.edu/~mhb0/cogs7webreadings/EnvtoPerson.pdf
  
• Mark H. Bickhard (ms). Interactivism: A manifesto.   (More)
• John I. Biro & Kirk A. Ludwig (1994). Are there more than minimal a priori limits on irrationality?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a739201713~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/M707U40710736157.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/739201713.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/ajphil/1994/00000072/00000001/art00007
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/tajp/1994/00000072/00000001/art00007
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a739201713~fulltext=713240930
  
• Lisa Bortolotti (2005). Intentionality without rationality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It is often taken for granted in standard theories of interpretation that there cannot be intentionality without rationality. According to the background argument, a system can be interpreted as having irrational beliefs only against a general background of rationality. Starting from the widespread assumption that delusions can be reasonably described as irrational beliefs, I argue here that the background argument fails to account for their intentional description
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.bham.ac.uk/staff/Bortolotti_PAS-Bortolotti.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2005.00181.x
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2005.00181.x
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0066-7373.2004.00119.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/paso/2005/00000105/00000003/art00006
  
• H. G. Callaway (1992). Does Language Determine our Scientific Ideas?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper argues that the influence of language on science, philosophy and other field is mediated by communicative practices. Where communications is more restrictive, established linguistic structures exercise a tighter control over innovations and scientifically motivated reforms of language. The viewpoint here centers on the thesis that argumentation is crucial in the understanding and evaluation of proposed reforms and that social practices which limit argumentation serve to erode scientific objectivity. Thus, a plea is made for a sociology of scientific belief designed to understand and insure social-institutional conditions of the possibility of knowledge and its growth. A chief argument draws on work of Axelrod concerning the evolution of cooperation.
• Peter Carruthers (2002). The roots of scientific reasoning: Infancy, modularity, and the art of tracking.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This chapter examines the extent to which there are continuities between the cognitive processes and epistemic practices engaged in by human hunter-gatherers, on the one hand, and those which are distinctive of science, on the other. It deploys anthropological evidence against any form of 'no-continuity' view, drawing especially on the cognitive skills involved in the art of tracking. It also argues against the 'child-as-scientist' accounts put forward by some developmental psychologists, which imply that scientific thinking is present in early infancy and universal amongst humans who have sufficient time and resources to devote to it. In contrast, a modularist kind of 'continuity' account is proposed, according to which the innately channelled architecture of human cognition provides all the materials necessary for basic forms of scientific reasoning in older children and adults, needing only the appropriate sorts of external support, social context, and background beliefs and skills in order for science to begin its advance
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00002236/
  http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/pcarruthers/Roots-of-science.htm
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00002236/00/Roots-of-science.htm
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:2236
  http://cogprints.org/2236/1/Roots%2Dof%2Dscience.htm
  http://cogprints.org/2236/0/Roots%2Dof%2Dscience.htm
  http://cogprints.org/2236/0/Roots-of-science.htm
  
• Andy Clark (2006). Author's reply to symposium on Natural-Born Cyborgs.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Thought happens. Here I sit, sipping coffee, scribbling on paper, accessing files, reading and re-reading those four wonderful, challenging, yet immaculately constructive reviews. And somewhere, and to my eternal surprise, thought happens. But where, amidst the whirl of organization, should we locate the cognitive process? One possibility is that everything worth counting as (all or part) of any genuinely cognitive process hereabouts is firmly located inside the head, safe behind the ancient fortress of skin and skull. All the rest, according to this surgically neat view, is scene setting: preparing and maintaining the pitch upon which the great thinking organ performs
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/metasciencereply.pdf
  
• Andy Clark (2003). Forces, fields, and the role of knowledge in action.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://adb.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/11/4/270
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/sage/adb/2003/00000011/00000004/art00004
  
• Andy Clark & Pete Mandik (2002). Selective representing and world-making.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper, we discuss the thesis of selective representing — the idea that the contents of the mental representations had by organisms are highly constrained by the biological niches within which the organisms evolved. While such a thesis has been defended by several authors elsewhere, our primary concern here is to take up the issue of the compatibility of selective representing and realism. In this paper we hope to show three things. First, that the notion of selective representing is fully consistent with the realist idea of a mind-independent world. Second, that not only are these two consistent, but that the latter (the realist conception of a mind-independent world) provides the most powerful perspective from which to motivate and understand the differing perceptual and cog- nitive profiles themselves. And third, that the (genuine and important) sense in which organism and environment may together constitute an integrated system of scientific interest poses no additional threat to the realist conception
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.petemandik.com/philosophy/papers/srwm.pdf
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/srwm.pdf
  
• L. Jonathan Cohen (1981). Can human irrationality be experimentally demonstrated?   (More)
• L. Jonathan Cohen (1979). On the psychology of prediction: Whose is the fallacy?   (More)
• L. Jonathan Cohen (1980). Whose is the fallacy? A rejoinder to Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.   (More)
• Ronald B. de Sousa (2004). Rational animals: What the bravest lion won't risk.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~sousa/rational.animal.pdf
  http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.aspx?logid=5&id=55BEE2B2-11BB-4716-8935-3146C7FFF11C
  
• Allan F. Gibbard (2002). Normative explanations: Invoking rationality to explain happenings.   (More)
• Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky (1979). On the interpretation of intuitive probability: A reply to Jonathan Cohen.   (More)
• T. Kelly (2002). The rationality of belief and other propositional attitudes.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   In this paper, I explore the question of whether the expectedconsequences of holding a belief can affect the rationality ofdoing so. Special attention is given to various ways in whichone might attempt to exert some measure of control over whatone believes and the normative status of the beliefs thatresult from the successful execution of such projects. I arguethat the lessons which emerge from thinking about the case ofbelief have important implications for the way we should thinkabout the rationality of a number of other propositional attitudes,such as regret, desire, and fear. Finally,I suggest that a lack of clarity with respect to the relevant issueshas given rise to a number of rather serious philosophical mistakes
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/PhilStudies.pdf
  http://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/papers/PhilStudies[1].pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/p4383042853455xv/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5095883&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/P4383042853455XV.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2002/00000110/00000002/05095883
  
• Isaac Levi (2002). Commitment and change of view.   (More)
• E. J. Lowe (2002). The rational and the real: Some doubts about the programme of 'rational analysis'.   (More)
• Mohan P. Matthen (2002). Human rationality and the unique origin constraint.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper offers a new definition of "adaptationism". An evolutionary account is adaptationist, it is suggested, if it allows for multiple independent origins for the same function -- i.e., if it violates the "Unique Origin Constraint". While this account captures much of the position Gould and Lewontin intended to stigmatize, it leaves it open that adaptationist accounts may sometimes be appropriate. However, there are many important cases, including that of human rationality, in which it is not.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=o23-SrWDAL0C&oi=fnd&pg=RA1-PA341&ots=27RDpbXWHk&sig=ZIOw3cHjeOniHG_dABiCo4gZNlU
  
• Alfred R. Mele (1988). Irrationality: A precis.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: My primary aim in Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception, and Self-Control (1987) is to show that and how akratic action and self-deception are possible. The control that normal agents have over their actions and beliefs figures in the analysis and explanation of both phenomena. For that reason, an examination of self-control plays a central role in the book. In addition, I devote a chapter each to akratic belief and the explanation of intentional action. A precis of the book will provide a useful context for the three essays that follow
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=C02KJ3XgFgwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=+Irrationality+Mele&ots=wmWFWSShBR&sig=6AY-x4IoEcLqBXjWR1Ofuk4RzPs
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a793919342~fulltext=713240930
  
• Alan Millar (2001). Rationality and higher-order intentionality.   (More)
• Barbara Montero (2006). Proprioception as an aesthetic sense.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0021-8529.2006.00244.x
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118619897/PDFSTART
  
• Carlo Penco (online). Expressing the Background.   (More)
• John L. Pollock (online). Irrationality and cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The strategy of this paper is to throw light on rational cognition and epistemic justification by examining irrationality. Epistemic irrationality is possible because we are reflexive cognizers, able to reason about and redirect some aspects of our own cognition. One consequence of this is that one cannot give a theory of epistemic rationality or epistemic justification without simultaneously giving a theory of practical rationality. A further consequence is that practical irrationality can affect our epistemic cognition. I argue that practical irrationality derives from a general difficulty we have in overriding built-in shortcut modules aimed at making cognition more efficient, and all epistemic irrationality can be traced to this same source. A consequence of this account is that a theory of rationality is a descriptive theory, describing contingent features of a cognitive architecture, and it forms the core of a general theory of “voluntary” cognition — those aspects of cognition that are under voluntary control. It also follows that most of the so-called “rules for rationality” that philosophers have proposed are really just rules describing default (non- reflexive) cognition. It can be perfectly rational for a reflexive cognizer to break these rules. The “normativity” of rationality is a reflection of a built-in feature of reflexive cognition — when we detect violations of rationality, we have a tendency to desire to correct them. This is just another part of the descriptive theory of rationality. Although theories of rationality are descriptive, the structure of reflexive cognition gives philosophers, as human cognizers, privileged access to certain aspects of rational cognition. Philosophical theories of rationality are really scientific theories, based on inference to the best explanation, that take contingent introspective data as the evidence to be explained.
• Richard Reiner (1995). Arguments against the possibility of perfect rationality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Many different arguments against the possibility of perfect rationality have appeared in the literature, and these target several different conceptions of perfect rationality. It is not clear how these different conceptions of perfect rationality are related, nor is it clear how the arguments showing their impossibility are related, and it is especially unclear what the impossibility results show when taken together. This paper gives an exposition of the different conceptions of perfect rationality, an the various sorts of argument against them; clarifies which conceptions of perfect rationality are targeted by which arguments; and finally attempts to systematize the results available to date
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/h6j7535394184714/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/H6J7535394184714.pdf
  
• Richard Samuels & Stephen P. Stich (2004). Rationality and psychology.   (More)
• Kim Sterelny (2005). Cognitive load and human decision.   (More)
• Kim Sterelny (2006). Folk logic and animal rationality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It is indeed important to identify the rich variety of systems for the adaptive control of behaviour, rather than squeezing this richness into a few boxes. We need to recognise both the variety of systems for the cognitive control of adaptive behaviour and to chart the relationships between such systems. But I shall argue that these projects are not best pursued by asking about the extent of animal rationality. The argument develops in three stages. The first outlines a picture of the selective regimes that drive the evolution of the sophisticated use of information by animal agents. The second argues that hominid cognition has evolved in response to a somewhat different set of

  3

  challenges and that (as a consequence) the transmission of social information and skill has come to be both a critical and an unusual feature of hominid selective and developmental environments. The third draws upon the ideas of Dan Sperber and others in arguing that the social transmission of information introduces (or makes much more important) a vetting problem. I shall suggest that we see rationality as an evolved response to this vetting problem
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.vuw.ac.nz/phil/staff/documents/sterelny-papers/reason.pdf
  

Embodiment and Situated Cognition

• Philip E. Agre (1995). Computation and embodied agency.   (More)
• Michael L. Anderson (2003). Embodied cognition: A field guide.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The nature of cognition is being re-considered. Instead of emphasizing formal operations on abstract symbols, the new approach foregrounds the fact that cognition is, rather, a situated activity, and suggests that thinking beings ought therefore be considered first and foremost as acting beings. The essay reviews recent work in Embodied Cognition, provides a concise guide to its principles, attitudes and goals, and identifies the physical grounding project as its central research focus
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/569831.html
  http://cogprints.org/3949/1/aij1984.pdf
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=947654
  http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~amanda/anderson.pdf
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0004-3702(03)00054-7
  http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mikeoda/papers/AI_Review.pdf
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00003949/01/aij1984.pdf
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:3949
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/00043702/2003/00000149/00000001/art00054
  
• Michael L. Anderson (ms). Embodied cognition: The teenage years.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A review of Gallagher, S. (2005). How the Body Shapes the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Michael L. Anderson (2005). Representation, evolution and embodiment.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: As part of the ongoing attempt to fully naturalize the concept of human being--and, more specifically, to re-center it around the notion of agency--this essay discusses an approach to defining the content of representations in terms ultimately derived from their central, evolved function of providing guidance for action. This 'guidance theory' of representation is discussed in the context of, and evaluated with respect to, two other biologically inspired theories of representation: Dan Lloyd's dialectical theory of representation and Ruth Millikan's biosemantics
• Dana Ballard (1991). Animate vision.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://192.5.53.208/users/faculty/nelson/pubs/abstracts/1989_optnews.html
  http://ftp.cs.rochester.edu/users/faculty/nelson/pubs/abstracts/1989_optnews.html
  http://www.cs.rochester.edu/users/faculty/nelson/pubs/abstracts/1989_optnews.html
  http://www.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=2627246CI
  
• R. Beer (1995). A dynamical systems perspective on agent-environment interaction.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=23oVEsHzu-0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA173&ots=gRSnGFwRdD&sig=MbsFRHdBK2R6AHb-fy9Wo-prrHk
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=23oVEsHzu-0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA173&ots=gQ-rGBrWeF&sig=fpmzVcwLNfdM2n_h3_wvR5Lh6oY
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/000437029400005L
  
• Ron Chrisley (2003). Embodiment.   (More)
• Ronald L. Chrisley (1994). Taking embodiment seriously: Nonconceptual content and robotics.   (More)
• Andy Clark (1999). Where brain, body and world collide.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: --œWhere Brain, Body, and World Collide--� reprinted by permission of Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, from the issue entitled, --œThe Brain,--� Spring 1998, Vol. 127, No. 2
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=5001347474
  http://home.earthlink.net/~wendylliles/articles/clark.pdf
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/where.pdf
  http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=6&tid=14187
  http://www.lehigh.edu/~mhb0/cogs7webreadings/clark.brainbodyworld.pdf
  http://pacherie.free.fr/COURS/DEC/clark - where brain body & world collide.pdf
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1389041799000029
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/13890417/1999/00000001/00000001/art00002
  
• Andy Clark (2005). Beyond the flesh: Some lessons from a Mole cricket.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What do linguistic symbols do for minds like ours, and how (if at all) can basic embodied, dynamical and situated approaches do justice to high-level human thought and reason? These two questions are best addressed together, since our answers to the first may inform the second. The key move in ‘scaling-up’ simple embodied cognitive science is, I argue, to take very seriously the potent role of human-built structures in transforming the spaces of human learning and reason. In particular, in this paper I look at a range of cases involving what I dub ‘surrogate situations’. Here, we actively create restricted artificial environments that allow us to deploy basic perception-action- reason routines in the absence of their proper objects. Examples include the use of real-world models, diagrams and other concrete external symbols to support dense looping interactions with a variety of stable external structures that stand in for the absent states of affairs
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1106258.1106264
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/burrowspaper.pdf
  http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=18105&ttype=6
  http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=6&tid=18105
  http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/clark (2006) beyond the flesh. some lessons from a mole cricket.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15811229&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=15811229&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mitpress/ali/2005/00000011/F0020001/art00014
  
• Andy Clark (1997). Embodiment and the philosophy of mind.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/1299
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/embmnd.pdf
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zYEPifPTQK4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA35&ots=JV2Y-nLQmX&sig=4N3UbsaSe2R7cGvTLr47NaxQJbg
  
• Andy Clark (1998). Embodiment and the philosophy of mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Cambridge University Press:1998) P. 35-52. To be reprinted in Alberto Peruzzi (ed) MIND
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/1299
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/embmnd.pdf
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zYEPifPTQK4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA35&ots=JV2Y-nLSj_&sig=nSWRw4wSd-P38O0hyqZwwf3lF54
  
• Andy Clark (1999). An embodied cognitive science?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The last ten years have seen an increasing interest, within cognitive science, in issues concerning the physical body, the local environment, and the complex interplay between neural systems and the wider world in which they function. --œPhysically embodied, environmentally embedded--� approaches thus loom large on the contemporary cognitive scientific scene. Yet many unanswered questions remain, and the shape of a genuinely embodied, embedded science of the mind is still unclear. I begin by sketching a few examples of the approach, and then raise a variety of critical questions concerning its nature and scope. A distinction is drawn between two kinds of appeal to embodiment: 'simple' cases, in which bodily and environmental properties merely constrain accounts that retain the focus on inner organization and processing, and more radical appeals, in which attention to bodily and environmental features is meant to transform both the subject matter and the theoretical framework of cognitive science
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psychology.stanford.edu/~lera/273/Clark_TICS_1999.pdf
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/TICSEmbodiment.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10461197&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/13646613/1999/00000003/00000009/art01361
  
• Andy Clark (2001). Reasons, robots and the extended mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A suitable project for the new Millenium is to radically reconfigure our image of human rationality. Such a project is already underway, within the Cognitive Sciences, under the umbrellas of work in Situated Cognition, Distributed and De-centralized Cogition, Real-world Robotics and Artificial Life1. Such approaches, however, are often criticized for giving certain aspects of rationality too wide a berth. They focus their attention on on such superficially poor cousins as
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cogs.indiana.edu/andy/mlrre.pdf
  http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~tiinam/clark.pdf
  http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/1313?mode=simple
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/mlrre.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1468-0017.00162
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0017.00162
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2001/00000016/F0020002/art00162
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2001/00000015/00000002/art00162
  
• Andy Clark & David J. Chalmers (1998). The extended mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? The question invites two standard replies. Some accept the demarcations of skin and skull, and say that what is outside the body is outside the mind. Others are impressed by arguments suggesting that the meaning of our words "just ain't in the head", and hold that this externalism about meaning carries over into an externalism about mind. We propose to pursue a third position. We advocate a very different sort of externalism: an _active externalism_ , based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://consc.net/papers/extended.html
  http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/1312
  http://www.cogs.indiana.edu/andy/TheExtendedMind.pdf
  http://www.lps.uci.edu/~johnsonk/philpsych/readings/clark.pdf
  http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/concepts/clark.html
  http://philosophy.wisc.edu/shapiro/Phil951/TheExtendedMind.pdf
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000320/00/extended.html
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/TheExtendedMind.pdf
  http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/clark (1998) the extended mind.pdf
  http://philosophy.wisc.edu/shapiro/Phil554/PAPERS/THE EXTENDED MIND.htm
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:320
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8284.00096
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/anal/1998/00000058/00000257/art00096
  http://cogprints.org/320/1/extended.html
  http://cogprints.org/320/0/extended.html
  
• Giovanna Colombetti (web). Enaction, Sense-Making and Emotion.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The theory of autopoiesis is central to the enactive approach. Recent works emphasize that the theory of autopoiesis is a theory of sense-making in living systems, i.e. of how living systems produce and consume meaning. In this chapter I first illustrate (some aspects of) these recent works, and interpret their notion of sense-making as a bodily cognitive- emotional form of understanding. Then I turn to modern emotion science, and I illustrate its tendency to over-intellectualize our capacity to evaluate and understand. I show that this overintellectualization goes hand in hand with the rejection of the idea that the body is a vehicle of meaning. I explain why I think that this over-intellectualization is problematic, and try to reconceptualize the notion of evaluation in emotion theory in a way that is consistent and continuous with the autopoietic notion of sense-making
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://polorovereto.unitn.it/~colombetti/docs/GC_SenseMaking.pdf
  
