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'C HAPTER 1

SETTING THE STAGE:


PERSOII S, M D'S A liD BRA S
MassimO' MarrafJa

Over the last thirty years- thphilo .opby of . clence ha ' become increasmgly~'loc-ar .
Us focus has shifted from the g,e neral featur,e s of scientific ,e nterprise to tbe concepts
theorie'- and practices of particular di-ciplin .s. Philosophy of neur.ocience
philosophy of psychology and philosophy of ,eognitiv,e ' cienoe ar,c three results of
thi . growing specialization. I
This chapter i. a very hon introduction to the phi'losop.hy .of cogJtitilJ;e
psyc1tto~ogy, ,especiaUy in its computational incarnation. Cognitiv,e psycho~ogy
investigate complex organisms at the iltjormation-processing level of analysis and
it can be defined a pecuHar I,eve~ in the en e that it: i u-pended between two
world . On the one hand, there i the ordinary image of ourselve ' a person':f nailleiy
a. self-con .dou . imtentional t ratiQnal agent... Om the otJher hand we ha e the
subpersonal sphere of the cer,e bral events, as investmgated by neuroscience.
There:fore.~ .one of the main tasks for the philosopher ofpsyc.ho~ogy is to unra e~ this
peculiarity trying to shed some light upon tine relations between tbese different ways
of describing .ourselves.
The fol owing pag~ ,a re dedicated to orne clasi,cal attempts to accomplm h
_hi - ta k In the cour ,e of doing .0, we haU draw a very qui,ek ketch of ' he ri e and
dey lopm nt of oognitiv psychology and oognitivle science setting the ' C De for the
other hapters. ofthi book.
I

L FROMOLK PSYCHOLOGY TO COG ITIVE SCIE CE

1.1 Thefonn and the tatus offolk psychology

Folk psychology as a theOlY .. To navigate througb the social world normal


aduU advert to a pontaneou capacity to 'menta~i2e' or 'mindr,ead that i, to
de ,cribe explam and predict th.eir ,own and other people s behavior on thebai . ,o f
m.ental state attributions. 2
vbe!Qry~ mindreading rests on a theory .or
According to. the so·,c alled 'theory
rather a proto~thoory oft n caUed folk pycbology . This i it theo~ in the s use
of be~ng an integrated and coherent body of knowl,edge whkh .organizes the
mu~,tifonn sp.here of the mental essenti.aHy througb tw.o categories: quaba and

3
M . Marraffa, M . De Caro' and F. Fer,.,elli (eds) , Carlograplu"es of the MilIci 3- 22 .
2001 Spring "

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4 MA WMO MARRAfFA

intentional stale. The fonnerare th.e experient~,al or introspectiMe properties of


mental states., Their e ' ence se'em . to consist in 't heir being ,captured from ,a
ubjecti e r flf (-per on pomt of iew~tbere i omething that it i lik to. percei 'e
a had ' of rod or to regret that Brutu kiUed Cae: ar. s a whole, these mental
enti~ie definetbe domain ofphel'lOmetwl COl!' 'cio'u ne . .4
In c'ontra -t intenf onal -tat an~; -tate , fue l a b ]ieving de -iring
regn.;')tting etc.) which have 'd~recti.orn toward an .object' or 'reference to a 'oOllteot t. )
If I believ,e that Brutus kined Caesar my be~ief i directed toward an object o.r refers
to a Icon~ent- that i what the : ,entence 'Brutu killed Cae at e' pr1e e. Intentiona~
states are often termed 'propositional attitudes s:inc as the ,e xample shows- in
ascribing them to a subj.ect we use sentences of tbe 't:o.rm S believes (or desires,
etc,,) 'that p" here the propo ition p e -pr-e e the content of the , ubject mental
state ..
In any intentional state , the object. .on which the state i directec.d are
present,ed in a certain way namdy it has a repre entational character. When I
belie e tha.t London is north of Paris I represent a state of affairs intbe form of a
particularpatial r,elation between 0 objects,. Thi ' point i . often madebyaying
tha.tin~entiornal states are seman.ti.cally evaluable thatis~ they can be true or false-
my be'~ief that London i north of Pari i tru.e if there i ' a fact in the orld that
make it true. 6

