Cummins, 1989, 25 in the above example of a calculator, non mental meaning was. What it means to represent, and several types of representation. The naturalization of mental representation, or content, is the project of formulating what the relationship is between a mental state and something else, such that the mental state represents the other thing, i. We should be careful to distinguish two problems about mental representation. Metaphysical functionalists are concerned not with how mental states account for behavior, but rather with what they are.
At this meeting we will arrange the time and place for the remaining lectures. This is motivated by the idea that perception and cognition require representations that are subject to meaningful structural transformationsisomorphs, essentially, of representationl targets rather than terms that refer to them. The moving wall represents the time period between the last issue available in jstor and the most recently published issue of a journal. Review peter carruthers 1990 philosophical quarterly 40 61. Go to page top go back to contents go back to site navigation. It was argued that this making of new mean ing is rooted in the existing knowledge of individual speakers. The lot of cumminss argument against causal theories of.
The first lecture will be held wednesday, september 14, at 1pm in hh357. Cummins introduces the distinction between meaning and meaningfor page 86 to make this point. This is a course about the way in which mental states, like beliefs, hopes. Definition of mental representation in the dictionary. Burge, tyler, individualism and the mental, studies in metaphysics, midwest studies in philosophy, 4 1979. This course examines how the mind fits into the physical world. Pdf meaning and mental representation denise gamble. This brief discussion has focused on what cummins deems the philosophical problem of representation.
Externalism with regard to mental content says that in order to have certain types of intentional mental states e. Representational development and theoryofmind computations. In this provocative study, robert cummins takes on philosophers, both old and new, who pursue the question of mental representation as an abstraction, apart from the constraints of any particular theory or framework. The word stands for or represents the concept, and can be used to reference or designate either a real object in the world or indeed even some imaginary object, like angels dancing on the head of a pin, which no one has ever actually seen. Robert cummins looks at accounts by locke, fodor, dretske, and millikan concerning the nature of mental representation, and discusses connectionism and representation. Cummins looks at existing and traditional accounts by. Not surprisingly, then, cummins favours connectionist over computational models of mental processes. However, it is likely that a better understanding of what kinds of things mental representations are i. Mental representation from the bottom up, synthese 70. Cummins, robert, meaning and mental representation cambridge, ma. Mental representations and concepts in medieval philosophy. Representation in the brain frontiers research topic.
Explaining cognitive phenomena with internal representations. Cummins presupposes that the reader already has a solid repertoire of knowledge of the philosophy of mind and language. Representational development and theoryofmind computations volume 16 issue 1 david c. Meaning and mental representation bradford book pdf free. In this provocative study, robert cummins takes on philosophers, both old and new, who pursue the question of.
The first lecture will be held monday, september 10, at 1pm in hh357. There are theories that treat meaning as asymmetrical, a treatment that accords priority originality to mental meaning, and those that instead hold that mental and nonmental representation are basically the same. Representation connects meaning and language to culture. The mental lexicon is defined as a mental representation of words stored in memory, including information about a words meaning, pronunciation, syntactic characteristics, and so on carroll, 1999 mental lexicon theory mainly studies the construction and characteristics of the psychological representation of words and their meanings. Fodors guide to mental representation jerry fodor mental representation hartry h. Causal theories of mental content presuppose that mental contents are underived, hence attempt to explain how underived meaning arises.
A mental representation is a system of symbols isomorphic to some aspect of the environment, used to make behaviorgenerating decisions that anticipate events and relations in that environment. May 04, 2018 rather, being a mental representation is a matter of being a representation that contributes representation and mental representation 209 its covariationrelated or structuraliconic. Cummins asserts that mental representation is, in fact, a problem in the philosophy of science, a theoretical. Many of our mental states such as beliefs and desires are intentional mental states, or mental states with content. Cummins asserts that mental representation is, in fact, a problem in the philosophy of science, a theoretical assumption that serves different explanatory rol in this provocative study, robert cummins takes on philosophers, both old and new, who pursue the question of mental representation as an abstraction, apart from the constraints of any. He is the author of the nature of psychological explanation 1983, meaning and mental representation 1987, and representations, targets and attitudes 1996, as well as many articles and several edited volumes. Robert cummins, meaning and mental representation philpapers. Pdf representation and mental representation rob rupert. Cummins asserts that mental representation is, in fact, a problem in the philosophy of science, a theoretical assumption that serves different explanatory roles within the different contexts of commonsense or folk psychology, orthodox computation, connectionism, or neuroscience. I have put considerable effort into investigating alternatives to languagelike schemes of mental representation.