• Adrian Cussins (1992). Content, embodiment, and objectivity: The theory of cognitive trails.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-4423(199210)2:101:404<651:CEAOTT>2.0.CO;2-Z
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/101/404/651
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2254446.pdf
  
• Hanne De Jaegher & Tom Froese (2009). On the role of social interaction in individual agency.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Is an individual agent constitutive of or constituted by its social interactions? This question is typically not asked in the cognitive sciences, so strong is the consensus that only individual agents have constitutive efficacy. In this article we challenge this methodological solipsism and argue that interindividual relations and social context do not simply arise from the behavior of individual agents, but themselves enable and shape the individual agents on which they depend. For this, we define the notion of autonomy as both a characteristic of individual agents and of social interaction processes. We then propose a number of ways in which interactional autonomy can influence individuals. Then we discuss recent work in modeling on the one hand and psychological investigations on the other that support and illustrate this claim. Finally, we discuss some implications for research on social and individual agency.
• Hanne De Jaegher (2009). Social understanding through direct perception? Yes, by interacting.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper comments on Gallagher’s recently published direct perception proposal about social cognition [Gallagher, S. (2008a). Direct perception in the intersubjective context. Consciousness and Cognition, 17(2), 535–543]. I show that direct perception is in danger of being appropriated by the very cognitivist accounts criticised by Gallagher (theory theory and simulation theory). Then I argue that the experiential directness of perception in social situations can be understood only in the context of the role of the interaction process in social cognition. I elaborate on the role of social interaction with a discussion of participatory sense-making to show that direct perception, rather than being a perception enriched by mainly individual capacities, can be best understood as an interactional phenomenon.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WD0-4V57Y1R-1&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2009&_rdoc=21&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236752%232009%23999819997%231093079%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=6752&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=27&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=751bf6f06e4c0778b9598820e8321943
  
• Hanne De Jaegher (2009). What made me want the cheese? A reply to Shaun Gallagher and Dan Hutto.   (More)
• Chris Dobbyn & Susan A. J. Stuart (2003). The self as an embedded agent.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   In this paper we consider the concept of a self-aware agent. In cognitive science agents are seen as embodied and interactively situated in worlds. We analyse the meanings attached to these terms in cognitive science and robotics, proposing a set of conditions for situatedness and embodiment, and examine the claim that internal representational schemas are largely unnecessary for intelligent behaviour in animats. We maintain that current situated and embodied animats cannot be ascribed even minimal self-awareness, and offer a six point definition of embeddedness, constituting minimal conditions for the evolution of a sense of self. This leads to further analysis of the nature of embodiment and situatedness, and a consideration of whether virtual animats in virtual worlds could count as situated and embodied. We propose that self-aware agents must possess complex structures of self-directed goals; multi-modal sensory systems and a rich repertoire of interactions with their worlds. Finally, we argue that embedded agents will possess or evolve local co-ordinate systems, or points of view, relative to their current positions in space and time, and have a capacity to develop an egocentric space. None of these capabilities are possible without powerful internal representational capacities
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/content/r862727v7688p587/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/r862727v7688p587/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=386710&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/R862727V7688P587.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/2003/00000013/00000002/00386710
  
• Zoe Drayson (2009). Embodied Cognitive Science and its Implications for Psychopathology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The past twenty years have seen an increase in the importance of the body in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind. This 'embodied' trend challenges the orthodox view in cognitive science in several ways: it downplays the traditional 'mind-as-computer' approach and emphasizes the role of interactions between the brain, body, and environment. In this article, I review recent work in the area of embodied cognitive science and explore the approaches each takes to the ideas of consciousness, computation and representation. Finally, I look at the current relationship between orthodox cognitive science and the study of mental disorder, and consider the implications that the embodied trend could have for issues in psychopathology.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/philosophy_psychiatry_and_psychology/summary/v016/16.4.drayson.html
  
• Hubert L. Dreyfus (online). Overcoming the myth of the mental: How philosophers can profit from the phenomenology of everyday expertise.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Back in 1950, while a physics major at Harvard, I wandered into C.I. Lewis’s epistemology course. There, Lewis was confidently expounding the need for an indubitable Given to ground knowledge, and he was explaining where that ground was to be found. I was so impressed that I immediately switched majors from ungrounded physics to grounded philosophy
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/A617140872RU3224.pdf
  
• Hubert L. Dreyfus (1996). The current relevance of Merleau-ponty's phenomenology of embodiment.   (More)
• Shaun Gallagher (2003). Bodily self-awareness and object perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Gallagher, S. 2003. Bodily self-awareness and object perception. _Theoria et Historia Scientiarum: International Journal for Interdisciplinary_ _Studies_, 7 (1) - in press
• Shaun Gallagher (2005). Metzinger's matrix: Living the virtual life with a real body.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Is it possible to say that there is no real self if we take a non-Cartesian view of the body? Is it possible to say that an organism can engage in pragmatic action and intersubjective interaction and that the self generated in such activity is not real? This depends on how we define the concept "real". By taking a close look at embodied action, and at Metzinger's concept of embodiment, I want to argue that, on a non-Cartesian concept of reality, the self should be considered something real, and not simply an illusion
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/symposia/metzinger/Gallagher.pdf
  
• Shaun Gallagher (ms). Philosophical antecedents of situated cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this chapter I plan to situate the concept of situated cognition within the framework of antecedent philosophical work. My intention, however, is not to provide a simple historical guide but to suggest that there are still some untapped resources in these past philosophers that may serve to enrich current accounts of situated cognition
• Arthur M. Glenberg (2006). Radical changes in cognitive process due to technology: A jaundiced view.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/pc/2006/00000014/00000002/art00006
  
• K. Mitch Hodge (2008). Descartes Mistake: How Afterlife Beliefs Challenge the Assumption that Humans are Intuitive Cartesian Dualists.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This article presents arguments and evidence that run counter to the widespread assumption among scholars that humans are intuitive Cartesian substance dualists. With regard to afterlife beliefs, the hypothesis of Cartesian substance dualism as the intuitive folk position fails to have the explanatory power with which its proponents endow it. It is argued that the embedded corollary assumptions of the intuitive Cartesian substance dualist position (that the mind and body are different substances, that the mind and soul are intensionally identical, and that the mind is the sole source of identity) are not compatible with cultural representations such as mythologies, funerary rites, iconography and doctrine as well as empirical evidence concerning intuitive folk reasoning about the mind and body concerning the afterlife. Finally, the article
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  suggests an alternative and more parsimonious explanation for understanding intuitive folk representations of the afterlife.
• Ben Jeffares (online). The Evolution of Technical Competence: Economic and Strategic Thinking.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper will outline a series of changes in the archaeological record related to Hominins. I argue that these changes underlie the emergence of the capacity for strategic thinking. The paper will start by examining the foundation of technical skills found in primates, and then work through various phases of the archaeological and paleontological record. I argue that the key driver for the development of strategic thinking was the need to expand range sizes and cope with increasingly heterogeneous environments.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/news/conferences/2009/ASCS2009/pdfs/Jeffares.pdf
  
• Mark L. Johnson (1995). Incarnate mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   We are beings of the flesh. Our sensorimotor motor experience is the basis for the structure of our higher cognitive functions of conceptual cognition and reasoning. Consequently, our subjectivity is intimately tied up with the nature of our embodied experience. This runs directly counter to views of self-identity dominant in contemporary cognitive science. I give an account of how we ought to understand ourselves as incarnates, and how this would change our view of meaning, knowledge, reason, and subjectivity
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/lr827p6h3u417281/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/LR827P6H3U417281.pdf
  
• Fred A. Keijzer (2005). Theoretical behaviorism meets embodied cognition: Two theoretical analyses of behavior.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper aims to do three things: First, to provide a review of John Staddon's book Adaptive dynamics: The theoretical analysis of behavior. Second, to compare Staddon's behaviorist view with current ideas on embodied cognition. Third, to use this comparison to explicate some outlines for a theoretical analysis of behavior that could be useful as a behavioral foundation for cognitive phenomena. Staddon earlier defended a theoretical behaviorism, which allows internal states in its models but keeps these to a minimum while remaining critical of any cognitive interpretation. In his latest book, Adaptive dynamics, he provides an overview and analysis of an extensive number of these current, behaviorist models. Theoretical behaviorism comes close to the view of embodied cognition, which also stresses the importance of behavior in contrast to high-level cognition. A detailed picture of the overlaps and differences between the two approaches will be sketched by comparing the two on four separate issues: the conceptualization of behavior, loopy structures, parsimonious explanations, and cognitive behavior. The paper will stress the need for a structural analysis of behavior to gain a better understanding of both behavior and cognition. However, for this purpose, we will need behavioral science rather than behaviorism
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/H13L6653Q7467223.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/H13L6653Q7467223.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2005/00000018/00000001/art00008
  
• David Kirsh (1996). Adapting the Environment instead of Oneself.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper examines some of the methods animals and humans have of adapting their environment. Because there are limits on how many different tasks a creature can be designed to do well in, creatures with the capacity to redesign their environments have an adaptive advantage over those who can only passively adapt to existing environmental structures. To clarify environmental redesign I rely on the formal notion of a task environment as a directed graph where the nodes are states and the links are actions. One natural form of redesign is to change the topology of this graph structure so as to increase the likelihood of task success or to reduce its expected cost, measured in physical terms. This may be done by eliminating initial states hence eliminating choice points; by changing the action repertoire; by changing the consequence function; and lastly, by adding choice points. Another major method for adapting the environment is to change its cognitive congeniality. Such changes leave the state space formally intact but reduce the number and cost of mental operations needed for task success; they reliably increase the speed, accuracy or robustness of performance. The last section of the paper describes several of these epistemic or complementary actions found in human performance.
• David Kirsh (2006). Distributed cognition: A methodological note.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Humans are closely coupled with their environments. They rely on being ëembeddedí to help coordinate the use of their internal cognitive resources with external tools and resources. Consequently, everyday cognition, even cognition in the absence, may be viewed as partially distributed. As cognitive scientists our job is to discover and explain the principles governing this distribution: principles of coordination, externalization, and interaction. As designers our job is to use these principles, especially if they can be converted to metrics, in order to invent and evaluate candidate designs. After discussing a few principles of interaction and embedding I discuss the usefulness of a range of metrics derived from economics, computational complexity and psychology.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/pc/2006/00000014/00000002/art00005
  
• David Kirsh (2005). Metacognition, Distributed Cognition and Visual Design.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Metacognition is associated with planning, monitoring, evaluating and repairing performance Designers of elearning systems can improve the quality of their environments by explicitly structuring the visual and interactive display of learning contexts to facilitate metacognition. Typically page layout, navigational appearance, visual and interactivity design are not viewed as major factors in metacognition. This is because metacognition tends to be interpreted as a process in the head, rather than an interactive one. It is argued here, that cognition and metacognition are part of a continuum and that both are highly interactive. The tenets of this view are explained by reviewing some of the core assumptions of the situated and distribute approach to cognition and then further elaborated by exploring the notions of active vision, visual complexity, affordance landscape and cue structure. The way visual cues are structured and the way interaction is designed can make an important difference in the ease and effectiveness of cognition and metacognition. Documents that make effective use of markers such as headings, callouts, italics can improve students' ability to comprehend documents and 'plan' the way they review and process content. Interaction can be designed to improve 'the proximal zone of planning' - the look ahead and apprehension of what is nearby in activity space that facilitates decisions. This final concept is elaborated in a discussion of how e-newspapers combine effective visual and interactive design to enhance user control over their reading experience.
• David Kirsh & P. Maglio (1995). On distinguishing epistemic from pragmatic action.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: We present data and argument to show that in Tetris - a real-time interactive video game - certain cognitive and perceptual problems are more quickly, easily, and reliably solved by performing actions in the world rather than by performing computational actions in the head alone. We have found that some translations and rotations are best understood as using the world to improve cognition. These actions are not used to implement a plan, or to implement a reaction; they are used to change the world in order to simplify the problem-solving task. Thus, we distinguish pragmatic actions ñ actions performed to bring one physically closer to a goal - from epistemic actions - actions performed to uncover information that is hidden or hard to compute mentally. To illustrate the need for epistemic actions, we first develop a standard information-processing model of Tetris-cognition, and show that it cannot explain performance data from human players of the game - even when we relax the assumption of fully sequential processing. Standard models disregard many actions taken by players because they appear unmotivated or superfluous. However, we describe many such actions that are actually taken by players that are far from superfluous, and that play valuable roles in improving human performance. We argue that traditional accounts are limited because they regard action as having a single function: to change the world. By recognizing a second function of action - an epistemic function - we can explain many of the actions that a traditional model cannot. Although, our argument is supported by numerous examples specifically from Tetris, we outline how the one category of epistemic action can be incorporated into theories of action more generally.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://adrenaline.ucsd.edu/kirsh/articles/cogscijournal/DistinguishingEpi_prag.pdf
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15516709cog1804_1
  http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/CSJarchive/1994v18/i04/p0513p0549/MAIN.PDF
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15516709cog1804_1
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1207/s15516709cog1804_1
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/302981.html
  
• David Kirsh (2009). Problem Solving and Situated Cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In the course of daily life we solve problems often enough that there is a special term to characterize the activity and the right to expect a scientific theory to explain its dynamics. The classical view in psychology is that to solve a problem a subject must frame it by creating an internal representation of the problem‘s structure, usually called a problem space. This space is an internally generable representation that is mathematically identical to a graph structure with nodes and links. The nodes can be annotated with useful information, and the whole representation can be distributed over internal and external structures such as symbolic notations on paper or diagrams. If the representation is distributed across internal and external structures the subject must be able to keep track of activity in the distributed structure. Problem solving proceeds as the subject works from an initial state in this mentally supported space, actively construction possible solution paths, evaluating them and heuristically choosing the best. Control of this exploratory process is not well understood, as it is not always systematic, but various heuristic search algorithms have been proposed and some experimental support has been provided for them.
• David Kirsh (1995). Why We Use Our Hands When We Think.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A complementary strategy can be defined as any organizing activity which recruits external elements to reduce cognitive loads. Typical organizing activities include pointing, arranging the position and orientation of nearby objects, writing things down, manipulating counters, rulers or other artifacts that can encode the state of a process or simplify perception. To illustrate the idea of a complementary strategy, a simple experiment was performed in which subjects were asked to determine the dollar value of collections of coins. In the no-hands condition, subjects were not allowed to touch the coin images or to move their hands in any way. In the hands condition, they were allowed to use their hands and fingers however they liked. Significant improvements in time and number of errors were observed when S's used their hands over when they did not. To explain these facts, a brief account of some commonly observed complementary strategies is presented, and an account of their potential benefits to perception, memory and attention.
• Nicholas Kushmerick (1997). Software agents and their bodies.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Within artificial intelligence and the philosophy of mind,there is considerable disagreement over the relationship between anagent's body and its capacity for intelligent behavior. Some treatthe body as peripheral and tangential to intelligence; others arguethat embodiment and intelligence are inextricably linked. Softwareagents–-computer programs that interact with software environmentssuch as the Internet–-provide an ideal context in which to studythis tension. I develop a computational framework for analyzingembodiment. The framework generalizes the notion of a body beyondmerely having a physical presence. My analysis sheds light oncertain claims made about the relevance of the body to intelligence,as well as on embodiment in software worlds
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/kushmerick97software.html
  http://kushmerick.org/nick/research/download/kushmerick-mm97.ps.gz
  http://www.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=322377CI
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/x88n817q72255022/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=115553&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/X88N817Q72255022.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/1997/00000007/00000002/00115553
  
• L. A. Loren & Eric Dietrich (1997). Merleau-ponty, embodied cognition, and the problem of intentionality.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/1AUCYDPQJ1A7XDQ0.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/1AUCYDPQJ1A7XDQ0.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/ucbs/1997/00000028/00000005/art00002
  
• Michael Losonsky (1995). Emdedded systems vs. individualism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The dispute between individualism and anti-individualism is about the individuation of psychological states, and individualism, on some accounts, is committed to the claim that psychological subjects together with their environments do not constitute integrated computational systems. Hence on this view the computational states that explain psychological states in computational accounts of mind will not involve the subject''s natural and social environment. Moreover, the explanation of a system''s interaction with the environment is, on this view, not the primary goal of computational theorizing. Recent work in computational developmental psychology (by A. Karmiloff-Smith and J. Rutkowska) as well as artificial agents or embedded artificial systems (by L.P. Kaelbling, among others) casts doubt on these claims. In these computational models, the environment does not just trigger and sustain input for computational operations, but some computational operations actually involve environmental structures
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l0hl738085561524/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/L0HL738085561524.pdf
  
• Klaus Mainzer (2005). The embodied mind: On computational, evolutionary, and philosophical interpretations of cognition.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=9080
  http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?lang=hr&show=clanak&id_clanak=2441
  http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak_download&id_clanak_jezik=3929
  
• Pete Mandik & Rick Grush (2002). Representational parts.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this reply we claim that, contra Dreyfus, the kinds of skillful performances Dreyfus discusses _are_ representational. We explain this proposal, and then defend it against an objection to the effect that the representational notion we invoke is a weak one countenancing only some global state of an organism as a representation. According to this objection, such a representation is not a robust, projectible property of an organism, and hence will gain no explana- tory leverage in cognitive scientific explanations. We argue on conceptual and empirical grounds that the representations we have identified are not weak unprojectible global states of organisms, but instead genuinely explanatory representational parts of persons
• Pete Mandik & Andy Clark (2002). Selective representing and world-making.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   In this paper, we discuss the thesis of selective representing –- the idea that the contents of the mental representations had by organisms are highly constrained by the biological niches within which the organisms evolved. While such a thesis has been defended by several authors elsewhere, our primary concern here is to take up the issue of the compatibility of selective representing and realism. In this paper we hope to show three things. First, that the notion of selective representing is fully consistent with the realist idea of a mind-independent world. Second, that not only are these two consistent, but that the latter (the realist conception of a mind-independent world) provides the most powerful perspective from which to motivate and understand the differing perceptual and cognitive profiles themselves. And third, that the (genuine and important) sense in which organism and environment may together constitute an integrated system of scientific interest poses no additional threat to the realist conception
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cogs.indiana.edu/andy/srwm.pdf
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/mandik02selective.html
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=596725.596964
  http://www.petemandik.com/philosophy/papers/srwm.pdf
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/srwm.pdf
  http://testweb.wpunj.edu/cohss/philosophy/FACULTY/mandik/papers/srwm.PDF
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/wk3varqjmeanxht8/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=406270&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/WK3VARQJMEANXHT8.pdf
  
