Understanding the Representational Mind PDF Download

Author: Josef Perner
Publisher: Bradford Books
ISBN: 9780262660822
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
A model of writing in cognitive development, Understanding the Representational Mind synthesizes the burgeoning literature on the child's theory of mind to provide an integrated account of children's understanding of representational and mental processes, which is crucial in their acquisition of our commonsense psychology.

Author: William M. Ramsey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521859875
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Author: Richard E. Aquila
Publisher: Studies in Phenomenology and E
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Author: Hugh Clapin
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 9780080540528
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
'Representation in Mind' is the first book in the new series 'Perspectives on Cognitive Science' and includes well known contributors in the areas of philosophy of mind, psychology and cognitive science. The papers in this volume offer new ideas, fresh approaches and new criticisms of old ideas. The papers deal in new ways with fundamental questions concerning the problem of mental representation that one contributor, Robert Cummins, has described as "THE problem in philosophy of mind for some time now". The editors' introductory overview considers the problem for which mental representation has been seen as an answer, sketching an influential framework, outlining some of the issues addressed and then providing an overview of the papers. Issues include: the relation between mental representation and public, non-mental representation; misrepresentation; the role of mental representations in intelligent action; the relation between representation and consciousness; the relation between folk psychology and explanations invoking mental representations

Author: Kim Sterelny
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631164982
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This book is not a conventional introduction to the philosophy of mind, nor is it a contribution to the physicalist/ dualist debate. Instead The Representational Theory of Mind demonstrates that we can construct physicalist theories of important aspects of our mental life. Its aim is to explain and defend a physicalist theory of intelligence in two parts: the first six chapters consist of an exposition, elaboration and defence of human sentience (the functionalist theory of mind), and the second part considers rivals and objections to this theory. Kim Sterelny aims to introduce people to this area of philosophy be exemplifying it, to show that philosophical and empirical investigations can be synthesized to the benefit of both. It is both introduction and argument, explanation and manifesto and succeeds in bridging the widening gap between student primer and contemporary research. Technical vocabulary is explained (and defined in a glossary) while the leading edge of current debates is confronted and assessed. This book has been written for people working in philosophy, psychology and the cognitive sciences.

Author: Martin Doherty
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135420785
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Most of us are continually aware that others have thoughts and feelings – but are children? When? This book is a concise and readable review of the extensive research into children’s understanding of what other people think and feel, a central topic in developmental psychology known as "Theory of Mind". The understanding of belief is central to this text, which explains in simple terms what representational theory of mind is all about, and shows how researchers have demonstrated this understanding in 4-year-olds. The book considers what leads to this understanding, including the role of pretend play, understanding of attention and eye direction, and other precursors to representational understanding of mind. The general relevance of theory of mind is demonstrated through coverage of the development of other mental state concepts, and the relationship between understanding mental representation and other representational media. The author also carefully summarizes current research on the relationship between theory of mind and concurrent developments in executive functioning, and the understanding of language. The book closes by considering autism. A major achievement of theory of mind research is the light it has helped throw on this puzzling developmental disorder. Providing a comprehensive overview of 25 years of research into theory of mind, the book will be of great interest to both students and researchers in psychology, philosophy and the cognitive sciences.

Author: Joulia Smortchkova
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190686677
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
The topic of this book is mental representation, a theoretical concept that lies at the core of cognitive science. Together with the idea that thinking is analogous to computational processing, this concept is responsible for the "cognitive turn" in the sciences of the mind and brain since the 1950s. Conceiving of cognitive processes (such as perception, reasoning, and motor control) as consisting of the manipulation of contentful vehicles that represent the world has led to tremendous empirical advancements in our explanations of behaviour. Perhaps the most famous discovery that explains behavior by appealing to the notion of mental representations was the discovery of 'place' cells that underlie spatial navigation and positioning, which earned researchers John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser, and Edvard I. Moser a joint Nobel Prize in 2014. And yet, despite the empirical importance of the concept, there is no agreed definition or theoretical understanding of mental representation. This book constitutes a state-of-the-art overview on the topic of mental representation, assembling some of the leading experts in the field and allowing them to engage in meaningful exchanges over some of the most contentious questions. The collection gathers both proponents and critics of the notion, making room for debates dealing with the theoretical and ontological status of representations, the possibility of formulating a general account of mental representation which would fit our best explanatory practices, and the possibility of delivering such an account in fully naturalistic terms. Some contributors explore the relation between mutually incompatible notions of mental representation, stemming from the different disciplines composing the cognitive sciences (such as neuroscience, psychology, and computer science). Others question the ontological status and explanatory usefulness of the notion. And finally, some try to sketch a general theory of mental representations that could face the challenges outlined in the more critical chapters of the volume.