Peter carruthers, meaning and mental representation. This is one of the central issues in contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science, and we will address it by examining some of the. A significant amount of work in the last decades has examined the nature and processes in the mental lexicon in a variety of languages. Cumminss argument against ct generally speaking, ct asserts that the content of a primitive mental representation, or term in a. In this potted history, rob cummins 1989, 1996 plays the trailblazer. Cummins asserts that mental representation is, in fact, a problem in the philosophy of science, a theoretical assumption that serves different explanatory roles within the. Instead he takes mental representation to be largely nonpropositional.
In this lecture we consider internalism and externalism about linguistic and mental content. I defend the view of representation urged in meaning and mental representation against the charge that it makes content stipulative and therefore irrelevant to the explanation of cognition. The hare wasnt very far away from me, however her ears were partially hidden. Such an account must be able to explain misrepresentation, by showing what a representation s content isexactly and also how a representation can be caused to be activated by something to which that content does not apply.
To the extent that the problems include distracting information irrelevant to the solution e. Meaning, which his theory is trying to explain, is representation and independent of meaningfor, which is, in essence, what something communicates to its users. The argument implicitly undermines fodors view of the mind. Field advertisement for a semantics for psychology ned block why meaning probably isnt conceptual role jerry fodor and ernest lepore misrepresentation fred dretske from information to intentionality barry loewer a theory of content, ii. Cummins looks at existing and traditional accounts by locke, fodor.
Lecture notes available here as word document and here as pdf. Causal theories of mental content stanford encyclopedia. Finally, disputes about mental content cannot be settled by appeal to our linguistic. It is motivated by the idea that perception and cognition require representations that are subject to meaningful structural transformationsisomorphs, essentially, of representationl targets rather than terms that refer to them. Pdf representation and mental representation researchgate.
A variety of terms associated with mental representations worldviews, paradigms, frameworks, models, schema, and scriptswill be discussed in the following sections. I argue that there are no mental representations, in the sense of representation used in standard computational theories of the mind. Our conjectures and analysis of the representational issue has been mainly focused at the level of the. Dennetts, and millikans more recent ideas about mental representation. This story motivates cummins account that he gave in meaning and mental representation but that story is no good because it is a use theory, a version of crs see critique in chapter 4 the picture theory of representation ptr holds the idea of representations as proxies while avoiding crs. Meaning and mental representation exlib by robert cummins. Causal theories of mental content stanford encyclopedia of. Cummins book is basically a very dense investigation of the various theories of mental representation. Pdf on apr 1, 1992, stephen stich and others published what is a theory of.
Second, causal theories of mental content distinguish what has come to be known as natural meaning and nonnatural meaning. Synopsis and critical evaluation of robert cummins. Connectionism content interpretation meaning mental image representation science semantics similarity categories naturalizing mental content, misc in philosophy of mind. Understanding the representational mind clf f josef perner. This is how you give meaning to things through language. Conceptual role and truth conditions, notre dame journal of formal logic 23. Rethinking representation in the middle ages a vademecum to medi. A mental representation or cognitive representation, in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality, or else a mental process that makes use of such a symbol. Information about mental representation in the dictionary, synonyms and antonyms. Reviewed by david larson, central missouri state university. Why there are no mental representations springerlink. Meaning and mental representation by robert cummins a copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. A realist about mental representation is committed to the reality of the internal.
