Representation Reconsidered

William M. Ramsey reveals a radical shift in our understanding of how the mind works.

William M. Ramsey (Author)

9780521153324, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 10 June 2010

270 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.41 kg

'[This] book makes a well-informed, carefully argued and convincing case for its core argument. Everyone who is seriously interested in the philosophy of cognitive science and the status of psychological theorizing should read it.' Daniel D. Hutto, Philosophical Psychology

Cognitive representation is the single most important explanatory notion in the sciences of the mind and has served as the cornerstone for the so-called 'cognitive revolution'. This book critically examines the ways in which philosophers and cognitive scientists appeal to representations in their theories, and argues that there is considerable confusion about the nature of representational states. This has led to an excessive over-application of the notion - especially in many of the fresher theories in computational neuroscience. Representation Reconsidered shows how psychological research is actually moving in a non-representational direction, revealing a radical, though largely unnoticed, shift in our basic understanding of how the mind works.

List of figures
Preface
1. Demands on a representational theory
2. Representation in classical computational theories: the standard interpretation and its problems
3. Two notions of representation in the classical computational framework
4. The receptor notion and its problems
5. Tacit representation and its problems
6. Where is the representational paradigm headed?
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of science [PDA], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Psychology [JM], Philosophy of mind [HPM], Philosophy [HP]