• Pete Mandik (2003). Varieties of representation in evolved and embodied neural networks.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   In this paper I discuss one of the key issuesin the philosophy of neuroscience:neurosemantics. The project of neurosemanticsinvolves explaining what it means for states ofneurons and neural systems to haverepresentational contents. Neurosemantics thusinvolves issues of common concern between thephilosophy of neuroscience and philosophy ofmind. I discuss a problem that arises foraccounts of representational content that Icall ``the economy problem'': the problem ofshowing that a candidate theory of mentalrepresentation can bear the work requiredwithin in the causal economy of a mind and anorganism. My approach in the current paper isto explore this and other key themes inneurosemantics through the use of computermodels of neural networks embodied and evolvedin virtual organisms. The models allow for thelaying bare of the causal economies of entireyet simple artificial organisms so that therelations between the neural bases of, forinstance, representation in perception andmemory can be regarded in the context of anentire organism. On the basis of thesesimulations, I argue for an account ofneurosemantics adequate for the solution of theeconomy problem
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/mandik02varieties.html
  http://www.cogs.indiana.edu/cogx/Mandik_var_rep_03.pdf
  http://www.petemandik.com/philosophy/papers/varrep.pdf
  http://testweb.wpunj.edu/cohss/philosophy/FACULTY/mandik/papers/vreenn.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/m8023w0720l50p81/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5109389&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/M8023W0720L50P81.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/biph/2003/00000018/00000001/05109389
  
• Leslie Marsh (forthcoming). Hayek: Cognitive Scientist Avant La Lettre.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper conceives of Hayek’s overall project as presenting a theory of sociocognition, explication of which has a two-fold purpose: (1) to locate Hayek within the non-Cartesian tradition of cognitive science, and (2) to show how Hayek’s philosophical psychology infuses his social theory.
• Leslie Marsh (2005). Review Essay: Andy Clark's Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence_.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The notion of the cyborg has exercised the popular imagination for almost two hundred years. In very general terms the idea that a living entity can be a hybrid of both organic matter and mechanical parts, and for all intents and purposes be seamlessly functional and self-regulating, was prefigured in literary works such as Shelly
  s Frankenstein (1816/18) and Samuel Butler
  s Erewhon (1872). This notion of hybridism has been a staple theme of 20th century science fiction writing, television programmes and the cinema. For the most part, these works trade on a deep sense of unease we have about our personal identity – how could some non-organic matter to which I have so little conscious access count as a bona fide part of me? Cognitive scientist and philosopher, Andy Clark, picks up this general theme and presents an empirical and philosophical case for the following inextricably linked theses.
• Humberto Maturana (online). Autopoiesis, structural coupling and cognition.   (More)
• Monica Meijsing (ms). Real people and virtual bodies: How disembodied can embodiment be?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It is widely accepted that embodiment is crucial for any self-aware agent. What is less obvious is whether the body has to be real, or whether a virtual body will do. In that case the notion of embodiment would be so attenuated as to be almost indistinguishable from disembodiment. In this article I concentrate on the notion of embodiment in human agents. Could we be disembodied, having no real body, as brains-in-a-vat with only a virtual body? Thought experiments alone will not suffice to answer this Cartesian question. I will draw on both philosophical arguments and empirical data on phantom phenomena. My argument will proceed in three steps. Firstly I will show that phantom phenomena provide a prima facie argument that real embodiment is not necessary for a human being. Secondly I will give a philosophical argument that real movement must precede the intention to move and to act. Agents must at least have had real bodies once. Empirical data seems to bear this out. Finally, however, I will show that a small number of aplasic phantom phenomena undermines this last argument. Most people must have had a real body. But for some people a partly virtual, unreal, phantom body seems to suffice. Yet though there is thus no knockdown argument that we could not be brains-in-a-vat, we still have good reasons to suppose that embodiment must be real, and not virtual
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00003031/
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00003031/01/REAL_PEOPLE_AND_VIRTUAL_BODIES.preprint.doc
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/mgg7237517115026/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/MGG7237517115026.pdf
  
• Thomas Metzinger (2006). Reply to Gallagher: Different conceptions of embodiment.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Gallagher is right in pointing out that scientific realism is an implicit background assumption of BNO, and that I did not give an independent argument for it. He is also right in saying that science does not _demonstrate_ the existence of certain entities, but that it assumes those entities in a process of explanation and theory formation. However, it is not true that science, as Gallagher writes (p.2), “simply” assumes the reality of certain things: such assumptions are embedded in the context of an attempt to find the_ minimal _ set of ontological assumptions one has to make relative to a set of explanatory goals and relative to a specific data set in a certain domain. This parsimonious spirit is also the

  PSYCHE: http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/

  spirit of SMT, which can be seen as a search for the minimal conditions under which a phenomenal self and a consciously experienced first-person perspective can emerge
• Christopher Mole (2009). Illusions, Demonstratives and the Zombie Action Hypothesis.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: David Milner and Melvyn Goodale, and the many psychologists and philosophers who have been influenced by their work, claim that ‘the visual system that gives us our visual experience of the world is not the same system that guides our movements in the world’. The arguments that have been offered for this surprising claim place considerable weight on two sources of evidence — visual form agnosia and the reaching behaviour of normal subjects when picking up objects that induce visual illusions. The present article shows that, if we are careful to consider the possibility that a demonstrative gesture can contribute content to a conscious experience, then neither source of evidence is compelling.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/118/472/995
  
• Pierre Poirier, Be there, or be square! On the importance of being there.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: By using the name of one of his first papers (See Clark 1987) for his latest book, Andy Clark proves how consistent his view of the mind has been over his career. Indeed Being There becomes the latest in a ten year effort, laid out over a series of books, to flesh out one of the few comprehensive proposals in philosophy of mind since Fodor’s Representational Theory of Mind (RTM). Each book in the series accentuates one aspect of Clark’s view. The first, Microcognition (Clark 1989), explores the importance of implementation. Except for a few pockets of resistance, the issue of implementation is by now wholly resolved in Clark’s favor but was, at the time, generally hostile to the idea of implementation (or "mere implementation" as it was commonly referred to back then) in studies of the mind. The second, Associative Engines (Clark 1993), stresses the importance of developmental issues, an idea that is still making waves in the cognitive science and neuroscience community (think of the flurry of models and experiments on developing theories of the mind (Carey 1985, Gopnik 1988, Gopnik and Meltzoff 1996). This latest effort argues for the importance of ecological issues, both for our general view of the mind and our explanation models in cognitive science. It explores the importance of being situated in a body and an environment, the importance of being there. Although each theme accentuated by Clark's books (implementation, development, and ecology) is generally biological in nature, Clark, unlike other biological views of the mind who tend to stress one biological aspect over the others, constantly manages to balance the different aspects in what amounts to perhaps the only integrated, or at least the most complete to date, biological view of the mind
• Jesse Prinz (web). Is consciousness embodied?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: 1. Introduction Consciousness is trendy. It seems that more pages are published on consciousness these days than on any other subject in the philosophy of mind. Embodiment and situated cognition are also trendy. They mark a significant departure from orthodox theories, and are thus appealing to radicals and renegades. It
• Erik Rietveld (2010). McDowell and Dreyfus on Unreflective Action.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Within philosophy there is not yet an integrative account of unreflective skillful action. As a starting point, contributions would be required from philosophers from both the analytic and continental traditions. Starting from the McDowell-Dreyfus debate, shared Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian common ground is identified. McDowell and Dreyfus agree about the importance of embodied skills, situation-specific discernment and responsiveness to relevant affordances. This sheds light on the embodied and situated nature of adequate unreflective action and provides a starting point for the development of an account that does justice to insights from both philosophical traditions.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a920089795~fulltext=713240930
  
• Erik Rietveld (2008). The Skillful Body as a Concernful System of Possible Actions: Phenomena and Neurodynamics.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: For Merleau-Ponty,consciousness in skillful coping is a matter of prereflective ‘I can’ and not explicit ‘I think that.’ The body unifies many domain-specific capacities. There exists a direct link between the perceived possibilities for action in the situation (‘affordances’) and the organism’s capacities. From Merleau-Ponty’s descriptions it is clear that in a flow of skillful actions, the leading ‘I can’ may change from moment to moment without explicit deliberation. How these transitions occur, however, is less clear. Given that Merleau-Ponty suggested that a better understanding of the self-organization of brain and behavior is important, I will re-read his descriptions of skillful coping in the light of recent ideas on neurodynamics. Affective processes play a crucial role in evaluating the motivational significance of objects and contribute to the individual’s prereflective responsiveness to relevant affordances.
• S. J. Rosenschein & L. P. Kaelbling (1995). A situated view of representation and control.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=201255
  http://www.csail.mit.edu/~lpk/papers/sitaut.ps
  http://people.csail.mit.edu/lpk/papers/sitaut.ps
  http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/lpk/papers/sitaut.ps
  http://www.grapa.cs.huji.ac.il/course/2004/imas/readings/rosenschein-situated.ps
  http://www.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=0169047CI
  http://www.csee.umbc.edu/pub/www/courses/graduate/691m/spring02/papers/rosenschein-situated.ps
  
• Steven M. Rosen (2000). Focusing on the Flesh: Merleau-Ponty, Gendlin, and Lived Subjectivity.   (More)
• Robert D. Rupert (ms). Against Group Cognitive States.   (More)
• Robert D. Rupert (forthcoming). Cognitive Systems and the Supersized Mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: 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 skepticism about the hypotheses of extended cognition and extended mind. In particular, Supersizing fails to make the case for the extended view as a revolutionary thesis in the theoretical foundations of cognitive science
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://spot.colorado.edu/~rupertr/Rupert_Phil_Studies_Supersized.doc
  
• Robert D. Rupert (forthcoming). Critical Study of Andy Clark's Supersizing the Mind.   (More)
• Robert D. Rupert (2009). Innateness and the situated mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: forthcoming in P. Robbins and M. Aydede (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (Cambridge UP)
• Robert D. Rupert (ms). Keeping HEC in CHEC.   (More)
• Robert D. Rupert (forthcoming). Representation in extended cognitive systems: Does the scaffolding of language extend the mind?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: forthcoming in R. Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind
• Robert D. Rupert (2010). Systems, Functions, and Intrinsic Natures: On Adams and Aizawa's The Bounds of Cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Review essay contrasting Adams and Aizawa's approach to cognition with a functionalist, systems-based view.
• Selinger, Evan, Dreyfus, Hubert & Harry Collins (2007). Interactional expertise and embodiment.   (More)
• Larry Shapiro (2007). The embodied cognition research programme.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Embodied Cognition is an approach to cognition that departs from traditional cognitive science in its reluctance to conceive of cognition as computational and in its emphasis on the significance of an organism’s body in how and what the organism thinks. Three lines of embodied cognition research are described and some thoughts on the future of embodied cognition offered
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00064.x
  
• Shannon Spaulding (2010). Embodied cognition and mindreading.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Recently, philosophers and psychologists defending the embodied cognition research program have offered arguments against mindreading as a general model of our social understanding. The embodied cognition arguments are of two kinds: those that challenge the developmental picture of mindreading and those that challenge the alleged ubiquity of mindreading. Together, these two kinds of arguments, if successful, would present a serious challenge to the standard account of human social understanding. In this paper, I examine the strongest of these embodied cognition arguments and argue that mindreading approaches can withstand the best of these arguments from embodied cognition
• Susan A. J. Stuart (2002). A radical notion of embeddedness: A logically necessary precondition for agency and self-awareness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118908639/PDFSTART
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9973.00219
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/meta/2002/00000033/F0020001/art00219
  
• Diego Cosmelli & Evan Thompson (web). Embodiment or envatment? Reflections on the bodily basis of consciousness.   (More)
• A. H. Vera & Herbert A. Simon (1993). Situated action: A symbolic interpretation.   (More)
• Joel Walmsley (2008). Methodological Situatedness; or, DEEDS Worth Doing and Pursuing.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper draws a distinction between two possible understandings of the DEEDS (Dynamical, Embodied, Extended, Distributed and Situated) approach to cognition. On the one hand, the DEEDS approach may be interpreted as making a metaphysical claim about the nature and location of cognitive processes. On the other hand, the DEEDS approach may be read as providing a methodological prescription about how we ought to conduct cognitive scientific research. I argue that the latter, methodological, reading shows that the DEEDS approach is pursuitworthy independently of an assessment of the truth of the metaphysical claim. Understood in this way, the DEEDS approach may avoid some of the objections that have been levelled against it.
• Daniel A. Weiskopf (online). Embodied cognition and linguistic understanding.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Traditionally, the language faculty was supposed to be a device that maps linguistic inputs to semantic or conceptual representations. These representations themselves were supposed to be distinct from the representations manipulated by the hearer.s perceptual and motor systems. Recently this view of language has been challenged by advocates of embodied cognition. Drawing on empirical studies of linguistic comprehension, they have proposed that the language faculty reuses the very representations and processes deployed in perceiving and acting. I review some of the evidence in favor of the embodied view of language comprehension, and argue that none of it is conclusive. Moreover, the embodied view itself blurs two important distinctions: first, the distinction between linguistic comprehension and its typical consequences; and second, the distinction between representational content and vehicles. Given that these distinctions are well-motivated, we have good reason to reject the embodied view of linguistic understanding
• Robert A. Wilson & Andy Clark (2009). How to situate cognition: Letting nature take its course.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: 1. The Situation in Cognition 2. Situated Cognition: A Potted Recent History 3. Extensions in Biology, Computation, and Cognition 4. Articulating the Idea of Cognitive Extension 5. Are Some Resources Intrinsically Non-Cognitive? 6. Is Cognition Extended or Only Embedded? 7. Letting Nature Take Its Course
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ualberta.ca/~philosop/faculty/wilson/sitcog.pdf
  http://www.cogs.indiana.edu/cogx/Wilson_Clark_sitcog_05.pdf
  
• Margaret Wilson (2002). Six Views of Embodied Cognition.   (More)
• Cory D. Wright (2008). Embodied Cognition: Grounded Until Further Notice?   (More)
• Jianhui Zhang & Donald A. Norman (1994). Representations in distributed cognitive tasks.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15516709cog1801_3
  http://acad88.sahs.uth.tmc.edu/research/publications/DisRep.pdf
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1207/s15516709cog1801_3
  http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/CSJarchive/1994v18/i01/p0087p0122/MAIN.PDF
  http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/zhang (1994) representations in distributed cognitive tasks.pdf
  

Animal Cognition

• Kristin Andrews (online). Animal cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Draft entry for the Stanford Encylcopedia of Philosophy
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/render.cgi?login=kandrews&public=0&entry=cognition-animal&page=index.html
  http://www.yorku.ca/andrewsk/documents/animalcognition.pdf
  https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/render.cgi?login=kandrews&public=0&entry=cognition-animal&page=index.html
  
• Kristin Andrews (2007). Critter psychology.   (More)
• Kristin Andrews (2005). Chimpanzee theory of mind: Looking in all the wrong places?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I respond to an argument presented by Daniel Povinelli and Jennifer Vonk that the current generation of experiments on chimpanzee theory of mind cannot decide whether chimpanzees have the ability to reason about mental states. I argue that Povinelli and Vonk’s proposed experiment is subject to their own criticisms and that there should be a more radical shift away from experiments that ask subjects to predict behavior. Further, I argue that Povinelli and Vonk’s theoretical commitments should lead them to accept this new approach, and that experiments which offer subjects the opportunity to look for explanations for anomalous behavior should be explored
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.yorku.ca/andrewsk/documents/Chimpanzeetheoryofmind.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0268-1064.2005.00298.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2005/00000020/00000005/art00003
  
• Kristin Andrews (2009). Politics or metaphysics? On attributing psychological properties to animals.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Biology and Philosophy, forthcoming. Following recent arguments that there is no logical problem with attributing mental or agential states to animals, I address the epistemological problem of how to go about making accurate attributions. I suggest that there is a two-part general method for determining whether a psychological property can be accurately attributed to a member of another species: folk expert opinion and functionality. This method is based on well-known assessments used to attribute mental states to humans who are unable to self-ascribe due to an early stage of development or impairment, and can be used to describe social and emotional development as well as personality. I describe how instruments such as the Child Behavior Checklist, which relies on intersubjective expert opinion, could be modified to assess other species subjects. The measures are validated via the accuracy of the predictions that are derived, which is an example of the functionality of attribution. I respond to theoretical criticisms against use of this method, and argue that if the method counts as good science for infant cognition research, then it should count as good science for animal cognition research as well. Correspondingly, if the method doesn’t count as good science for animal cognition research, then we must be very skeptical of its use with nonverbal humans
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/92p025433234xm20/fulltext.pdf
  
• David Beisecker (1999). The importance of being erroneous: Prospects for animal intentionality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The question of animal belief (or animal intentionality) often degenerates into a frustrating and unproductive exchange. Foes of animal intentionality point out that non-linguistic animals couldn’t possibly possess the kinds of mental states we linguistic beings enjoy. They claim that linguistic ability enables us to become sensitive to intensional contexts or to the states of mind of others in a way that is unavailable to the non-linguistic, and that would be necessary for proper attributions of intentionality. To attribute mental states to non-linguistic brutes, no matter how natural it comes to us, would be grossly anthropomorphic. In the face of these challenges some friends of animal intentionality have attempted to show that at least a few animals (chimpanzees, vervet monkeys, honeybees) are capable of engaging in quasi-linguistic, communicative practices that ought to be accorded at least a minimal degree of intentionality. Others have questioned the foes’ necessity claims; linguistic ability, claim these animal friends, isn’t required for sensitivity to intensional contexts, surprise, or belief about belief after all, or if it is, then these features aren’t really requisite for mental capacity. Indeed, if we focus exclusively upon linguistic ability, then we are apt to miss the primitive kinds of mental capacities from which our own full-blooded intentional capacities likely evolved. Animals certainly seem to interact intelligently with their surroundings, so much so that we ought to follow our natural (brute?) anthropomorphic inclinations to credit them with minds. Failing to recognize their genuine intentional capacities would be "brutishly" anthropocentric
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.unlv.edu/faculty/beisecker/Research/Erroneous.pdf
  
• Francesca M. Bosco & Maurizio Tirassa (1998). Sharedness as an innate basis for communication in the infant.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: From a cognitive perspective, intentional communication may be viewed as an agent's activity overtly aimed at modifying a partner's mental states. According to standard Gricean definitions, this requires each party to be able to ascribe mental states to the other, i.e., to entertain a so-called theory of mind. According to the relevant experimental literature, however, such capability does not appear before the third or fourth birthday; it would follow that children under that age should not be viewed as communicating agents. In order to solve the resulting dilemma, we propose that certain specific components of an agent's cognitive architecture (namely, a peculiar version of sharedness and communicative intention), are necessary and sufficient to explain infant communication in a mentalist framework. We also argue that these components are innate in the human species
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00003559/01/1998-Mindreading.pdf
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:3559
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=GxuzmBoqlvUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA162&ots=B12sFYILGi&sig=i4vuUSLkbEJm3-FFUeZfYKqc8Iw
  
• Stephen R. L. Clark (2003). Non-personal minds.   (More)
• Marian S. Dawkins (1990). From an animal's point of view: Motivation, fitness, and animal welfare.   (More)
• Daniel C. Dennett (1989). Cognitive ethology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The field of Artificial Intelligence has produced so many new concepts--or at least vivid and more structured versions of old concepts--that it would be surprising if none of them turned out to be of value to students of animal behavior. Which will be most valuable? I will resist the temptation to engage in either prophecy or salesmanship; instead of attempting to answer the question: "How might Artificial Intelligence inform the study of animal behavior?" I will concentrate on the obverse: "How might the study of animal behavior inform research in Artificial Intelligence?"
• Daniel C. Dennett (1995). Do animals have beliefs?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In Herbert Roitblat, ed., _Comparative Approaches to Cognitive Sciences_ , MIT Press, 1995. Daniel C. Dennett

  Do Animals Have Beliefs?