Author: Robert Cummins
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262032353
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
What is it for something in the mind to represent something? Distinguished philosopher of mind Robert Cummins looks at the familiar problems of representation theory (what information is represented in the mind, what form mental representation takes, how representational schemes are implemented in the brain, what it is for one thing to represent another) from an unprecedented angle. Instead of following the usual procedure of defending a version of "indicator" semantics, Cummins begins with a theory of representational error and uses this theory to constrain the account of representational content. Thus, the problem of misrepresentation, which plagues all other accounts, is avoided at the start. Cummins shows that representational error can be accommodated only if the content of a representation is intrinsic--independent of its use and causal role in the system that employs it. Cummins's theory of error is based on the teleological idea of a "target," an intentional concept but one that differs importantly from that of an ordinary intentional object. Using this notion he offers a schematic theory of representation and an account of propositional attitudes that takes exception with some popular positions, such as conceptual role semantics, Fodor's representational theory of the mind, and Putnam's twin-earth examples. A Bradford Book. Representation and Mind series

Author: Fred Keijzer
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262263327
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Keijzer provides a reconstruction of cognitive science's implicit representational explanation of behavior, which he calls Agent Theory (AT), the use of mind as a subpersonal mechanism of behavior. Representation is a fundamental concept within cognitive science. Most often, representations are interpreted as mental representations, theoretical entities that are the bearers of meaning and the source of intentionality. This approach views representation as the internal reflection of external circumstances—that is, as the end station of sensory processes that translate the environmental state of affairs into a set of mental representations. Fred Keijzer stresses, however, that representations are also the starting point for a set of processes that lead back to the external environment. They are used as theoretical components within an explanation of a person's outwardly visible behavior. In this book Keijzer investigates the usefulness of representation for behavioral explanation, irrespective of mental issues. Viewing representation solely in terms of its contribution to explaining behavior allows him to build a serious case for a nonrepresentational approach and to evaluate representation's role in cognitive science. Keijzer provides a reconstruction of cognitive science's implicit representational explanation of behavior, which he calls Agent Theory (AT). AT is the use of mind as a subpersonal mechanism of behavior. He proposes an alternative to AT called Behavioral Systems Theory (BST), which explains behavior as the result of interactions between an organism and its environment. Keijzer compares BST to related work in the biology of cognition, in the building of animal-like robots, and in dynamical systems theory. Most important, he extends BST to the difficult issue of anticipatory behavior through an analogy between behavior and morphogenesis, the process by which a multicellular body develops.

Author: Nicholas Shea
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0198812884
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Our thoughts are meaningful. We think about things in the outside world; how can that be so? This is one of the deepest questions in contemporary philosophy. Ever since the 'cognitive revolution', states with meaning-mental representations-have been the key explanatory construct of the cognitive sciences. But there is still no widely accepted theory of how mental representations get their meaning. Powerful new methods in cognitive neuroscience can now reveal information processing in the brain in unprecedented detail. They show how the brain performs complex calculations on neural representations. Drawing on this cutting-edge research, Nicholas Shea uses a series of case studies from the cognitive sciences to develop a naturalistic account of the nature of mental representation. His approach is distinctive in focusing firmly on the 'subpersonal' representations that pervade so much of cognitive science. The diversity and depth of the case studies, illustrated by numerous figures, make this book unlike any previous treatment. It is important reading for philosophers of psychology and philosophers of mind, and of considerable interest to researchers throughout the cognitive sciences.