Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:08:02.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anti-Representationalism and the Dynamical Stance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Anthony Chemero
Anthony Chemero*
Affiliation:
Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind Program, Franklin and Marshall College
*
†Send reprint requests to the author, Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind Program, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604–3003, USA; email: a_chemero@acad.fandm.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Arguments in favor of anti-representationalism in cognitive science often suffer from a lack of attention to detail. The purpose of this paper is to fill in the gaps in these arguments, and in so doing show that at least one form of anti-representationalism is potentially viable. After giving a teleological definition of representation and applying it to a few models that have inspired anti-representationalist claims, I argue that anti-representationalism must be divided into two distinct theses, one ontological, one epistemological. Given the assumptions that define the debate, I give reason to think that the ontological thesis is false. I then argue that the epistemological thesis might, in the end, turn out to be true, despite a potentially serious difficulty. Along the way, there will be a brief detour to discuss a controversy from early twentieth century physics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , December 2000 , pp. 625 - 647
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Bill Bechtel, Will Cordeiro, Mike Dunn, Michael Friedman, Ruth Millikan, Bob Port, Gregor Schöner, Brian Cantwell Smith, and Tim van Gelder for comments.

References

Bechtel, William (1998), “Representations and cognitive explanations”, Cognitive Science 22: 295–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beer, Randy (1995), “Computational and Dynamical Languages for Autonomous Agents”, in Port and van Gelder 1995, 121–148.Google Scholar
Boltzmann, Ludwig (1900), “The Recent Development of Method in Theoretical Physics”, Monist 11:226–257.10.5840/monist190111224CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boltzmann, Ludwig (1901), “On the Necessity of Atomic Theories in Physics”, Monist 12: 65–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, Rodney (1991), “Intelligence Without Reason”, Artificial Intelligence 47: 139–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, Rodney (1999), Cambrian Intelligence, Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Busemeyer, Jerry and Townsend, James (1995), “Decision Field Theory”, in Port and van Gelder 1995, 101–120.Google Scholar
Chemero, Anthony (1998), How to be an Anti-Representationalist. Ph.D. Dissertation. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University.Google Scholar
Chemero, Anthony and Eck, Douglas (1999), “An Exploration of Representational Complexity via Coupled Oscillator Systems”, in Priss, U. (ed.), Proceedings of the 1999 Midwest AI and Cognitive Science Conference. Cambridge: AAAI Press, 27–35.Google Scholar
Clark, Andy (1997), Being There. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Clark, Peter (1976), “Atomism versus Thermodynamics”, in Howson, Colin (ed.), Method and Appraisal in the Physical Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press, 41–105.10.1017/CBO9780511760013.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennett, Daniel (1987), The Intentional Stance. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry and Pylyshyn, Zenon (1988), “Connectionism and Cognitive Architecture”, Cognition 28: 3–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibson, James J. (1979), The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. New Jersey: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Grush, Rick (1997), “The Architecture of Representation”, Philosophical Psychology.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haken, Hermann, Kelso, J. Scott and Bunz, H. (1985), “A Theoretical Model of Phase Transitions in Human Hand Movements”, Biological Cybernetics 51: 347–356.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harvey, Inman, Husbands, Phil and Cliff, David (1994), “Seeing the Light: Artificial Evolution, Real Vision”, in Cliff, David (ed.), From Animals to Animats 3. Cambridge: MIT Press, 392–401.Google Scholar
Haugeland, John (1985), Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl (1966), The Philosophy of Natural Science. Englewood: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Hendriks-Jansen, Horst (1996), Catching Ourselves in the Act. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Husbands, Phil, Harvey, Inman and Cliff, David (1995) “Circle in the Round: State Space Attractor for Evolved Sight Robots”, Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems 15: 83–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keizjer, Fred (1997), The Generation of Behavior. Ph.D. Thesis. Leiden, The Netherlands: Leiden University.Google Scholar
Kelso, J. Scott (1995), Dynamic Patterns. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kaipainen, Mauri and Port, Robert (unpublished), “Speech Cycling.”Google Scholar
Mach, Ernst (1886), The Analysis of Sensations, translated by Williams, New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth (1984), Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth (1996), “Pushmi-pullyu Representations”, in Tomberlin, James (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives vol. IX. Ridgeview Publishing.Google Scholar
Port, Robert (unpublished), “A Dynamic Approcah to Language and Cognition.”Google Scholar
Port, Robert and Gelder, Timothy van (eds.) (1995), Mind as Motion. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ramsey, William (1997), “Do Connectionist Representations Earn their Explanatory Keep?”, Mind and Language 12: 34–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, Edward (1996), Experiencing the World. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shepard, Roger and Metzler, Jacqeline (1971), “Mental Rotation of Three-Dimensional Objects”, Science 171: 701–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Skarda, Christine and Freeman, Walter (1987), “How the Brain Makes Chaos to Make Sense of the World”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10: 161–195.10.1017/S0140525X00047336CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Charles (1964), The Explanation of Behavior. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Thelen, Esther and Smith, Linda B (1994), A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
van Gelder, Timothy (1995), “What might Cognition be if not Computation?”, Journal of Philosophy 91: 345–381.10.2307/2941061CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Gelder, Timothy (1998), “The Dynamical Systems Hypothesis”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21: 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Gelder, Timothy and Port, Robert (1995), “It's about Time”, in Port and van Gelder 1995, 1–43.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Michael (1996), “From Robots to Rothko”, in Margaret Boden (ed.) (1996), The Philosophy of Artificial Life. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 209–236.Google Scholar