  According to one more or less standard mythology, behaviorism, the ideology and methodology that reigned in experimental psychology for most of the century, has been overthrown by a new ideology and methodology: cognitivism. Behaviorists, one is told, didn't take the mind seriously. They ignored--or even denied the existence of--mental states such as beliefs and desires, and mental processes such as imagination and reasoning; behaviorists concentrated exclusively on external, publicly observable behavior, and the (external, publicly observable) conditions under which such behavior was elicited. Cognitivists, in contrast, take the mind seriously, and develop theories, models, explanations, that invoke, as real items, these internal, mental, goings-on. People (and at least some other animals) have minds after all--they are
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/doanimal.htm
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=OeXfeyVTtJ8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA111&dq=Do+animals+have+beliefs?+Dennett&ots=FTs-hle2Jy&sig=FRJvj3aBUmqWSWQfg_Am_ds3G-g
  
• Roger Fellows (2000). Animal belief.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Non language-using animals cannot have beliefs, because believing entails the ability to distinguish true from false beliefs and also the ability to distinguish changes in belief from changes in the world. For these abilities we need both the fixation of belief and counter-factual thought, for both of which language is necessary. The argument of the paper extends Davidson's argument to the same conclusion (which is found wanting). But denying beliefs to animals has no moral implications
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=61498&jid=PHI&volumeId=75&issueId=04&aid=61497
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8191(200010)75:294<587:AB>2.0.CO;2-E
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0031819100000681
  http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0031819100000681
  
• Nick K. Humphrey (1976). How monkeys acquire a new way of seeing.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Abstract. In an experiment on perceptual learning, monkeys were given the opportunity to watch on television the `private behaviour' of another monkey (which did not know it was being watched). The subjects were shown monkey X for twenty sessions in a row, followed by monkey Y for twenty sessions, followed by monkey X again for twenty sessions. The subjects' `interest' in the
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001781/
  http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=p050051
  http://www.humphrey.org.uk/papers/1976NewWayOfSeeing.pdf
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001781/00/Perception76.pdf
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1781
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=822392&dopt=Citation
  
• Susan L. Hurley (2003). Animal action in the space of reasons.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   I defend the view that we should not overintellectualize the mind. Nonhuman animals can occupy islands of practical rationality: they can have contextbound reasons for action even though they lack full conceptual abilities. Holism and the possibility of mistake are required for such reasons to be the agent's reasons, but these requirements can be met in the absence of inferential promiscuity. Empirical work with animals is used to illustrate the possibility that reasons for action could be bound to symbolic or social contexts, and connections are made to simulationist accounts of cognitive skills
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1468-0017.00223/abs/
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0017.00223
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2003/00000018/00000003/art00001
  
• Susan L. Hurley (2003). Making sense of animals: Interpretation vs. architecture.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: i>: We should not overintellectualize the mind. Nonhuman animals can occupy islands of practical rationality: they can have specific, context-bound reasons for action even though they lack full conceptual abilities. Holism and the possibility of mistake are required for such reasons to be the agent’s reasons, but these requirements can be met in the absence of inferential promiscuity. Empirical work with animals is used to illustrate the possibility that reasons for action could be bound to symbolic or social contexts, and connections are made to simulationist accounts of cognitive skills
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1468-0017.00226/enhancedabs/
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118880008/PDFSTART
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0017.00226
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2003/00000018/00000003/art00004
  
• Matteo Mameli & Lisa Bortolotti (2006). Animal rights, animal minds, and human mindreading.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Do non-human animals have rights? The answer to this question depends on whether animals have morally relevant mental properties. Mindreading is the human activity of ascribing mental states to other organisms. Current knowledge about the evolution and cognitive structure of mindreading indicates that human ascriptions of mental states to non-human animals are very inaccurate. The accuracy of human mindreading can be improved with the help of scientific studies of animal minds. But the scientific studies by themselves do not by themselves solve the problem of how to map psychological similarities (and differences) between humans and animals onto a distinction between morally relevant and morally irrelevant mental properties. The current limitations of human mindreading – whether scientifically aided or not – have practical consequences for the rational justification of claims about which rights (if any) non-human animals should be accorded.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/32/2/84?ck=nck
  http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/2/84
  http://jme.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/2/84
  http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/~gmm32/MAMELI_ANIMALS_2006.pdf
  http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/gmm32/MAMELI_ANIMALS_2006.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16446412&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=16446412&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  
• Derek C. Penn & Daniel J. Povinelli (2007). On the lack of evidence that non-human animals possess anything remotely resembling a 'theory of mind'.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=17264056&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=17264056&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  
• Daniel J. Povinelli & Jennifer Vonk (2004). We don't need a microscope to explore the chimpanzee's mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The question of whether chimpanzees, like humans, reason about unobservable mental states remains highly controversial. On one account, chimpanzees are seen as possessing a psychological system for social cognition that represents and reasons about behaviors alone. A competing account allows that the chimpanzee's social cognition system additionally construes the behaviors it represents in terms of mental states. Because the range of behaviors that each of the two systems can generate is not currently known, and because the latter system depends upon the former, determining the presence of this latter system in chimpanzees is a far more difficult task than has been assumed. We call for recognition of this problem, and a shift from experimental paradigms that cannot resolve this question, to ones that might allow researchers to intelligently determine when it is necessary to postulate the presence of a system which reasons about both behavior and mental states
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://pages.pomona.edu/~rt004747/lgcs11read/PovinelliVonk04.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2004.00244.x/enhancedabs/
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2004.00244.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2004/00000019/00000001/art00001
  
• Daniel J. Povinelli & Jennifer Vonk (2006). We don't need a microscope to explore the chimpanzee's mind.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://pages.pomona.edu/~rt004747/lgcs11read/PovinelliVonk04.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2004.00244.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2004/00000019/00000001/art00001
  
• David Premack & G. Woodruff (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?   (More)
• Joëlle Proust (1999). Mind, space and objectivity in non-human animals.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/13/92/17/PDF/Mind_space_object-_copie.pdf
  http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/13/92/17/PDF/Mind_space_object-_copie.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=232203&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/R4234GJ876U3573X.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/erke/1999/00000051/00000001/00232203
  
• Michael Rescorla (forthcoming). Chrysippus's Dog as a Case Study in Non-Linguistic Cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I critique an ancient argument for the possibility of non-linguistic deductive inference. The argument, attributed to Chrysippus, describes a dog whose behavior supposedly reflects disjunctive syllogistic reasoning. Drawing on contemporary robotics, I urge that we can equally well explain the dog's behavior by citing probabilistic reasoning over cognitive maps. I then critique various experimentally-based arguments from scientific psychology that echo Chrysippus's anecdotal presentation.
• Elliott Sober (2001). The principle of conservatism in cognitive ethology.   (More)
• Achim Stephan (1999). Are animals capable of concepts?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Often, the behavior of animals can be better explained and predicted, it seems, if we ascribe the capacity to have beliefs, intentions, and concepts to them. Whether we really can do so, however, is a debated issue. Particularly, Donald Davidson maintains that there is no basis in fact for ascribing propositional attitudes or concepts to animals. I will consider his and rival views, such as Colin Allen's three-part approach, for determining whether animals possess concepts. To avoid pure theoretical debate, however, I will test these criteria using characteristic examples from ethology that depict a broad range of animal behavior. This will allow us to detect a series of gradations in animals' capacities, in the course of which we can think over what would count for or against an attribution of concepts and propositional attitudes to them in each single case. Self-conceit is our natural hereditary disease. Of all creatures man is the most wretched and fragile, and at once the most supercilious. ... It is by this conceit that man arrogates to himself ... divine properties, that he segregates himself from the mass of other creatures and raises himself above them ..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/jn7x520m12p8v223/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=232205&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/JN7X520M12P8V223.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/erke/1999/00000051/00000001/00232205
  
• Edward L. Thorndike (1911). Animal intelligence.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Thorndike/Animal/index.htm
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&sig=BUJokemJo713YflV9Tj943XdNxw&dq=+Animal+intelligence.+Thorndike
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6uCil0AL&sig=ZBbwt7jA5RFjJ4tYDBgIknpLT04
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6rIgi0vF&sig=LKJHXeY6NDNRR6aNrEU0Npec6KI
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6tAhg6tK&sig=AisnoKKtbSGH5OgnIF8GkPG1MAs
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6sEgm1yK&sig=h4HaMQ48dW7kwkSkx8RVmFkPtWE
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6tGhl6uL&sig=77L4lodTRCW4JhaLj-mNBlQrxQ4
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6pEei7rJ&sig=t1ya9E_PEW6tub1-scOKfWZmlmw
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6qAen3yL&sig=MUW4cJe84KjMrMtC0pSPKymiMHE
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6qGfi0AF&sig=JAv8hKIiezfAlacyGW6JhcK3Hog
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6vEji7xI&sig=qyt__VjJJNEvLRtxJfSkyQ5vFvc
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6rCfm7vF&sig=cnaCqNTZadUWOpgxUEse3iwQGC0
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-jftFjm7wH&sig=jxtc9mczU1gVW02txqJcf6WSzAs
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-k6uIip_yN&sig=MTDnpKNLSZYoKky4xjxQC_fBsfo
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=+Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-jftAgp0xL&sig=zZnh6ots6UCBE25ZbT86aCR5B7Y
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Go8XozILUJYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=+Animal+intelligence+Thorndike&ots=-jftDjm0vG&sig=fej2Z2mt4ESt3lA_LtjMjoHphE8
  
• Andrew Whiten (2001). Theory of mind in non-verbal apes: Conceptual issues and the critical experiments.   (More)

Animal Emotion

• Marc Bekoff (2006). Animal passions and beastly virtues: Cognitive ethology as the unifying science for understanding the subjective, emotional, empathic, and moral lives of animals.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ethologicalethics.org/AnimalPassions05.pdf
  http://www.temple.edu/tempress/catalogs/archive/Fall2005.pdf
  http://www.ocis.temple.edu/tempress/catalogs/archive/fall2005.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/zygo/2006/00000041/00000001/art00007
  
• Jaak Panksepp (2005). Affective consciousness: Core emotional feelings in animals and humans.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15766890&dopt=Citation
  

Animal Language

• Sue Savage-Rumbaugh & K. E. Brakke (1996). Animal language: Methodological and interpretative issues.   (More)
• E. S. Savage-Rumbaugh, Duane M. Rumbaugh & Sarah T. Boysen (1980). Do apes use language?   (More)

Animal Cognition, Misc

• Colin Allen, Conditioned anti-anthropomorphism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: How should scientists react to anthropomorphism (defined for the purposes of this paper as the attribution of mental states or properties to nonhuman animals)? Many thoughtful scientists have attempted to accommodate some measure of anthropomorphism in their approaches to animal behavior. But Wynne will have none of it. We reject his argument against anthropomorphism and argue that he does not pay sufficient attention to the historical facts or to the details of alternative approaches

Levels of Analysis in Cognitive Science

• Jose Luis Bermudez (2000). Personal and subpersonal: A difference without a distinction.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper argues that, while there is a difference between personal and sub-personal explanation, claims of autonomy should be treated with scepticism. It distinguishes between horizontal and vertical explanatory relations that might hold between facts at the personal and farts at the sub-personal level. Noting that many philosophers are prepared to accept vertical explanatory relations between the two levels, I argue for the stronger claim that, in the case of at least three central personal level phenomena, the demands of explanatory adequacy require postulating horizontal explanatory relations
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a780184915~fulltext=713240930
  
• Axel Cleeremans & Robert M. French (1996). From chicken squawking to cognition: Levels of description and the computational approach in psychology.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cleeremans96from.html
  http://srsc.ulb.ac.be/axcWWW/papers/96-Modeling.html
  http://www.u-bourgogne.fr/CRI-CCUB/archives/neurons/PSYBEL/cf3.ps.gz
  http://www.u-bourgogne.fr/CRI-CCUB/archives/matlab/neurons/PSYBEL/cf3.ps.gz
  
• Martin Davies (2000). Interaction without reduction: The relationship between personal and subpersonal levels of description.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/T13M4NR482305V32.pdf
  
• Ron McClamrock (1990). Marr's three levels: A re-evaluation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: the _algorithmic_, and the _implementational_; Zenon Pylyshyn (1984) calls them the _semantic_, the _syntactic_, and the _physical_; and textbooks in cognitive psychology sometimes call them the levels of _content_, _form_, and _medium_ (e.g. Glass, Holyoak, and Santa 1979)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/u25752j9t525r373/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/U25752J9T525R373.pdf
  
• Allen Newell (1982). The knowledge level.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=162589
  http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/assets/PDF/AIMag02-02-001.pdf
  https://www.aaai.org/aitopics/assets/PDF/AIMag02-02-001.pdf
  http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA106556
  http://cs.uns.edu.ar/~grs/InteligenciaArtificial/Allen Newell - The knowledge level.pdf
  http://www.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=N8216772AH
  

Explanation in Cognitive Science

• Andy Clark (1998). Twisted tales: Causal complexity and cognitive scientific explanation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Recent work in biology and cognitive science depicts a variety of target phenomena as the products of a tangled web of causal influences. Such influences may include both internal and external factors as well as complex patterns of reciprocal causal interaction. Such twisted tales are sometimes seen as a threat to explanatory strategies that invoke notions such as inner programs, genes for and sometimes even internal representations. But the threat, I shall argue, is more apparent than real. Complex causal influence, in and of itself, provides no good reason to reject these familiar explanatory notions. To believe otherwise, I suggest, is generally to commit (at least) one of two seductive errors. The first error is to think that the general notion of a state x coding for an outcome y involves the state's constituting a full description of y. This is what I call the myth of the self-contained code. The second error is to think that the practice of treating certain factors as special (e.g., seeing genes as coding for outcomes in a way environmental factors do not) depends on the (often mistaken) belief that the singled out factor is somehow doing the most real work. Where the amounts of causal influence are evenly spread, it is assumed there can be no reason to treat one factor in a special way. This is what I term the Myth of Explanatory Equality. Avoiding these errors involves reminding ourselves of (1) the rich context-dependence of even standard, unproblematic uses of the notions of code, program and information content (all three make sense only relative to an assumed ecological backdrop) and (2) the difference between explaining why an event occurred and displaying the full workings of a complex causal system
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=596768
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/twisted.pdf
  http://www.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=328380CI
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/content/l017014km63luk65/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l017014km63luk65/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=150275&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/L017014KM63LUK65.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/1998/00000008/00000001/00150275
  
• Axel Cleeremans & Luis Jimenez (1999). Stability and explicitness: In defense of implicit representation.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.usc.es/~psljim/98-CJ-on-OO.pdf
  http://srsc.ulb.ac.be/axcwww/papers/pdf/98-CJ-on-OO.pdf
  http://srsc.ulb.ac.be/axcWWW/papers/pdf/98-CJ-on-OO.pdf
  http://srsc.ulb.ac.be/axcWWW/papers/pdf/98-CJ-on-OO.pdf
  http://srsc-mac1.ulb.ac.be/axcWWW/papers/pdf/98-CJ-on-OO.pdf
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=31078&jid=BBS&volumeId=22&issueId=01&aid=31077
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X99251795
  
• Hanne De Jaegher & Tom Froese (2009). On the role of social interaction in individual agency.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Is an individual agent constitutive of or constituted by its social interactions? This question is typically not asked in the cognitive sciences, so strong is the consensus that only individual agents have constitutive efficacy. In this article we challenge this methodological solipsism and argue that interindividual relations and social context do not simply arise from the behavior of individual agents, but themselves enable and shape the individual agents on which they depend. For this, we define the notion of autonomy as both a characteristic of individual agents and of social interaction processes. We then propose a number of ways in which interactional autonomy can influence individuals. Then we discuss recent work in modeling on the one hand and psychological investigations on the other that support and illustrate this claim. Finally, we discuss some implications for research on social and individual agency.
• Hanne De Jaegher (2009). Social understanding through direct perception? Yes, by interacting.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper comments on Gallagher’s recently published direct perception proposal about social cognition [Gallagher, S. (2008a). Direct perception in the intersubjective context. Consciousness and Cognition, 17(2), 535–543]. I show that direct perception is in danger of being appropriated by the very cognitivist accounts criticised by Gallagher (theory theory and simulation theory). Then I argue that the experiential directness of perception in social situations can be understood only in the context of the role of the interaction process in social cognition. I elaborate on the role of social interaction with a discussion of participatory sense-making to show that direct perception, rather than being a perception enriched by mainly individual capacities, can be best understood as an interactional phenomenon.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WD0-4V57Y1R-1&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2009&_rdoc=21&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236752%232009%23999819997%231093079%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=6752&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=27&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=751bf6f06e4c0778b9598820e8321943
  
• Hanne De Jaegher (2009). What made me want the cheese? A reply to Shaun Gallagher and Dan Hutto.   (More)
• Andrew A. Fingelkurts & Alexander A. Fingelkurts (2004). Making Complexity Simpler: Multivariability and Metastability in the Brain.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This article provides a retrospective, current and prospective overview on developments in brain research and neuroscience. Both theoretical and empirical studies are considered, with emphasis in the concept of multivariability and metastability in the brain. In this new view on the human brain, the potential multivariability of the neuronal networks appears to be far from continuous in time, but confined by the dynamics of short-term local and global metastable brain states. The article closes by suggesting some of the implications of this view in future multidisciplinary brain research.
• Luis Jimenez & Axel Cleeremans (1999). Fishing with the wrong nets: How the implicit slips through the representational theory of mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: that depart radically from classical assumptions
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X99402183
  
• Machiel Keestra & Stephen Cowley (2009). Foundationalism and neuroscience; silence and language.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Neuroscience offers more than new empirical evidence about the details of cognitive functions such as language, perception and action. Since it also shows many functions to be highly distributed, interconnected and dependent on mechanisms at different levels of processing, it challenges concepts that are traditionally used to describe these functions. The question is how to accommodate these concepts to the recent evidence. A recent proposal, made in Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (2003) by Bennett and Hacker, is that concepts play a foundational role in neuroscience, that empirical research needs to presuppose them and that changing concepts is a philosophical task. In defending this perspective, PFN shows much neuroscientific writing to be dualistic in nature due to our poor grasp of its foundations. In our review article we take a different approach. Instead of foundationalism we plead for a mild coherentism, which allows for a gradual and continuous alteration of concepts in light of new evidence. Following this approach it is also easier to deal with some neurological conditions (like blindsight, synaesthesia) that pose difficulties for our concepts. Finally, although words and concepts seem to seduce us to thinking that many skills and tasks function separately, it is language skill that – as neuroscientific evidence shows – co-emerges with action/perception cycles and thus seems to require revision of some of our central concepts.
• Machiel Keestra (2008). The diverging force of imitation. Integrating cognitive science and hermeneutics.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Recent research on infant and animal imitation and on mirror neuron systems has
  brought imitation back in focus in psychology and cognitive science. This topic has
  always been important for philosophical hermeneutics as well, focusing on theory and
  method of understanding. Unfortunately, relations between the scientific and the
  hermeneutic approaches to imitation and understanding have scarcely been investigated,
  to the loss of both disciplines. In contrast to the cognitive scientific emphasis on
  sharing and convergence of representations, the hermeneutic analysis emphasizes the
  indeterminacy and openness of action understanding due to preunderstanding, action
  configuration, and the processual nature of understanding. This article discusses empirical
  evidence in support of these aspects and concludes that hermeneutics can
  contribute to the scientific investigation of imitation and understanding. Since, conversely,
  some grounding—and constraining—aspects of hermeneutics may be derived
  from cognitive science, both should be integrated in a multilevel explanation of
  imitation and understanding. This holds also for explanations that are largely based on
  mirror neuron systems, since these appear to be sensitive to developmental and
  experiential factors, too.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.keestra/bestanden/Keestra-Hermeneutics_Neuroscience.RevGenPsychology2008.pdf
  http://DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.12.2.127
  
• Leslie Marsh (forthcoming). Hayek: Cognitive Scientist Avant La Lettre.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper conceives of Hayek’s overall project as presenting a theory of sociocognition, explication of which has a two-fold purpose: (1) to locate Hayek within the non-Cartesian tradition of cognitive science, and (2) to show how Hayek’s philosophical psychology infuses his social theory.
• Susan Schneider, Yes, it does: A diatribe on Jerry Fodor's the mind doesn't work that way.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way is an expose of certain theoretical problems in cognitive science, and in particular, problems that concern the Classical Computational Theory of Mind (CTM). The problems that Fodor worries plague CTM divide into two kinds, and both purport to show that the success of cognitive science will likely be limited to the modules. The first sort of problem concerns what Fodor has called “global properties”; features that a mental sentence has which depend on how the sentence interacts with a larger plan (i.e., set of sentences), rather than the type identity of the sentence alone. The second problem concerns what many have called, “The Relevance Problem”: the problem of whether and how humans determine what is relevant in a computational manner. However, I argue that the problem that Fodor believes global properties pose for CTM is a non-problem, and that further, while the relevance problem is a serious research issue, it does not justify the grim view that cognitive science, and CTM in particular, will likely fail to explain cognition
• Robert A. Wilson & Frank Keil (1998). The shadows and shallows of explanation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   We introduce two notions–the shadows and the shallows of explanation–in opening up explanation to broader, interdisciplinary investigation. The shadows of explanation refer to past philosophical efforts to provide either a conceptual analysis of explanation or in some other way to pinpoint the essence of explanation. The shallows of explanation refer to the phenomenon of having surprisingly limited everyday, individual cognitive abilities when it comes to explanation. Explanations are ubiquitous, but they typically are not accompanied by the depth that we might, prima facie, expect. We explain the existence of the shadows and shallows of explanation in terms of there being a theoretical abyss between explanation and richer, theoretical structures that are often attributed to people. We offer an account of the shallows, in particular, both in terms of shorn-down, internal, mental machinery, and in terms of an enriched, public symbolic environment, relative to the currently dominant ways of thinking about cognition and the world
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=328383CI
  http://www.yale.edu/cogdevlab/People/Lab_Members/Frank/Frank's papers pdfs /Frank's articles/shadowsshallows.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/w735507650219741/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=150286&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/W735507650219741.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/1998/00000008/00000001/00150286
  
• Cory D. Wright (2008). Embodied Cognition: Grounded Until Further Notice?   (More)
• Cory Wright (2007). Is psychological explanation going extinct?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Psychoneural reductionists sometimes claim that sufficient amounts of lower-level explanatory achievement preclude further contributions from higher-level psychological research. Ostensibly, with nothing left to do, the effect of such preclusion on psychological explanation is extinction. Reductionist arguments for preclusion have recently involved a reorientation within the philosophical foundations of neuroscience---namely, away from the philosophical foundations and toward the neuroscience. In this chapter, I review a successful reductive explanation of an aspect of reward function in terms of dopaminergic operations of the mesocorticolimbic system in order to demonstrate why preclusion/extinction claims are dubious.

Representation in Cognitive Science

• Katalin Balog (2009). Jerry Fodor on Non-conceptual Content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Proponents of non-conceptual content have recruited it for various philosophical jobs. Some epistemologists have suggested that it may play the role of “the given” that Sellars is supposed to have exorcised from philosophy. Some philosophers of mind (e.g., Dretske) have suggested that it plays an important role in the project of naturalizing semantics as a kind of halfway between merely information bearing and possessing conceptual content. Here I will focus on a recent proposal by Jerry Fodor. In a recent paper he characterizes non-conceptual content in a particular way and argues that it is plausible that it plays an explanatory role in accounting for certain auditory and visual phenomena. So he thinks that there is reason to believe that there is non-conceptual content. On the other hand, Fodor thinks that non-conceptual content has a limited role. It occurs only in the very early stages of perceptual processing prior to conscious awareness. My paper is examines Fodor’s characterization of non-conceptual content and his claims for its explanatory importance. I also discuss if Fodor has made a case for limiting non-conceptual content to non-conscious, sub-personal mental states.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/mk8622l2554025q6/fulltext.pdf
  
• Francisco Calvo Garzon & Angel Garcia Rodriguez (2009). Where is cognitive science heading?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to Ramsey (Representation reconsidered, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2007), only classical cognitive science, with the related notions of input–output and structural representations, meets the job description challenge (the challenge to show that a certain structure or process serves a representational role at the subpersonal level). By contrast, connectionism and other nonclassical models, insofar as they exploit receptor and tacit notions of representation, are not genuinely representational. As a result, Ramsey submits, cognitive science is taking a U-turn from representationalism back to behaviourism, thus presupposing that (1) the emergence of cognitivism capitalized on the concept of representation, and that (2) the materialization of nonclassical cognitive science involves a return to some form of pre-cognitivist behaviourism. We argue against both (1) and (2), by questioning Ramsey’s divide between classical and representational, versus nonclassical and nonrepresentational, cognitive models. For, firstly, connectionist and other nonclassical accounts have the resources to exploit the notion of a structural isomorphism, like classical accounts (the beefing-up strategy); and, secondly, insofar as input–output and structural representations refer to a cognitive agent, classical explanations fail to meet the job description challenge (the deflationary strategy). Both strategies work independently of each other: if the deflationary strategy succeeds, contra (1), cognitivism has failed to capitalize on the relevant concept of representation; if the beefing-up strategy is sound, contra (2), the return to a pre-cognitivist era cancels out.
• Marvin Kirsh (ms). Apparency and Actuality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Apparency and actuality are discussed with respect to science, genetics, evolution, cognition and perception. Rules for a (sub)set of actual/allowable sets of entities and objects from a total set that is based on differences and contrasts extracted from perceptual experience of the world elucidate tenable combinations/recombinations from a total of the transparent(history/past dependant) and the apparent as they can be construed to comprise the actual/real faces of perception. The elements of dreams, language, symbolisms, abstractions are proposed to encompass to encompass a total set of plausible apparencies. Nature from which both internal and external life is mirrored at the simplest structural level is propose to be constructed similarly-to physically possess also concepts and abstractions as states that reflect differences/combinations/recombinations parametrically that are emerged from the parameters associated with particular circumstances. This view is dependant upon, for its' conceptual soundness, a total construction of the world that descends, rather than ascends, in structural complexity and diversity and which is innately divided and compartmentalized in sequence from a more complex uniquely existing state describable singularly as a place of force and proximities form which all processes ensue. Integration of sound, light, into sensory experience and language is proposed to be a natural process of the accomplishment of new proximities/states from total apparent plausibility’s (past and actual combined) verses the actually(past and present) existing. Two potential important aspects of this scheme exist with regards to evolution theory: 1) a very relative dynamic state of change and emergence is plausible 2) a consistent identity of objects and entities is resolvable that is not based on apparent observations or partial history of events but on a set of total states and processes occurred during the progression to an actual condition. This is suggested to be unique for each and every actual situation as an identifier and is proposed to account for allowances with respect to new potentials. "Self" in this sense can assume more involved relations with self more than with the more distant, hence alien, otherwise arrived at proximal components, components of the environment, inert or otherwise. An example is presented with respect to solar energies and their toxicity to cause disturbances/disease upon internal exposure-as an unnaturally arrived imbalance/proximity between the transparent (history dependant) and the apparent-together comprising, in this situation, a disturbed actual state that can encompass also distortions in the perception of time. Time is proposed to be delineated as a contrast of proximal and distal factors mutually involved with both transparent (genealogically) oriented parameters, and empirically apparent factors that together comprise the actual, as well as those more immediate proximal and distal components(e.g. solar radiation, light-the less structured ambient verse those elements that comprise visual perceptions) as they influence the senses. Each entity species in this scheme possesses its’ own characteristic sense of time along with contemporary factors that influence the perception of time state, state of health and disturbance.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1280541
  
• David Kirsh (2003). Implicit and Explicit Representation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The degree to which information is encoded explicitly in a representation is related to the computational cost of recovering or using the information. Knowledge that is implicit in a system need not be represented at all, even implicitly, if the cost of recovering it is prohibitive.
• Marvin Eli Kirsh (2008). Induction, space and positive ethics.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:      One may purport that ones awareness of space for scientific purposes comes about from a potential awareness of its'absence that is derived from times when ones attention is not focused on it. Yet simply one might extract the notion that space and entailed properties of it are elemental - i.e. conceptually non reducible and that from which all emanates. The words non-ethical induction, entailing the existence of ethical induction, if compared in a corresponding manner (to indivisible space and the attentive awareness of it), also entail that the ethics of induction in science are dependant on attentive focus. In the following description I will attempt to draw some logical conclusions employing this analogy regardless of its' potential validity or invalidity and then relate these conclusions to actual circumstances in order to lend them substance
• David Kirsh (2009). Projections, Problem Space, and Anchoring.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: When people make sense of situations, illustrations, instructions and problems they do more than just think with their heads. They gesture, talk, point, annotate, make notes and so on. What extra do they get from interacting with their environment in this way? To study this fundamental problem, I looked at how people project structure onto geometric drawings, visual proofs, and games like tic tac toe. Two experiments were run to learn more about projection. Projection is a special capacity, similar to perception, but less tied to what is in the environment. Projection, unlike pure imagery, requires external structure to anchor it, but it adds ‘mental’ structure to the external scene much like an augmented reality system adds structure to an outside scene. A person projects when they look at a chessboard and can see where a knight may be moved. Because of the cognitive costs of sustaining and extending projection, humans make some of their projections real. They create structure externally. They move the piece, they talk, point, notate, represent. Much of our interactivity during sense making and problem solving involves a cycle of projecting then creating structure.
• Robert Rupert (2008). Frege’s puzzle and Frege cases: Defending a quasi-syntactic solution.   (More)
• Susan Schneider, Yes, it does: A diatribe on Jerry Fodor's the mind doesn't work that way.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way is an expose of certain theoretical problems in cognitive science, and in particular, problems that concern the Classical Computational Theory of Mind (CTM). The problems that Fodor worries plague CTM divide into two kinds, and both purport to show that the success of cognitive science will likely be limited to the modules. The first sort of problem concerns what Fodor has called “global properties”; features that a mental sentence has which depend on how the sentence interacts with a larger plan (i.e., set of sentences), rather than the type identity of the sentence alone. The second problem concerns what many have called, “The Relevance Problem”: the problem of whether and how humans determine what is relevant in a computational manner. However, I argue that the problem that Fodor believes global properties pose for CTM is a non-problem, and that further, while the relevance problem is a serious research issue, it does not justify the grim view that cognitive science, and CTM in particular, will likely fail to explain cognition
• Nigel Thomas (ms). A note on "schema" and "image schema".   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The term schema (plural: schemata, or sometimes schemas) is widely used in cognitive psychology and the cognitive sciences generally to designate "psychological constructs that are postulated to account for the molar forms of human generic knowledge" (Brewer, 1999). The vagueness of this definition is no accident (and no sort of failing on Brewer's part). In fact schema is used in such very different ways by different cognitive theorists that the term has become quite notorious for its ambiguity (Miller, Polson, & Kintsch, 1984 p. 6). However, a concept of..
• Nigel J. T. Thomas (ms). Are There People Who Do Not Experience Imagery? (And why does it matter?).   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: To the best of my knowledge, with the exception of Galton's original work (1880, 1883), Sommer's brief case study (1978), and Faw's (1997, 2009) articles, this is the only really substantial discussion of the phenomenon of non-brain-damaged "non-imagers" available anywhere.

Computationalism in Cognitive Science

• Philip E. Agre (2002). The practical logic of computer work.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://lib.org.by/_djvu/Cs_Computer science/CsAi_AI, knowledge/Scheutz M. (ed.) Computationalism (MIT, 2002)(223s).pdf#page=143
  
• Katalin Balog (2009). Jerry Fodor on Non-conceptual Content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Proponents of non-conceptual content have recruited it for various philosophical jobs. Some epistemologists have suggested that it may play the role of “the given” that Sellars is supposed to have exorcised from philosophy. Some philosophers of mind (e.g., Dretske) have suggested that it plays an important role in the project of naturalizing semantics as a kind of halfway between merely information bearing and possessing conceptual content. Here I will focus on a recent proposal by Jerry Fodor. In a recent paper he characterizes non-conceptual content in a particular way and argues that it is plausible that it plays an explanatory role in accounting for certain auditory and visual phenomena. So he thinks that there is reason to believe that there is non-conceptual content. On the other hand, Fodor thinks that non-conceptual content has a limited role. It occurs only in the very early stages of perceptual processing prior to conscious awareness. My paper is examines Fodor’s characterization of non-conceptual content and his claims for its explanatory importance. I also discuss if Fodor has made a case for limiting non-conceptual content to non-conscious, sub-personal mental states.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/mk8622l2554025q6/fulltext.pdf
  
• Mark H. Bickhard (1996). Troubles with computationalism.   (More)
• Ned Block (1995). The mind as the software of the brain.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this section, we will start with an influential attempt to define `intelligence', and then we will move to a consideration of how human intelligence is to be investigated on the machine model. The last part of the section will discuss the relation between the mental and the biological
• Selmer Bringsjord (1994). Computation, among other things, is beneath us.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   What''s computation? The received answer is that computation is a computer at work, and a computer at work is that which can be modelled as a Turing machine at work. Unfortunately, as John Searle has recently argued, and as others have agreed, the received answer appears to imply that AI and Cog Sci are a royal waste of time. The argument here is alarmingly simple: AI and Cog Sci (of the Strong sort, anyway) are committed to the view that cognition is computation (or brains are computers); butall processes are computations (orall physical things are computers); so AI and Cog Sci are positively silly.I refute this argument herein, in part by defining the locutions x is a computer and c is a computation in a way that blocks Searle''s argument but exploits the hard-to-deny link between What''s Computation? and the theory of computation. However, I also provide, at the end of this essay, an argument which, it seems to me, implies not that AI and Cog Sci are silly, but that they''re based on a form of computation that is well beneath human persons
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/content/l487452322177105/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l487452322177105/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/L487452322177105.pdf
  
• Selmer Bringsjord (1998). Cognition is not computation: The argument from irreversibility.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The dominant scientific and philosophical view of the mind – according to which, put starkly, cognition is computation – is refuted herein, via specification and defense of the following new argument: Computation is reversible; cognition isn't; ergo, cognition isn't computation. After presenting a sustained dialectic arising from this defense, we conclude with a brief preview of the view we would put in place of the cognition-is-computation doctrine
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.rpi.edu/~brings/SELPAP/irr.ps
  http://www.rpi.edu/~brings/SELPAP/irr.pdf
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/bringsjord96cognition.html
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/n887505850j434ur/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=152330&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/N887505850J434UR.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/1997/00000113/00000002/00152330
  
• Selmer Bringsjord (2000). Clarifying the logic of anti-computationalism: Reply to Hauser.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/content/w67u62604h262341/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/w67u62604h262341/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/W67U62604H262341.pdf
  
• Selmer Bringsjord (2001). In computation, parallel is nothing, physical everything.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Andrew Boucher (1997) argues that ``parallel computation is fundamentally different from sequential computation'' (p. 543), and that this fact provides reason to be skeptical about whether AI can produce a genuinely intelligent machine. But parallelism, as I prove herein, is irrelevant. What Boucher has inadvertently glimpsed is one small part of a mathematical tapestry portraying the simple but undeniable fact that physical computation can be fundamentally different from ordinary, ``textbook'' computation (whether parallel or sequential). This tapestry does indeed immediately imply that human cognition may be uncomputable
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/content/q23582463313005k/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/q23582463313005k/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=272655&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/Q23582463313005K.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/2001/00000011/00000001/00272655
  
• Selmer Bringsjord (2004). The modal argument for hypercomputing minds.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1011184.1011194
  http://www.cs.queensu.ca/home/akl/cisc879/papers/PAPERS_FROM_THEORETICAL_COMPUTER_SCIENCE/05051011121215925.pdf
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0304397503006376
  
• David J. Buller (1993). Confirmation and the computational paradigm, or, why do you think they call it artificial intelligence?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The idea that human cognitive capacities are explainable by computational models is often conjoined with the idea that, while the states postulated by such models are in fact realized by brain states, there are no type-type correlations between the states postulated by computational models and brain states (a corollary of token physicalism). I argue that these ideas are not jointly tenable. I discuss the kinds of empirical evidence available to cognitive scientists for (dis)confirming computational models of cognition and argue that none of these kinds of evidence can be relevant to a choice among competing computational models unless there are in fact type-type correlations between the states postulated by computational models and brain states. Thus, I conclude, research into the computational procedures employed in human cognition must be conducted hand-in-hand with research into the brain processes which realize those procedures
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/327/0/confirm.htm
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:327
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/content/j0385146724gm815/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/j0385146724gm815/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/J0385146724GM815.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/327/1/confirm.htm
  
