Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-s22k5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T20:53:15.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Marr on Computational-Level Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Oron Shagrir
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

According to Marr, a computational-level theory consists of two elements, the what and the why. This article highlights the distinct role of the Why element in the computational analysis of vision. Three theses are advanced: (a) that the Why element plays an explanatory role in computational-level theories, (b) that its goal is to explain why the computed function (specified by the What element) is appropriate for a given visual task, and (c) that the explanation consists in showing that the functional relations between the representing cells are similar to the “external” mathematical relations between the entities that these cells represent.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 477 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © 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

‡

I am thankful to Merav Ahissar, Colin Allen, Carl Craver, Frances Egan, Yosef Grodzinsky, Amit Hagar, Amir Horowitz, Otto Lappi, Arnon Levy, David Kaplan, Gualtiero Piccinini, Itamar Pitowsky, Nick Shea, Anna-Mari Rusanen, and Shimon Ullman. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation grant 725/08.

References

Andersen, Richard A., Essick, Greg K., and Siegel, Ralph M.. 1985. “Encoding of Spatial Location by Posterior Parietal Neurons.” Science 230:456–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bermúdez, José Luis. 2005. Philosophy of Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bontly, Thomas D. 1998. “Individualism and the Nature of Syntactic States.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49:557–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 1986. “Individualism and Psychology.” Philosophical Review 95:3–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Keith. 1998. “Content, Computation, and Individuation.” Synthese 114:277–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cannon, Stephen C., Robinson, David A., and Shamma, Shihab A.. 1983. “A Proposed Neural Network for the Integrator of the Oculomotor System.” Biological Cybernetics 49:127–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Churchland, Patricia S., and Sejnowski, Terrence J.. 1992. The Computational Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Churchland, Paul M. 2007. Neurophilosophy at Work. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl F. 2007. Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cumming, Bruce. 2002. “An Unexpected Specialization for Horizontal Disparity in Primate Primary Visual Cortex.” Nature 418:633–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cummins, Robert E. 1983. The Nature of Psychological Explanation. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Davies, Martin. 1991. “Individualism and Perceptual Content.” Mind 100:461–84.Google Scholar
Dennett, Daniel. 1994. “Cognitive Science as Reverse Engineering: Several Meanings of ‘Top-Down’ and ‘Bottom-Up.’” In Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science IX, ed. Prawitz, Dag, Skyrms, Brian, and Westerståhl, Dag, 679–89. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.Google Scholar
Durand, Jean-Baptiste, Celebrini, Simona, and Trotter, Yves. 2007. “Neural Bases of Stereopsis across Visual Field of the Alert Macaque Monkey.” Cerebral Cortex 17:1260–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Egan, Frances. 1991. “Must Psychology Be Individualistic?” Philosophical Review 100:179–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egan, Frances. 1992. “Individualism, Computation and Perceptual Content.” Mind 101:443–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egan, Frances. 1995. “Computation and Content.” Philosophical Review 104:181–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egan, Frances. 2010. “A Modest Role for Content.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry A. 1994. The Elm and the Expert. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry A., and Pylyshyn, Zenon W.. 1988: “Connectionism and Cognitive Architecture: A Critical Analysis.” Cognition 28:3–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillman, Daniel. 1996. “Optimization and Simplicity: Computational Vision and Biological Explanation.” Synthese 107:293–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grush, Rick. 2001. “The Semantic Challenge to Computational Neuroscience.” In Theory and Method in the Neurosciences, ed. Machamer, Peter, Grush, Rick, and McLaughlin, Peter, 155–72. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Harnish, Robert M. 2002. Minds, Brains, Computers: An Historical Introduction to the Foundations of Cognitive Science. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Haugeland, John. 1978. “The Nature and Plausibility of Cognitivism.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2:215–26.Google Scholar
Hildreth, Ellen, and Ullman, Shimon. 1989. “The Computational Study of Vision.” In Foundations of Cognitive Science, ed. Posner, Michael, 581–630. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Horgan, Terence E., and Tienson, John L.. 1994. “A Nonclassical Framework for Cognitive Science.” Synthese 101:305–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, Amir. 2007. “Computation, External Factors, and Cognitive Explanations.” Philosophical Psychology 20:65–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horst, Steven W. 2009. “The Computational Theory of Mind.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Patricia S. 1988. “Marr's Computational Theory of Vision.” Philosophy of Science 55:1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroustallis, Basileios. 2006. “Content Individuation in Marr's Theory of Vision.” Journal of Mind and Behavior 27:57–72.Google Scholar
Marr, David C. 1977. “Artificial Intelligence: A Personal View.” Artificial Intelligence 9:37–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marr, David C.. 1982. Vision. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Marr, David C., and Hildreth, Ellen. 1980. “Theory of Edge Detection.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 207:187–217.Google ScholarPubMed
Marr, David C., and Poggio, Tomaso A.. 1976. “Cooperative Computation of Stereo Disparity.” Science 194:283–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marr, David C., and Poggio, Tomaso A.. 1979. “A Computational Theory of Human Stereo Vision.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 204:301–28.Google ScholarPubMed
Morton, Peter A. 1993. “Supervenience and Computational Explanation in Vision Theory.” Philosophy of Science 60:86–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newell, Allen. 1982. “The Knowledge Level.” Artificial Intelligence 18:87–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peacocke, Christopher. 1994. “Content, Computation and Externalism.” Mind and Language 9:303–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piccinini, Gualtiero. 2008. “Computation without Representation.” Philosophical Studies 137:205–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polger, Thomas W. 2004. “Neural Machinery and Realization.” Philosophy of Science 7:997–1006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pylyshyn, Zenon W. 1984. Computation and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ramsey, William. 2007. Representation Reconsidered. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, David A. 1989. “Integrating with Neurons.” Annual Review of Neuroscience 12:33–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Segal, Gabriel. 1989. “Seeing What Is Not There.” Philosophical Review 98:189–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Gabriel. 1991. “Defense of a Reasonable Individualism.” Mind 100:485–94.Google Scholar
Seung, Sebastian H. 1996. “How the Brain Keeps the Eyes Still.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 93:13339–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seung, Sebastian H.. 1998. “Continuous Attractors and Oculomotor Control.” Neural Networks 11:1253–58.Google Scholar
Shagrir, Oron. 2001. “Content, Computation and Externalism.” Mind 110:369–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shagrir, Oron. 2010. “Computation, San Diego Style.” Philosophy of Science, forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Lawrence A. 1993. “Content, Kinds, and Individualism in Marr's Theory of Vision.” Philosophical Review 102:489–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Lawrence A.. 1997. “A Clearer Vision.” Philosophy of Science 64:131–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sher, Gila. 1996. “Did Tarski Commit ‘Tarski's Fallacy’?” Journal of Symbolic Logic 61:653–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverberg, Arnold. 2006. “Chomsky and Egan on Computational Theories of Vision.” Minds and Machines 16:495–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sprevak, Mark D. 2010. “Computation, Individuation, and the Representation Condition.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterelny, Kim. 1990. The Representational Theory of Mind: An Introduction. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ullman, Shimon. 1979. The Interpretation of Visual Motion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Robert A. 1994. “Wide Computationalism.” Mind 103:351–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Robert A.. 2004. Boundaries of the Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences; Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zipser, David, and Andersen, Richard A.. 1988. “A Back-Propagation Programmed Network that Simulates Response Properties of a Subset of Posterior Parietal Neurons.” Nature 331:679–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed