<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> Despite the fact that the notion of internal representation has - at least according to some - a fundamental role to play in the sciences of the mind, not only has its explanatory utility been under attack for a while now, but it also remains unclear what criteria should an explanation of a given cognitive phenomenon meet to count as a (truly, genuinely, nontrivially, etc.) representational explanation in the first place. The aim of this article is to propose a solution to this latter problem. I will assume that representational explanations should be construed as a form of mechanistic explanations and proceed by proposing a general sketch of a functional architecture of a representational cognitive mechanism. According to the view on offer here, representational mechanisms are mechanisms that meet four conditions: the structural resemblance condition, the action-guidance condition, the decouplability condition, and the error-detection condition.</p></abstract>

Despite the fact that the notion of internal representation has - at least according to some - a fundamental role to play in the sciences of the mind, not only has its explanatory utility been under attack for a while now, but it also remains unclear what criteria should an explanation of a given cognitive phenomenon meet to count as a (truly, genuinely, nontrivially, etc.) representational explanation in the first place. The aim of this article is to propose a solution to this latter problem. I will assume that representational explanations should be construed as a form of mechanistic explanations and proceed by proposing a general sketch of a functional architecture of a representational cognitive mechanism. According to the view on offer here, representational mechanisms are mechanisms that meet four conditions: the structural resemblance condition, the action-guidance condition, the decouplability condition, and the error-detection condition.

Explaining Cognitive Phenomena with Internal Representations: A Mechanistic Perspective

Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences

Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Despite the fact that the notion of internal representation has - at least according to some - a fundamental role to play in the sciences of the mind, not only...

Explaining Cognitive Phenomena with Internal Representations: A Mechanistic Perspective

Pubblicato online: 10 apr 2015

Pagine: 63 - 90

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/slgr-2015-0004

Parole chiave
mechanistic explanation, representationalism, antirepresentationalism, mental representation, s-representation, emulation theory, predictive coding

© Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Explaining Cognitive Phenomena with Internal Representations: A Mechanistic Perspective

Pubblicato online: 10 apr 2015

Pagine: 63 - 90

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/slgr-2015-0004

Parole chiavemechanistic explanation, representationalism, antirepresentationalism, mental representation, s-representation, emulation theory, predictive coding

© Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Parole chiave
mechanistic explanation, representationalism, antirepresentationalism, mental representation, s-representation, emulation theory, predictive coding