• David J. Chalmers (ms). A computational foundation for the study of cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Computation is central to the foundations of modern cognitive science, but its role is controversial. Questions about computation abound: What is it for a physical system to implement a computation? Is computation sufficient for thought? What is the role of computation in a theory of cognition? What is the relation between different sorts of computational theory, such as connectionism and symbolic computation? In this paper I develop a systematic framework that addresses all of these questions. Justifying the role of computation requires analysis of implementation, the nexus between abstract computations and concrete physical systems. I give such an analysis, based on the idea that a system implements a computation if the causal structure of the system mirrors the formal structure of the computation. This account can be used to justify the central commitments of artificial intelligence and computational cognitive science: the thesis of computational sufficiency, which holds that the right kind of computational structure suffices for the possession of a mind, and the thesis of computational explanation, which holds that computation provides a general framework for the explanation of cognitive processes. The theses are consequences of the facts that (a) computation can specify general patterns of causal organization, and (b) mentality is an organizational invariant, rooted in such patterns. Along the way I answer various challenges to the computationalist position, such as those put forward by Searle. I close by advocating a kind of minimal computationalism, compatible with a very wide variety of empirical approaches to the mind. This allows computation to serve as a true foundation for cognitive science
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://consc.net/papers/computation.html
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/chalmers94computational.html
  http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/pub/chalmers.computation.ps
  http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/computation.html
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000319/00/computation.html
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:319
  http://cogprints.org/319/1/computation.html
  http://cogprints.org/319/0/computation.html
  
• David J. Chalmers (ms). A computational foundation for the study of cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Computation is central to the foundations of modern cognitive science, but its role is controversial. Questions about computation abound: What is it for a physical system to implement a computation? Is computation sufficient for thought? What is the role of computation in a theory of cognition? What is the relation between different sorts of computational theory, such as connectionism and symbolic computation? In this paper I develop a systematic framework that addresses all of these questions. Justifying the role of computation requires analysis of implementation, the nexus between abstract computations and concrete physical systems. I give such an analysis, based on the idea that a system implements a computation if the causal structure of the system mirrors the formal structure of the computation. This account can be used to justify the central commitments of artificial intelligence and computational cognitive science: the thesis of computational sufficiency, which holds that the right kind of computational structure suffices for the possession of a mind, and the thesis of computational explanation, which holds that computation provides a general framework for the explanation of cognitive processes. The theses are consequences of the facts that (a) computation can specify general patterns of causal organization, and (b) mentality is an organizational invariant, rooted in such patterns. Along the way I answer various challenges to the computationalist position, such as those put forward by Searle. I close by advocating a kind of minimal computationalism, compatible with a very wide variety of empirical approaches to the mind. This allows computation to serve as a true foundation for cognitive science
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/319/1/computation.html
  http://cogprints.org/319/0/computation.html
  
• Christopher Cherniak (1988). Undebuggability and cognitive science.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.glue.umd.edu/~cherniak/cherniak-CommofACM-1988.pdf
  
• Eric Dietrich (2000). Cognitive science and the mechanistic forces of darkness.   (More)
• Eric Dietrich (2001). It does so: Review of The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Objections to AI and computational cognitive science are myriad. Accordingly, there are many different reasons for these attacks. But all of them come down to one simple observation: humans seem a lot smarter that computers -- not just smarter as in Einstein was smarter than I, or I am smarter than a chimpanzee, but more like I am smarter than a pencil sharpener. To many, computation seems like the wrong paradigm for studying the mind. (Actually, I think there are deeper and darker reasons why AI, especially, is so often the brunt of polemics, see Dietrich, 2000.) But the truth is this: AI is making exciting progress, and will one day make a robot as intelligent as a person; indeed the robot will be conscious. And all this is because of another truth: the computational paradigm is the best thing to come down the pike since the wheel
• Marco Ernandes (2005). Artificial intelligence & games: Should computational psychology be revalued?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The aims of this paper are threefold: To show that game-playing (GP), the discipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI) concerned with the development of automated game players, has a strong epistemological relevance within both AI and the vast area of cognitive sciences. In this context games can be seen as a way of securely reducing (segmenting) real-world complexity, thus creating the laboratory environment necessary for testing the diverse types and facets of intelligence produced by computer models. This paper aims to promote the belief that games represent an excellent tool for the project of computational psychology (CP). To underline how, despite this, GP has mainly adopted an engineering-inspired methodology and in doing so has distorted the framework of cognitive functionalism. Many successes (i.e. chess, checkers) have been achieved refusing human-like reasoning. The AI has appeared to work well despite ignoring an intrinsic motivation, that of creating an explanatory link between machines and mind. To assert that substantial improvements in GP may be obtained in the future only by renewed interest in human-inspired models of reasoning and in other cognitive studies. In fact, if we increase the complexity of games (from NP-Completeness to AI-Completeness) in order to reproduce real-life problems, computer science techniques enter an impasse. Many of AI’s recent GP experiences can be shown to validate this. The lack of consistent philosophical foundations for cognitive AI and the minimal philosophical commitment of AI investigation are two of the major reasons that play an important role in explaining why CP has been overlooked
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/m37411736226vh26/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/M37411736226VH26.pdf
  
• Jordi Fernandez (2003). Explanation by computer simulation in cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   My purpose in this essay is to clarify the notion of explanation by computer simulation in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. My contention is that computer simulation may be understood as providing two different kinds of explanation, which makes the notion of explanation by computer simulation ambiguous. In order to show this, I shall draw a distinction between two possible ways of understanding the notion of simulation, depending on how one views the relation in which a computing system that performs a cognitive task stands to the program that the system runs while performing that task. Next, I shall suggest that the kind of explanation that results from simulation is radically different in each case. In order to illustrate the difference, I will point out some prima facie methodological difficulties that need to be addressed in order to ensure that simulation plays a legitimate explanatory role in cognitive science, and I shall emphasize how those difficulties are very different depending on the notion of explanation involved
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/content/u7u434131m595425/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/u7u434131m595425/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5115873&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/U7U434131M595425.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/2003/00000013/00000002/05115873
  
• James H. Fetzer (1997). Thinking and computing: Computers as special kinds of signs.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Cognitive science has been dominated by the computational conception that cognition is computation across representations. To the extent to which cognition as computation across representations is supposed to be a purposive, meaningful, algorithmic, problem-solving activity, however, computers appear to be incapable of cognition. They are devices that can facilitate computations on the basis of semantic grounding relations as special kinds of signs. Even their algorithmic, problem-solving character arises from their interpretation by human users. Strictly speaking, computers as such — apart from human users — are not only incapable of cognition, but even incapable of computation, properly construed. If we want to understand the nature of thought, then we have to study thinking, not computing, because they are not the same thing
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/ComputersAsSigns.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/content/t1775k25pq713537/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/t1775k25pq713537/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=140000&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/T1775K25PQ713537.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/1997/00000007/00000003/00140000
  
• Christopher D. Green (2000). Is AI the right method for cognitive science?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?11.061
  
• Rick Grush & Patricia S. Churchland (1998). Computation and the brain.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Two very different insights motivate characterizing the brain as a computer. One depends on mathematical theory that defines computability in a highly abstract sense. Here the foundational idea is that of a Turing machine. Not an actual machine, the Turing machine is really a conceptual way of making the point that any well-defined function could be executed, step by step, according to simple 'if-you-are-in-state-P-and-have-input-Q-then-do-R' rules, given enough time (maybe infinite time) [see COMPUTATION]. Insofar as the brain is a device whose input and output can be characterized in terms of some mathematical function -- however complicated -- then in that very abstract sense, it can be mimicked by a Turning machine. Given what is known so far brains do seem to depend on cause-effect operations, and hence brains appear to be, in some formal sense, equivalent to a Turing machine [see CHURCH-TURING THESIS]. On its own, however, this reveals nothing at all of how the mind-brain actually works. The second insight depends on looking at the brain as a biological device that processes information from the environment to build complex representations that enable the brain to make predictions and select advantageous behaviors. Where necessary to avoid ambiguity, we will refer to the first notion of computation as..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://mind.ucsd.edu/papers/reviews/compbrain/compbrain.pdf
  http://mind.ucsd.edu/papers/reviews/compbrain/compbrain-text.html
  
• Stevan Harnad (1994). Computation is just interpretable symbol manipulation; cognition isn't.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Computation is interpretable symbol manipulation. Symbols are objects that are manipulated on the basis of rules operating only on theirshapes, which are arbitrary in relation to what they can be interpreted as meaning. Even if one accepts the Church/Turing Thesis that computation is unique, universal and very near omnipotent, not everything is a computer, because not everything can be given a systematic interpretation; and certainly everything can''t be givenevery systematic interpretation. But even after computers and computation have been successfully distinguished from other kinds of things, mental states will not just be the implementations of the right symbol systems, because of the symbol grounding problem: The interpretation of a symbol system is not intrinsic to the system; it is projected onto it by the interpreter. This is not true of our thoughts. We must accordingly be more than just computers. My guess is that the meanings of our symbols are grounded in the substrate of our robotic capacity to interact with that real world of objects, events and states of affairs that our symbols are systematically interpretable as being about
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/15/92/
  http://cogprints.org/1592/00/harnad94.computation.cognition.html
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk:3361
  http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad94.computation.cognition.html
  http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad94.computation.cognition.html
  http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00003361/02/harnad94.computation.cognition.html
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1592
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001592/00/harnad94.computation.cognition.html
  http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/harnad (1994) computation is just interpretable symbol manipulation; cognition isn't.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/j583016425716646/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/J583016425716646.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/1592/1/harnad94.computation.cognition.html
  http://cogprints.org/1592/0/harnad94.computation.cognition.html
  
• Jeffrey Hershfield (2005). Is there life after the death of the computational theory of mind?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/kn77885235l47011/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/KN77885235L47011.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/2005/00000015/00000002/00002003
  
• Steven Horst (1999). Symbols and computation: A critique of the computational theory of mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Over the past several decades, the philosophical community has witnessed the emergence of an important new paradigm for understanding the mind.1 The paradigm is that of machine computation, and its influence has been felt not only in philosophy, but also in all of the empirical disciplines devoted to the study of cognition. Of the several strategies for applying the resources provided by computer and cognitive science to the philosophy of mind, the one that has gained the most attention from philosophers has been the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM). CTM was first articulated by Hilary Putnam (1960, 1961), but finds perhaps its most consistent and enduring advocate in Jerry Fodor (1975, 1980, 1981, 1987, 1990, 1994). It is this theory, and not any broader interpretations of what it would be for the mind to be a computer, that I wish to address in this paper. What I shall argue here is that the notion of symbolic representation employed by CTM is fundamentally unsuited to providing an explanation of the intentionality of mental states (a major goal of CTM), and that this result undercuts a second major goal of CTM, sometimes refered to as the vindication of intentional psychology. This line of argument is related to the discussions of derived intentionality by Searle (1980, 1983, 1984) and Sayre (1986, 1987). But whereas those discussions seem to be concerned with the causal dependence of familiar sorts of symbolic representation upon meaning-bestowing acts, my claim is rather that there is not one but several notions of meaning to be had, and that the notions that are applicable to symbols are conceptually dependent upon the notion that is applicable to mental states in the fashion that Aristotle refered to as paronymy. That is, an analysis of the notions of meaning applicable to symbols reveals that they contain presuppositions about meaningful mental states, much as Aristotle's analysis of the sense of healthy that is applied to foods reveals that it means conducive to having a healthy body, and hence any attempt to explain mental semantics in terms of the semantics of symbols is doomed to circularity and regress. I shall argue, however, that this does not have the consequence that computationalism is bankrupt as a paradigm for cognitive science, as it is possible to reconstruct CTM in a fashion that avoids these difficulties and makes it a viable research framework for psychology, albeit at the cost of losing its claims to explain intentionality and to vindicate intentional psychology. I have argued elsewhere (Horst, 1996) that local special sciences such as psychology do not require vindication in the form of demonstrating their reducibility to more fundamental theories, and hence failure to make good on these philosophical promises need not compromise the broad range of work in empirical cognitive science motivated by the computer paradigm in ways that do not depend on these problematic treatments of symbols
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.wesleyan.edu/~shorst/papers/ctmarticle.htm
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/h1l35k7x30385118/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=206289&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/H1L35K7X30385118.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/1999/00000009/00000003/00206289
  
• Steven Horst (online). The computational theory of mind.   (More)
• Terence E. Horgan (2002). Themes in my philosophical work.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I invoked the notion of supervenience in my doctoral disseration, Microreduction and the Mind-Body Problem, completed at the University of Michigan in 1974 under the direction of Jaegwon Kim. I had been struck by the appeal to supervenience in Hare (1952), a classic work in twentieth century metaethics that I studied at Michigan in a course on metaethics taught by William Frankena; and I also had been struck by the brief appeal to supervenience in Davidson (1970). Kim was already, in effect, construing the relation between physical and mental properties as a supervenience relation?although he was not yet using the word ?supervenience?. I assumed that a materialistic metaphysics was correct, and that integral to materialism is the idea that higher-level sciences (including psychology) are reducible to lower-level ones?ultimately to microphysics. One idea I pressed in the dissertation was that biconditional ?bridge laws? would not suffice for genuine intertheoretic reduction if these inter-level laws were additional fundamental laws of nature alongside those of the reducing science; they would be what Herbert Feigl and J.J. C. Smart, in their writings on the psychophysical identity theory, called ?nomological danglers.? I argued that the higher-level property in a bridge law should bear a relation of strict supervenience to its correlated lower-level property, rather than merely being nomically correlated with it. The basic idea was that there are no two physically possible worlds w1 and w2?where a physically possible world is, roughly, a world in which the laws of microphysics obtain and in which there are no nonphysical substances like entelechies or Cartesian souls?such that the actual-world bridge laws obtain in world w1 but not in world w2. (Thus, the bridge laws themselves are fixed relative to the fundamental physical facts and fundamental laws, rather than being fundamental laws themselves alongside those of microphysics.) Already when
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com//content/rodopi/gps/2002/00000063/00000001/art00002
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/gps/2002/00000063/00000001/art00002
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/gps/2002/00000063/00000001/art00002
  
• Kirk Ludwig & Susan Schneider (2008). Fodor's challenge to the classical computational theory of mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In The Mind Doesn’t Work that Way, Jerry Fodor argues that mental representations have context sensitive features relevant to cognition, and that, therefore, the Classical Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) is mistaken. We call this the Globality Argument. This is an in principle argument against CTM. We argue that it is self-defeating. We consider an alternative argument constructed from materials in the discussion, which avoids the pitfalls of the official argument. We argue that it is also unsound and that, while it is an empirical issue whether context sensitive features of mental representations are relevant to cognition, it is empirically implausible
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/kludwig/Papers/FCCCTM-Mind-and-Language.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00332.x
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119401014/PDFSTART
  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sls/Fodors Challenge.doc
  
• Drew McDermott (2001). The digital computer as red Herring.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Stevan Harnad correctly perceives a deep problem in computationalism, the hypothesis that cognition is computation, namely, that the symbols manipulated by a computational entity do not automatically mean anything. Perhaps, he proposes, transducers and neural nets will not have this problem. His analysis goes wrong from the start, because computationalism is not as rigid a set of theories as he thinks. Transducers and neural nets are just two kinds of computational system, among many, and any solution to the semantic problem that works for them will work for most other computational systems
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000183/
  http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000183/
  http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/Think/mcdermot.htm
  http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/perl/local/psyc/makedoc?id=183&type=html
  http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad93.symb.anal.net.mcdermott.html
  http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad93.symb.anal.net.mcdermott.html
  
• Gualtiero Piccinini (2003). Computations and Computers in the Sciences of Mind and Brain. Dissertation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Computationalism says that brains are computing mechanisms, that is, mechanisms that perform computations. At present, there is no consensus on how to formulate computationalism precisely or adjudicate the dispute between computationalism and its foes, or between different versions of computationalism. An important reason for the current impasse is the lack of a satisfactory philosophical account of computing mechanisms. The main goal of this dissertation is to offer such an account.
  I also believe that the history of computationalism sheds light on the current debate. By tracing different versions of computationalism to their common historical origin, we can see how the current divisions originated and understand their motivation. Reconstructing debates over computationalism in the context of their own intellectual history can contribute to philosophical progress on the relation between brains and computing mechanisms and help determine how brains and computing mechanisms are alike, and how they differ. Accordingly, my dissertation is divided into a historical part, which traces the early history of computationalism up to 1946, and a philosophical part, which offers an account of computing mechanisms.
  The two main ideas developed in this dissertation are that (1) computational states are to be identified functionally not semantically, and (2) computing mechanisms are to be studied by functional analysis. The resulting account of computing mechanism, which I call the functional account of computing mechanisms, can be used to identify computing mechanisms and the functions they compute. I use the functional account of computing mechanisms to taxonomize computing mechanisms based on their different computing power, and I use this taxonomy of computing mechanisms to taxonomize different versions of computationalism based on the functional properties that they ascribe to brains. By doing so, I begin to tease out empirically testable statements about the functional organization of the brain that different versions of computationalism are committed to. I submit that when computationalism is reformulated in the more explicit and precise way I propose, the disputes about computationalism can be adjudicated on the grounds of empirical evidence from neuroscience.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-08132003-155121/
  
• Gualtiero Piccinini & Andrea Scarantino, Computation vs. information processing: Why their difference matters to cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Since the cognitive revolution, it’s become commonplace that cognition involves both computation and information processing. Is this one claim or two? Is computation the same as information processing? The two terms are often used interchangeably, but this usage masks important differences. In this paper, we distinguish information processing from computation and examine some of their mutual relations, shedding light on the role each can play in a theory of cognition. We recommend that theoristError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMaps of cognition be explicit and careful in choosing 1 notions of computation and information and connecting them together. Much confusion can be avoided by doing so. Keywords: computation, information processing, computationalism, computational theory of mind, cognitivism
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/6833/1/Computation_vs_Information_Processing_23_Studies_HPS.pdf
  
• Gualtiero Piccinini (2007). Computational explanation and mechanistic explanation of mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to the computational theory of mind (CTM), mental capacities are explained by inner computations, which in biological organisms are realized in the brain. Computational explanation is so popular and entrenched that it’s common for scientists and philosophers to assume CTM without argument.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/2006/00000153/00000003/00009096
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/L5G8M78413883088.pdf
  http://www.umsl.edu/~piccininig/Computational Explanation of Mind 8.htm
  
• Gualtiero Piccinini (2004). Functionalism, Computationalism, & Mental States.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some philosophers have conflated functionalism and computationalism. I reconstruct how this came about and uncover two assumptions that made the conflation possible. They are the assumptions that (i) psychological functional analyses are computational descriptions and (ii) everything may be described as performing computations. I argue that, if we want to improve our understanding of both the metaphysics of mental states and the functional relations between them, we should reject these assumptions.
• Gualtiero Piccinini (2004). Functionalism, computationalism, and mental contents.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0039368104000883
  http://www.umsl.edu/~piccininig/Functionalism, Computationalism, and Mental States.pdf
  
• Gualtiero Piccinini (2005). Symbols, strings, and spikes.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that neural activity, strictly speaking, is not computation. This is because computation, strictly speaking, is the processing of strings of symbols, and neuroscience shows that there are no neural strings of symbols. This has two consequences. On the one hand, the following widely held consequences of computationalism must either be abandoned or supported on grounds independent of computationalism: (i) that in principle we can capture what is functionally relevant to neural processes in terms of some formalism taken from computability theory (such as Turing Machines), (ii) that it is possible to design computer programs that are functionally equivalent to neural processes in the same sense in which it is possible to design computer programs that are functionally equivalent to each other, (iii) that the study of neural (or mental) computation is independent of the study of neural implementation, (iv) that the Church-Turing thesis applies to neural activity in the sense in which it applies to digital computers. On the other hand, we need to gradually reinterpret or replace computational theories in psychology in terms of theoretical constructs that can be realized by known neural processes, such as the spike trains of neuronal ensembles.
• Gualtiero Piccinini (forthcoming). The mind as neural software? Revisiting functionalism, computationalism, and computational functionalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Defending or attacking either functionalism or computationalism requires clarity on what they amount to and what evidence counts for or against them. My goal here is not to evaluate their plausibility. My goal is to formulate them and their relationship clearly enough that we can determine which type of evidence is relevant to them. I aim to dispel some sources of confusion that surround functionalism and computationalism, recruit recent philosophical work on mechanisms and computation to shed light on them, and clarify how functionalism and computationalism may or may not legitimately come together.
  