Cases where an object or event x has natural meaning are those in which, given certain background conditions, the existence or occurrence of x entails the existence or occurrence of some state of affairs. One might, for example, consider the image of a tree that is visible through a window hav. A commentary on stichs what is a theory of mental representation. Synopsis and critical evaluation of robert cummins representations, targets and attitudes sitting outside at dusk one evening on a family vacation i erroneously exclaimed oh a baby deer at the sight of a rather large hare. In rare instances, a publisher has elected to have a zero moving wall, so their current issues are available. Proper usage and audio pronunciation plus ipa phonetic transcription of the word mental representation. Robert cummins is professor of philosophy at the university of california, davis. Notes toward a structuralist theory of mental representation. Lecture notes available here as word document and here as a pdf.
More recent approaches have used neuroimaging tools to tap into brain processes associated with the mental lexicon. In this provocative study, robert cummins takes on philosophers, both old and new, who pursue the question of mental representation as an abstraction, apart. To better understand the nature of mental representation, it is useful to begin with a consideration of representation in general. Sorry, we are unable to provide the full text but you may find it at the following locations. Thus, he has not written mmr as an introductory text. If the inline pdf is not rendering correctly, you can download the pdf file here.
I take cummins meaning and mental representation as my stalkinghorse, and argue that his view, once properly developed, is selfdefeating. Only one philosopherrobert cumminsis concerned with the second of these families. Chapter 4 approaches to meaning and mental representation. Project muse meaning and mental representations ed. Externalism about mental content stanford encyclopedia of. The first, the problem of representations plural is to say which sorts of things play the role of representations in cognitive systems of various sorts. 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. Worldview the term worldview is often used as the most encompassing mental representation. The representation of bilingual mental lexicon and english. Cummins, and in his recent book, meaning and mental.
Meaning and mental representation by robert cummins. Form, interpretation, and the uniqueness of content. The relationship between bilingualism and the development. The mental representation of the lexicon has been a central focus of psycholinguistic inquiry. Mental representation in the brain remains an unresolved issue. This means that they, like propositions, carry truth valuesor maybe it means that they, like. In this potted history, rob cummins 1989,1996 plays the trailblazer.
Such mental internal or cognitive representations paivio, 1990 are widely investigated in cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, philosophy of mind and related fields carruthers and cummins, 1990, but often without a clear connection to neural representations, which are more commonly addressed in brain research, neuroscience and. Pdf the relationship hetween mental representation and consciousness is considered. In response to michael morris, i attempt to refute the crucial second premise of the argument, which states that the formality condition cannot be satisfied nonstipulatively in computational systems. Approaches to meaning and mental representation at the end of chapter 3, linguistic creat ivity was defined essentially as the making of new meaning which is sometimes but not always accompanied by new form. The concept of representation has come to occupy a new and important place in the study of culture. Cummins asserts that mental representation is, in fact, a problem in the. Metaphysical functionalism the last functionalism, the one that this part is mainly about, is a theory of the nature of the mind, rather than a theory of psychological explanation. The aim of this chapter is to introduce you to this topic, and to explain what it is about and why we give it such importance in cultural studies. It was argued that this making of new mean ing is rooted in the existing knowledge.
This list of values can be compared to another list for their similarities or for the subject distance between them. What it means to represent, and several types of representation e. Representations, targets, and attitudes mit cognet. Meaning holists hold, roughly, that each representation in a linguistic or mental system depends semantically on every other representation in the system. The second, the problem of representation singular, is to specify the nature of the representation relation. In this provocative study, robert cummins takes on philosophers, both old and new, who pursue the question of mental representation as an abstraction, apart from the constraints of any particular read. The relationship hetween mental representation and consciousness is considered. In this volume ten original essays present new approaches to the definition of meaning and mental representation. However, there has been significant research in a variety of fields in the last four decades from various forms of neuroscience to theoretical computer science which can provide new insights on the issue of representation. Intentionality and mental representation philosophy. Cummins 1989 has an analogous argument for treating the question about the nature of mental representation as a question within philosophy of science. Conversely, neuroscientists seem to be uninterested in the metaphysical status of representations and the representation relation, while philosophers tend. I have long investigated alternatives to languagelike schemes of mental representation.
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