  
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/6832/1/Computational_Functionalism_New_New_New_9.pdf
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123477103/PDFSTART
  
• Gualtiero Piccinini, The resilience of computationalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Roughly speaking, computationalism says that cognition is computation, or that cognitive phenomena are explained by the agent‘s computations. The cognitive processes and behavior of agents are the explanandum. The computations performed by the agents‘ cognitive systems are the proposed explanans. Since the cognitive systems of biological organisms are their nervous 1 systems (plus or minus a bit), we may say that according to computationalism, the cognitive processes and behavior of organisms are explained by neural computations. Some people might prefer to say that cognitive systems are ―realized‖ by nervous systems, and thus that—according to computationalism—cognitive computations are ―realized‖ by neural processes. In this paper, nothing hinges on the nature of the relation between cognitive systems and nervous systems, or between computations and neural processes. For present purposes, if a neural process realizes a computation, then that neural process is a computation. Thus, I will couch much of my discussion in terms of nervous systems and neural computation.1 Before proceeding, we should dispense with a possible red herring. Contrary to a common assumption, computationalism does not stand in opposition to connectionism. Connectionism, in the most general and common sense of the term, is the claim that cognitive phenomena are explained (at some level and at least in part) by the processes of neural networks. This is a truism, supported by most neuroscientific evidence. Everybody ought to be a connectionist in this general sense. The relevant question is, are neural processes computations? More precisely, are the neural processes to be found in the nervous systems of organisms computations? Computationalists say ―yes‖, anti-computationalists say ―no‖. This paper investigates whether any of the arguments on offer against computationalism have a chance at knocking it off.2 Ever since Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts (1943) first proposed it, computationalism has been subjected to a wide range of objections..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00004348/01/The_Resilience_of_Computationalism_4.doc
  http://cogprints.org/6834/1/The_Resilience_of_Computationalism.pdf
  http://www.umsl.edu/~piccininig/The%20Resilience%20of%20Computationalism.pdf
  
• Paul M. Pietroski (1996). Experiencing the facts: Critical notice of Mind and World, by John McDowell.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Paul Pietroski, McGill University The general topic of_ Mind and World_, the written version of John McDowell's 1991 John Locke Lectures, is how `concepts mediate the relation between minds and the world'. And one of the main aims is `to suggest that Kant should still have a central place in our discussion of the way thought bears on reality' (1).1 In particular, McDowell urges us to adopt a thesis that he finds in Kant, or perhaps in Strawson's Kant: the content of experience is conceptualized; _what_ we experience is always the kind of thing that we could also believe. When an agent has a veridical experience, she `takes in, for instance sees, _that things are thus and so_' (9). McDowell's argument for this thesis is indirect, but potentially powerful. He discusses a tension concerning the roles of experience and conceptual capacities in thought, and he claims that the only adequate resolution involves granting that experiences have conceptualized content. The tension, elaborated below, can be expressed roughly as follows: judgments must be somehow constrained by features of the external environment, else judgments would be utterly divorced from the world they purport to be about; yet our judgments must be somehow free of external control, else we could give no sense to the idea that we are responsible for our judgments
• Zenon W. Pylyshyn (1989). Computing and cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: influence. One of the principal characteristics that distinguishes Cognitive Science from more traditional studies of cognition within Psychology, is the extent to which it has been influenced by both the ideas and the techniques of computing. It may come as a surprise to the outsider, then, to discover that there is no unanimity within the discipline on either (a) the nature (and in some cases the desireabilty) of the influence and (b) what computing is –- or at least on its
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=102955
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ftp/pub/papers/posner.pdf
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=166791.166796
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/pylyshyn89computing.html
  
• William J. Rapaport (1998). How minds can be computational systems.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The proper treatment of computationalism, as the thesis that cognition is computable, is presented and defended. Some arguments of James H. Fetzer against computationalism are examined and found wanting, and his positive theory of minds as semiotic systems is shown to be consistent with computationalism. An objection is raised to an argument of Selmer Bringsjord against one strand of computationalism, namely, that Turing-Test± passing artifacts are persons, it is argued that, whether or not this objection holds, such artifacts will inevitably be persons
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/rapaport98how.html
  http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/Papers/jetai.pdf
  http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/Papers/jetai-sspp98.pdf
  http://calculemus.org/lect/L-I-MNS/12/computComplexity/sspp.ps
  http://historical.ncstrl.org/litesite-data/suny_buffalo_cs/96-10.ps
  http://historical.ncstrl.org/litesite-data/suny_buffalo_cs/96-10.ps.Z
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/RDFHTNHN8FEGV24Y.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/RDFHTNHN8FEGV24Y.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/teta/1998/00000010/00000004/art00003
  
• Georges Rey (2003). Why Wittgenstein ought to have been a computationalist (and what a computationalist can gain from Wittgenstein).   (More)
• Matthias Scheutz (2002). Computationalism: The next generation.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Y59zyNWnNfYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&ots=BHZ5CpdWNg&sig=4RJJYbHUGKum3UWJDXja8FHNo4g
  http://lib.org.by/_djvu/Cs_Computer science/CsAi_AI, knowledge/Scheutz M. (ed.) Computationalism (MIT, 2002)(223s).pdf#page=15
  
• Matthias Scheutz (2001). Computational vs. causal complexity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The main claim of this paper is that notions of implementation based on an isomorphic correspondence between physical and computational states are not tenable. Rather, ``implementation'' has to be based on the notion of ``bisimulation'' in order to be able to block unwanted implementation results and incorporate intuitions from computational practice. A formal definition of implementation is suggested, which satisfies theoretical and practical requirements and may also be used to make the functionalist notion of ``physical realization'' precise. The upshot of this new definition of implementation is that implementation cannot distinguish isomorphic bisimilar from non-isomporphic bisimilar systems anymore, thus driving a wedge between the notions of causal and computational complexity. While computationalism does not seem to be affected by this result, the consequences for functionalism are not clear and need further investigations
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/t6532p66078w74v4/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/T6532P66078W74V4.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/2001/00000011/00000004/00352666
  
• Susan Schneider (2009). Lot, ctm, and the elephant in the room.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to the language of thought (LOT) approach and the related computational theory of mind (CTM), thinking is the processing of symbols in an inner mental language that is distinct from any public language. Herein, I explore a deep problem at the heart of the LOT/CTM program—it has yet to provide a plausible conception of a mental symbol
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sls/SchneiderLOTSynthesesent.rtf
  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sls/documents/SchneiderSyntheseLOT.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/f9312g2m003630r0/fulltext.pdf
  
• Susan Schneider (2009). Mindscan: Transcending and enhancing the human brain.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Suppose it is 2025 and being a technophile, you purchase brain enhancements as they become readily available. First, you add a mobile internet connection to your retina, then, you enhance your working memory by adding neural circuitry. You are now officially a cyborg. Now skip ahead to 2040. Through nanotechnological therapies and enhancements you are able to extend your lifespan, and as the years progress, you continue to accumulate more far-reaching enhancements. By 2060, after several small but cumulatively profound alterations, you are a “posthuman.” To quote philosopher Nick Bostrom, posthumans are possible future beings, “whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards” (Bostrom 2003c). At this point, your intelligence is enhanced not just in terms of speed of mental processing; you are now able to make rich connections that you were not able to make before. Unenhanced humans, or “naturals,” seem to you to be intellectually disabled—you have little in common with them—but as a transhumanist, you are supportive of their right to not enhance (Bostrom 2003c; Garreau 2005; Kurzweil 2005)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sls/documents/SchneiderTranscendingBrain.doc
  
• Matthias Scheutz (2002). New computationalism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Y59zyNWnNfYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=+New+computationalism+Scheutz&ots=BG52Hq9RLa&sig=TggvUxOEuNqpXf6OF1osw81b-6M
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Y59zyNWnNfYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=+New+computationalism+Scheutz&ots=BG62Ct8VNa&sig=Qpp-Q4dZY1vNQQlDJF0BM-khRbo
  
• Susan Schneider (2009). The language of thought.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to the language of thought (or
• Susan Schneider (forthcoming). The nature of primitive symbols in the language of thought.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper provides a theory of the nature of symbols in the language of thought (LOT). My discussion consists in three parts. In part one, I provide three arguments for the individuation of primitive symbols in terms of total computational role. The first of these arguments claims that Classicism requires that primitive symbols be typed in this manner; no other theory of typing will suffice. The second argument contends that without this manner of symbol individuation, there will be computational processes that fail to supervene on syntax, together with the rules of composition and the computational algorithms. The third argument says that cognitive science needs a natural kind that is typed by total computational role. Otherwise, either cognitive science will be incomplete, or its laws will have counterexamples. Then, part two defends this view from a criticism, offered by both Jerry Fodor and Jesse Prinz, who respond to my view with the charge that because the types themselves are individuated
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sls/documents/SchneiderNatureSymbolsMindLang.doc
  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sls/documents/SchneiderNatureSymbolsMindLang-1-2.pdf
  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sls/documents/Schneider-MindLangSymbols.pdf
  
• Susan Schneider, Yes, it does: A diatribe on Jerry Fodor's the mind doesn't work that way.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way is an expose of certain theoretical problems in cognitive science, and in particular, problems that concern the Classical Computational Theory of Mind (CTM). The problems that Fodor worries plague CTM divide into two kinds, and both purport to show that the success of cognitive science will likely be limited to the modules. The first sort of problem concerns what Fodor has called “global properties”; features that a mental sentence has which depend on how the sentence interacts with a larger plan (i.e., set of sentences), rather than the type identity of the sentence alone. The second problem concerns what many have called, “The Relevance Problem”: the problem of whether and how humans determine what is relevant in a computational manner. However, I argue that the problem that Fodor believes global properties pose for CTM is a non-problem, and that further, while the relevance problem is a serious research issue, it does not justify the grim view that cognitive science, and CTM in particular, will likely fail to explain cognition
• John R. Searle (1990). Is the brain a digital computer?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: There are different ways to present a Presidential Address to the APA; the one I have chosen is simply to report on work that I am doing right now, on work in progress. I am going to present some of my further explorations into the computational model of the mind.\**
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/searle04is.html
  http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Py104/searle.comp.html
  http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Py104/searle.comp.html
  http://philosophy.wisc.edu/shapiro/Phil554/PAPERS/Is the Brain a Digital Computer.htm
  http://www.engadin.nl/bibliotheek/bibliotheek/download_files/Searle BrainDigitalcomputer.pdf
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0065-972X(199011)64:3<21:ITBADC>2.0.CO;2-8
  
• Stuart C. Shapiro (1995). Computationalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Computationalism, the notion that cognition is computation, is a working hypothesis of many AI researchers and Cognitive Scientists. Although it has not been proved, neither has it been disproved. In this paper, I give some refutations to some well-known alleged refutations of computationalism. My arguments have two themes: people are more limited than is often recognized in these debates; computer systems are more complicated than is often recognized in these debates. To underline the latter point, I sketch the design and abilities of a possible embodied computer system
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/shapiro95computationalism.html
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/x489704852314qt0/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/X489704852314QT0.pdf
  
• Aaron Sloman (2002). Architecture-based conceptions of mind.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/sloman-lmpsfinal.pdf
  
• Aaron Sloman (1996). What sort of architecture is required for a human-like agent?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper is about how to give human-like powers to complete agents. For this the most important design choice concerns the overall architecture. Questions regarding detailed mechanisms, forms of representations, inference capabilities, knowledge etc. are best addressed in the context of a global architecture in which different design decisions need to be linked. Such a design would assemble various kinds of functionality into a complete coherent working system, in which there are many concurrent, partly independent, partly mutually supportive, partly potentially incompatible processes, addressing a multitude of issues on different time scales, including asynchronous, concurrent, motive generators. Designing human like agents is part of the more general problem of understanding design space, niche space and their interrelations, for, in the abstract, there is no one optimal design, as biological diversity on earth shows
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/sloman98what.html
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000700/
  http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/misc/agent.architecture.html
  http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/Sloman.what.arch.pdf
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000700/00/Sloman.what.arch.ps
  http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/misc/agent.architecture/agent.architecture.html
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:700
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:411
  http://cogprints.org/700/2/Sloman.what.arch.ps
  http://cogprints.org/700/0/Sloman.what.arch.ps
  
• Tim van Gelder (1998). Computers and computation in cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Digital computers play a special role in cognitive science—they may actually be instances of the phenomenon they are being used to model. This paper surveys some of the main issues involved in understanding the relationship between digital computers and cognition. It sketches the role of digital computers within orthodox computational cognitive science, in the light of a recently emerging alternative approach based around dynamical systems
• Jeannette M. Wing (2006). Computational thinking.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: _Computational thinking cisely. Stating the difficulty of a problem accounts builds on the power and for the underlying power of the machine—the com- limits of computing puting device that will run the solution. We must processes, whether they are exe- consider the machine’s instruction set, its resource cuted by a human or by a constraints, and its operating environment. machine. Computational In solving a problem efficiently,, we might further methods and models give us ask whether an approximate solution is good the courage to solve prob- enough, whether we can use randomization to our lems and design systems that no one of us would advantage, and whether false positives or false nega- be capable of tackling alone. Computational think- tives are allowed. Computational thinking is refor- ing confronts the riddle of machine intelligence: mulating a seemingly difficult problem into one we What can humans do better than computers? and know how to solve, perhaps by reduction, embed- What can computers do better than humans? Most ding, transformation, or simulation. fundamentally it addresses the question: What is Computational thinking is thinking recursively. It computable? Today, we know only parts of the is parallel processing. It is interpreting code as data answers to such questions. and data as code. It is type checking as the general- Computational thinking is a fundamental skill for ization of dimensional analysis. It is recognizing everyone, not just for computer scientists. To read- both the virtues and the dangers of aliasing, or giv- ing, writing, and arithmetic, we should add compu- ing someone or something more than one name. It tational thinking to every child’s analytical ability. is recognizing both the cost and power of indirect Just as the printing press facilitated the spread of the addressing and procedure call. It is judging a pro- three Rs, what is appropriately incestuous about this gram not just for correctness and efficiency but for vision is that computing and computers facilitate the aesthetics, and a system’s design for simplicity and spread of computational thinking.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wing/www/CT_at_CMU.pdf
  http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wing/www/publications/Wing06.pdf
  http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wing/www/Computational_Thinking.pdf
  http://research.microsoft.com/ur/asia/summit05/Presentation/PDF/6-Jeanette-Wing.pdf
  
• Mark Wrathall & Sean Kelly (1996). Existential phenomenology and cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: [1] In _What Computers Can't Do_ (1972), Hubert Dreyfus identified several basic assumptions about the nature of human knowledge which grounded contemporary research in cognitive science. Contemporary artificial intelligence, he argued, relied on an unjustified belief that the mind functions like a digital computer using symbolic manipulations ("the psychological assumption") (Dreyfus 1992: 163ff), or at least that computer programs could be understood as formalizing human thought ("the epistemological assumption") (Dreyfus 1992: 189). In addition, the project depended upon an assumption about the data about the human world which we employ in thought - namely, that it consists of discrete, determinate, and explicit pieces which can be processed heuristically ("the ontological assumption") (Dreyfus 1992: 206)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.archive.org/web/20001007145849/phil.indiana.edu/ejap/1996.spring/wrathall.kelly.1996.spring.html
  

Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Misc

• Michael L. Anderson (2006). Cognitive science and epistemic openness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: b>. Recent findings in cognitive science suggest that the epistemic subject is more complex and epistemically porous than is generally pictured. Human knowers are open to the world via multiple channels, each operating for particular purposes and according to its own logic. These findings need to be understood and addressed by the philosophical community. The current essay argues that one consequence of the new findings is to invalidate certain arguments for epistemic anti-realism
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/576179.html
  http://cogprints.org/3946/1/SRAD_2003.pdf
  http://www.agcognition.org/papers/SRAD_2003.pdf
  http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mikeoda/papers/SRAD_2003.pdf
  http://www.cs.umd.edu/~anderson/papers/SRAD_2003.pdf
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00003946/01/SRAD_2003.pdf
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:3946
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/u66q271576068q68/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/U66Q271576068Q68.pdf
  
• William P. Bechtel (online). Mental mechanisms: Philosophical perspectives on the sciences of cognition and the brain.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: 1. The Naturalistic Turn in Philosophy of Science 2. The Framework of Mechanistic Explanation: Parts, Operations, and Organization 3. Representing and Reasoning About Mechanisms 4. Mental Mechanisms: Mechanisms that Process Information 5. Discovering Mental Mechanisms 6 . Summary
• Mark H. Bickhard (online). The biological foundations of cognitive science.   (More)
• Andrew Brook (2003). Kant and cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some of Kant's ideas about the mind have had a huge influence on cognitive science, in particular his view that sensory input has to be worked up using concepts or concept-like states and his conception of the mind as a system of cognitive functions. We explore these influences in the first part of the paper. Other ideas of Kant's about the mind have not been assimilated into cognitive science, including important ideas about processes of synthesis, mental unity, and consciousness and self-consciousness. They are the topic of the second part of the paper
• Nick Chater & P. Vitanyi (2003). Simplicity: A unifying principle in cognitive science?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cwi.nl/~paulv/papers/tcs02.pdf
  http://homepages.cwi.nl/~paulv/papers/tcs02.pdf
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/chater03simplicity.html
  http://eprints.pascal-network.org/archive/00000816/
  http://eprints.pascal-network.org/archive/00000816/01/tcs02.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12517354&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/13646613/2003/00000007/00000001/art00005
  
• Tony Chemero & Michael Silberstein, After the philosophy of mind: Replacing scholasticism with science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: We provide a taxonomy of the two most important debates in the philosophy of the cognitive and neural sciences. The first debate is over methodological individualism: is the object of the cognitive and neural sciences the brain, the whole animal, or the animal--environment system? The second is over explanatory style: should explanation in cognitive and neural science be reductionist-mechanistic, inter-level mechanistic, or dynamical? After setting out the debates, we discuss the ways in which they are interconnected. Finally, we make some recommendations that we hope will help philosophers interested in the cognitive and neural sciences to avoid dead ends
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://edisk.fandm.edu/tony.chemero/papers/philmindisover4.pdf
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00003200/01/philmindisover4.doc
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/587820
  http://edisk.fandm.edu/tony.chemero/papers/chemsilberphilsci08.pdf
  
• Wayne Christensen (online). Cognition as high-order control.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In 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, and I argue that viewing cognition as high-order control could be a useful framework assumption for cognitive science. Cognition has many aspects and different concepts can emphasize different aspects of it. Computational and representational assumptions have been very productive, and dynamical and embodied assumptions have also been productive, though to a much lesser extent so far. Control, however, has received insufficient attention in cognition science. The model I propose is based on a point that few will dispute, namely that control of behavior is the ultimate function of cognition. Bringing this to the foreground can be productive by highlighting the ways in which cognition is structured in relation to this control function. If this perspective is valuable it will be because the control function has a highly structuring effect on cognition. As a result a control-based perspective will predict many features of cognition and yield a coherent, integrated picture
• Wayne D. Christensen (2004). Self-directedness: A process approach to cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: 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 in?exible 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 cognition must shift from a structural rule-de?ned conception of cognition to a thoroughgoing embedded process approach
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/v35655556951n274/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5143032&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/V35655556951N274.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/axio/2003/00000014/F0030001/05143032
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/axio/2004/00000014/F0030001/05143032
  
• Fred Cummins (forthcoming). Phenomenal worlds and nervous system activity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The epistemological situation of a single cell is considered. In chemotaxis, the relation between perception and action is found to be lawful and bidirectional. Consideration of the perception/action relation allows a characterization of the phe- nomenal world of the cell. This phenomenal world is grounded in perceptual distinctions that are relevant to the sustained vi- ability of the cell. Moving up the phylogenetic chain, this lawfulness, and its relation to the phenomenal world of ex- perience, is found to be essentially unchanged in multicellular organisms. Nervous systems add some innovation, in allow- ing distal responses and the non-linear combination of infor- mation, but from cell to human, the differentiation of the phe- nomenal world is found to arise from the lawfulness of the perception/action relation, which in turn reflects the biologi- cal constitution of the organism, and not a pre-given objec- tive world. This recognition suggests that rather than looking within the nervous system for representations of pre-given, ex- ternal, entities, one might do better to explore the fit between the function of the nervous system and the phenomenal, mean- ingful, world encountered by the organism in experience.
• Martin Davies (2005). An approach to the philosophy of cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Expanded version of a chapter to appear in The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, edited by Frank Jackson and Michael Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
• Martin Davies (2005). Cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The so-called ‘cognitive revolution’ (Gardner, 1985) in American psychology owed much to developments in adjacent disciplines, especially theoretical linguistics and computer science. Indeed, the cognitive revolution brought forth, not only a change in the conception of psychology, but also an inter-disciplinary approach to understanding the mind, involving philosophy, anthropology and neuroscience along with computer science, linguistics and psychology. Many commentators agree in dating the conception of this inter-disciplinary approach, cognitive science, to 11 September 1956, the second day of a symposium on information theory held at MIT (Miller, 2003). Over the next twenty years or so, cognitive science developed an institutional presence through research centres, conferences, journals, and a substantial infusion of funds from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• Hanne De Jaegher & Tom Froese (2009). On the role of social interaction in individual agency.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Is an individual agent constitutive of or constituted by its social interactions? This question is typically not asked in the cognitive sciences, so strong is the consensus that only individual agents have constitutive efficacy. In this article we challenge this methodological solipsism and argue that interindividual relations and social context do not simply arise from the behavior of individual agents, but themselves enable and shape the individual agents on which they depend. For this, we define the notion of autonomy as both a characteristic of individual agents and of social interaction processes. We then propose a number of ways in which interactional autonomy can influence individuals. Then we discuss recent work in modeling on the one hand and psychological investigations on the other that support and illustrate this claim. Finally, we discuss some implications for research on social and individual agency.
• Andrew A. Fingelkurts & Alexander A. Fingelkurts (2004). Making Complexity Simpler: Multivariability and Metastability in the Brain.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This article provides a retrospective, current and prospective overview on developments in brain research and neuroscience. Both theoretical and empirical studies are considered, with emphasis in the concept of multivariability and metastability in the brain. In this new view on the human brain, the potential multivariability of the neuronal networks appears to be far from continuous in time, but confined by the dynamics of short-term local and global metastable brain states. The article closes by suggesting some of the implications of this view in future multidisciplinary brain research.
• Shaun Gallagher (2004). Hermeneutics and the cognitive sciences.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~gallaghr/gall04h&cs.html
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2004/00000011/F0020010/art00010
  
• Paul E. Griffiths & Karola Stotz (2000). How the mind grows: A developmental perspective on the biology of cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The `developmental systems'' perspective in biology is intended to replace the idea of a genetic program. This new perspective is strongly convergent with recent work in psychology on situated/embodied cognition and on the role of external `scaffolding'' in cognitive development. Cognitive processes, including those which can be explained in evolutionary terms, are not `inherited'' or produced in accordance with an inherited program. Instead, they are constructed in each generation through the interaction of a range of developmental resources. The attractors which emerge during development and explain robust and/or widespread outcomes are themselves constructed during the process. At no stage is there an explanatory stopping point where some resources control or program the rest of the developmental cascade. `Human nature'' is a description of how things generally turn out, not an explanation of why they turn out that way. Finally, we suggest that what is distinctive about human development is its degree of reliance on external scaffolding
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.uq.edu.au/biohumanities/webpdfs/howmindgrows.pdf
  http://paul.representinggenes.org/webpdfs/Griff.Stotz.00.MindGrows.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/tk734615tp308g77/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=242117&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/TK734615TP308G77.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/2000/00000122/F0020001/00242117
  
• Steven Gross (2009). Review of Ray Jackendoff, Language, Consciousness, Culture.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=16225
  
• Rick Grush (1995). Emulation and Cognition.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://mind.ucsd.edu/papers/diss/disshtml/diss-html.html
  
• Rick Grush (online). The philosophy of cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Philosophy interfaces with cognitive science in three distinct but related areas. First, there is the usual set of issues that fall under the heading of philosophy of science (explanation, reduction, etc.), applied to the special case of cognitive science. Second, there is the endeavor of taking results from cognitive science as bearing upon traditional philosophical questions about the mind, such as the nature of mental representation, consciousness, free will, perception, emotions, memory, etc. Third
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://mind.ucsd.edu/papers/phil_cogsci/phil_cogsci.pdf
  http://mind.ucsd.edu/papers/phil_cogsci/phil_cogsci.html
  
• Stevan Harnad (1982). Neoconstructivism: A unifying constraint for the cognitive sciences.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Behavioral scientists studied behavior; cognitive scientists study what generates behavior. Cognitive science is hence theoretical behaviorism (or behaviorism is experimental cognitivism). Behavior is data for a cognitive theorist. What counts as a theory of behavior? In this paper, a methodological constraint on theory construction -- "neoconstructivism" -- will be proposed (by analogy with constructivism in mathematics): Cognitive theory must be computable; given an encoding of the input to a behaving system, a theory must be able to compute (an encoding of) its outputs. It is a mistake to conclude, however, that this constraint requires cognitive theory to be computational, or that it follows from this that cognition is computation
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://eprints.resist.ecs.soton.ac.uk/383/
  http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/06/62/
  http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad82.neoconst.html
  http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad82.neoconst.html
  http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000383/02/00000481.neoconst.html
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000662/00/harnad82.neoconst.html
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk:383
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:662
  http://cogprints.org/662/1/harnad82.neoconst.html
  http://cogprints.org/662/0/harnad82.neoconst.html
  
• Stevan Harnad (2005). To Cognize is to Categorize: Cognition is Categorization.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: 2. Invariant Sensorimotor Features ("Affordances"). To say this is not to declare oneself a Gibsonian, whatever that means. It is merely to point out that what a sensorimotor system can do is determined by what can be extracted from its motor interactions with its sensory input. If you lack sonar sensors, then your sensorimotor system cannot do what a bat's can do, at least not without the help of instruments. Light stimulation affords color vision for those of us with the right sensory apparatus, but not for those of us who are color-blind. The geometric fact that, when we move, the "shadows" cast on our retina by nearby objects move faster than the shadows of further objects means that, for those of us with normal vision, our visual input affords depth perception. From more complicated facts of projective and solid geometry it follows that a 3-dimensional shape, such as, say, a boomerang, can be recognized as being the same shape Ð and the same size Ð even though the size and shape of its shadow on our retinas changes as we move in relation to it or it moves in relation to us. Its shape is said to be invariant under these sensorimotor transformations, and our visual systems can detect and extract that invariance, and translate it into a visual constancy. So we keep seeing a boomerang of the same shape and size even though the shape and size of its retinal shadows keep changing
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/catconf.doc
  http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/catconf.html
  
• Jagdish Hattiangadi (2004). The mind as an object of scientific study.   (More)
• Ben Jeffares (online). The Evolution of Technical Competence: Economic and Strategic Thinking.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper will outline a series of changes in the archaeological record related to Hominins. I argue that these changes underlie the emergence of the capacity for strategic thinking. The paper will start by examining the foundation of technical skills found in primates, and then work through various phases of the archaeological and paleontological record. I argue that the key driver for the development of strategic thinking was the need to expand range sizes and cope with increasingly heterogeneous environments.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/news/conferences/2009/ASCS2009/pdfs/Jeffares.pdf
  
• Brian L. Keeley (2000). Neuroethology and the philosophy of cognitive science.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/keeley98neuroethology.html
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(200009)67:32.0.CO;2-M
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(200009)672.0.CO;2-U
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/392834
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/188683.pdf
  
• George Lakoff (1989). Philosophical speculation and cognitive science.   (More)
• Ruth G. Millikan (online). What is behavior?   (More)
• Martin J. Pickering & Nick Chater (1995). Why cognitive science is not formalized folk psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   It is often assumed that cognitive science is built upon folk psychology, and that challenges to folk psychology are therefore challenges to cognitive science itself. We argue that, in practice, cognitive science and folk psychology treat entirely non-overlapping domains: cognitive science considers aspects of mental life which do not depend on general knowledge, whereas folk psychology considers aspects of mental life which do depend on general knowledge. We back up our argument on theoretical grounds, and also illustrate the separation between cognitive scientific and folk psychological phenomena in a number of cognitive domains. We consider the methodological and theoretical significance of our arguments for cognitive science research
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/content/l660x1623342l824/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l660x1623342l824/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/L660X1623342L824.pdf
  
• Steven Pinker (2005). So how does the mind work?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In my book How the Mind Works, I defended the theory that the human mind is a naturally selected system of organs of computation. Jerry Fodor claims that 'the mind doesn't work that way'(in a book with that title) because (1) Turing Machines cannot duplicate humans' ability to perform abduction (inference to the best explanation); (2) though a massively modular system could succeed at abduction, such a system is implausible on other grounds; and (3) evolution adds nothing to our understanding of the mind. In this review I show that these arguments are flawed. First, my claim that the mind is a computational system is different from the claim Fodor attacks (that the mind has the architecture of a Turing Machine); therefore the practical limitations of Turing Machines are irrelevant. Second, Fodor identifies abduction with the cumulative accomplishments of the scientific community over millennia. This is very different from the accomplishments of human common sense, so the supposed gap between human cognition and computational models may be illusory. Third, my claim about biological specialization, as seen in organ systems, is distinct from Fodor's own notion of encapsulated modules, so the limitations of the latter are irrelevant. Fourth, Fodor's arguments dismissing of the relevance of evolution to psychology are unsound
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.0268-1064.2005.00274.x
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0268-1064.2005.00274.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/2005/00000020/00000001/art00001
  
• Zenon W. Pylyshyn (online). Spring and fall fashions in cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This is indeed an auspicious time for Cognitive Science. I stand here before you this evening as the first Chair to give a presidential address to this austere body, to place on record before you what you are to accept as the Society's official view on the new science of the mind
• Zenon W. Pylyshyn (online). What is cognitive science?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Neuroscientists have an advantage on us dry Cognitive Scientists: They always have impressive color slides of PET or fMRI images showing the exact location of whatever they wish to discuss --” the soul or the locus of sinful thoughts or the center of consciousness. If one were to go by popular science articles on the brain one would have to conclude that we know where everything is located in the brain and therefore we know everything about it except how it manages to do things like think. Yet I believe that what we do here at the Center for Cognitive Science is precisely that we study what is in the mind, even if we do not know where it is in the brain (and in fact even if there is no answer to the question where it is in the brain --“ which is indeed the case for any interesting mental mechanism or mental state). Let me explain
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ftp/pub/papers/ruccsbook.PDF
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/forums/proseminar_fall03/Pylyshyn.pdf
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zJExf_8IszwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&ots=XiGqEkHGq9&sig=XN3ZuBOaWgls59hBidi7vVmn0AA
  
• Robert D. Rupert (ms). Against Group Cognitive States.   (More)
• Robert D. Rupert (2010). Systems, Functions, and Intrinsic Natures: On Adams and Aizawa's The Bounds of Cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Review essay contrasting Adams and Aizawa's approach to cognition with a functionalist, systems-based view.
• Michael Silberstein & Anthony Chemero (web). After philosophy of mind: Replacing scholasticism with science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: We provide a taxonomy of the two most important debates in the philosophy of the cognitive and neural sciences. The first debate is over methodological individualism: is the object of the cognitive and neural sciences the brain, the whole animal, or the animal--environment system? The second is over explanatory style: should explanation in cognitive and neural science be reductionist-mechanistic, inter-level mechanistic, or dynamical? After setting out the debates, we discuss the ways in which they are interconnected. Finally, we make some recommendations that we hope will help philosophers interested in the cognitive and neural sciences to avoid dead ends
• Barry Smith (1994). Topological foundations of cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This is a revised version of the introductory essay in C. Eschenbach, C. Habel and B. Smith (eds.), Topological Foundations of Cognitive Science, Hamburg: Graduiertenkolleg Kognitionswissenschaft, 1994, the text of a talk delivered at the First International Summer Institute in Cognitive Science in Buffalo in July 1994
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://wings.buffalo.edu/philosophy/faculty/smith/articles/topo.html
  
• Roger W. Sperry (1993). The impact and promise of the cognitive revolution.   (More)
• Ron Sun (2004). Desiderata for cognitive architectures.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This article addresses issues in developing cognitive architectures--generic computational models of cognition. Cognitive architectures are believed to be essential in advancing understanding of the mind, and therefore, developing cognitive architectures is an extremely important enterprise in cognitive science. The article proposes a set of essential desiderata for developing cognitive architectures. It then moves on to discuss in detail some of these desiderata and their associated concepts and ideas relevant to developing better cognitive architectures. It argues for the importance of taking into full consideration these desiderata in developing future architectures that are more cognitively and ecologically realistic. A brief and preliminary evaluation of existing cognitive architectures is attempted on the basis of these ideas
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/public_html/rsun/public_html/sun-pp2003-f.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713997446~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/RRGYLL8LX5ELRM75.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/RRGYLL8LX5ELRM75.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2004/00000017/00000003/art00002
  
• Ron Sun, Andrew Coward & Michael J. Zenzen (2005). On levels of cognitive modeling.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The article first addresses the importance of cognitive modeling, in terms of its value to cognitive science (as well as other social and behavioral sciences). In particular, it emphasizes the use of cognitive architectures in this undertaking. Based on this approach, the article addresses, in detail, the idea of a multi-level approach that ranges from social to neural levels. In physical sciences, a rigorous set of theories is a hierarchy of descriptions/explanations, in which causal relationships among entities at a high level can be reduced to causal relationships among simpler entities at a more detailed level. We argue that a similar hierarchy makes possible an equally productive approach toward cognitive modeling. The levels of models that we conceive in relation to cognition include, at the highest level, sociological/anthropological models of collective human behavior, behavioral models of individual performance, cognitive models involving detailed mechanisms, representations, and processes, as well as biological/physiological models of neural circuits, brain regions, and other detailed biological processes
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/public_html/rsun/public_html/sun-pp2005-f.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a727182512~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/T73P1872Q1104452.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/727182512.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2005/00000018/00000005/art00004
  
• Gabriel Vacariu, Dalia Terhesiu & Mihai Vacariu (2001). Toward a very idea of representation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The actual approaches of Cognitive Science offer a partial explanation of cognition. In this paper, our main point is to catch some key elements from these approaches, that can be taken together in a future perspective for a better explanation of cognition. The key elements (levels of analysis, primitives, processes, structures, threshold,self-organisation, bidirectionality, emergency, habituation, tasks, theinteraction between levels and also the interactions between the elements of the cognitive system and the environment) help us to stress the need of the representations. Then, we arediscussing the following dichotomies: procedural-declarative,consciousness-unconsciousness, implicit-explicit. Finally, we will try to motivate the necessity of an abstract theory of representation in Cognitive Science. ``The sensitive things aren't, but the ideas are''
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=322205&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/P7JU6P0467672276.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/2001/00000129/00000002/00322205
  
• Tim van Gelder (1998). The roles of philosophy in cognitive science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: When the various disciplines participating in cognitive science are listed, philosophy almost always gets a guernsey. Yet, a couple of years ago at the conference of the Cognitive Science Society in Boulder (USA), there was no philosophy or philosopher with any prominence on the program. When queried on this point, the organizer (one of the "superstars" of the field) claimed it was partly an accident, but partly also due to an impression among members of the committee that philosophy is basically a waste of time. Philosophy, they thought, is mostly obscure bullshit that does little to help, and much to hinder, real progress in cognitive science
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a793919036~fulltext=713240930
  
• Jonathan A. Waskan (2003). Intrinsic cognitive models.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15516709cog2702_5
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1207/s15516709cog2702_5
  http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/CSJarchive/2003v27/i02/p0259p0283/00000110.PDF
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/03640213/2003/00000027/00000002/art00119
  
• Cory D. Wright (2008). Embodied Cognition: Grounded Until Further Notice?   (More)