Compat.ibil~m vs. Eliminativism. ' OCtal p ychologi t ha e inv . tigated


mindreading . ince a!t lea t: th 1940 . In Heider and Simm r cia ic tudie.
subjects were p.re',ented w'th geometric shapes that were animated as if moving
around in relation to e'ach other. When a ked to. rleport what they saw, the subjeds
almos~ invariably trcated these figures as intentional agents with. mo,t[ ve .' and
purposes, uggesting the existence of a universal and largely automatic ,c apacity£or
mentalistic attribution. 7
Pursuing thi line ofr'e earch would lead to Fritz Heider The Pychology of
Intelper onal Relations (] 95,8) a. seminal book that is the main histoOrical referent .of
the inquiry "'n to fo'lk p'_ ychology. In particular itp~a.yed a. central role in the
origination and definition .of attribution theOJY . a field .of 0 ia ~ p ychol gy that
investigate - the m cbanisms underlying oldinary explanation- of our own and other
people' beha ior.
At~ribution theo.ry is an offspring of Heider s isionary work, but a 'qUIte
different way of ap'p roaching folk p ychology. He"der tak'e · folk pychology in it
real value of 1m wledge , arguing that .~~ cientific p ycho~ogy ha a go d deaf to learn
frOi.ID common- ·en e p .ylcho'~ ,ogy'" In contrat , most lie ·earch on. cau ·- al attribution i
true to behaviori m' . methodological 1-· - on and focuse .on folk p' ycho.logy
naive~es.9
The contrast between these two attitudes toward the explanatory adequacy .of
folk p ychol.ogy ha hap'ed the philosophical debate oon the; fat,e ,o f the .ordinary
imag of ours lves in light of the tumultuous d ;velopment of ,cognitiv, science. On
lhi · matter the bask issue is: wiU the theoretka ~ entities invoked in folt psycho~ogy
be a, part of the ontology of a serious scientific ps.ycho~,ogy?' And the answer rang,e

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SETTING THE STAGE: PERSO S MrND ANn BRAr -s 5

from Jerry Fodor - Hdefinitely yes'; based on the idea. that propositional attitudes ar,e
the bedrock ,o f a ' cientificaHy adequate p ychology' toO St,ephen -tic:h ' 'posibly
Dot -, motivated by doub about tbe folk ,concept of belief rat ed inter alia ju ,t by
attribution tboory· 10 to Paul Cburch~ and ~ab olutely not " ba ed .on the idea that the
deliverance Born folk concept i the condition of p ychology being r,educible ~o
neur'o cienc and henc-e having a -,cientific nature.
These two peEpective, on the ' lams of folk psychology- the former
'compatibilist the latter e~iminativist '-,are the coordinates that help us to
mwigat,e through theoomplex cono _ptuatlandscap of the cogn~tive :revolution., As
'\ e an . e'e the ri e of cognitive p ycho~ogy i the result .of the rejection .of the
behaviorist liminativlsm (subs ctio:n l2) in favor .of a ,compatihir -.1 project whi.cb
repn sentsa sort of experimental mentaHsm",' l (subs ction 2.1). N verthel.ess the
eliminativi t ghot ha c'ontmued t'o haunt ,eogoitiv,e PY'cmology takLng on alw.ay
new fonns (subs, ction 2.2).

1.2 The rise andfall a/behaviorism


Psychology as ph.enomenology. Both~he cia ieal empiric! t and the cia leal
rn.tiornalist pictures of mtrospective self-.knowledg (or :in up-to-date tenns- ~flrst­
person mindreading ) have granted .it a specia~ ,epistemic authority. According to
Descartes for example . the subject is transparent. to itsle lf ,and the renective
awarene (conscientia) the mind ha . .of its. .own content pro ide knowledg,e
egoying a -pecial ind of ,certainty which contra-t- with our knowledge of t ,e
physical world: the judgments about our current mental stat sand processe are
infallible Of, at lea t incorrigible.
In light of thi tr,aditiooal optimisln about ,elf-knowledg, it is not at aU
surprising tbat in the late nine~eenth and early twenti,eth centuries sci ntifi,c
psydh.o~ogy is predominantly 3. psychology of introspective consciousness.]2
Pur uing the project to make iotro p ·tion a rigorou method of inquiry which
would upgrade psychology to the' status of the other natural sciences ea:rly
experimental psychologists meticulollslyprobed the content , of consciousness in an
effort to offer a full de ,eription of the mental and cape a it appearrothe ubjeet.
III short this psychology was ~~a kind of phenomenological investig,ation .of
u~jecti e elf-awarene " . 13

Eliminative behaviorl m. By virtue .of the, m ntaH dc idiom, th se


introspec~ionist psychologists would not have' trouble talking to poets critics
hi torians, ee-onomi t and indeed with~beir own grandmothers. The non pecialist
reader in 1910 would be in e,quaUy familiar territory in William James '~s Principles
of P ,y choiogy and in the novels of Ja.m es's brother Henry .14 John Watson s brand
.of behaviorism put an end to the good r,etalionship b. tween scientific psychotogy
and folk p ychology, urging to abandon the intro .pectioni t attempts to make
consciousness a subject of experimental nvestlgation. . psycho,logy a plring to
scientific respectabiHty had to r'ely instead on publicly observable data, that :is

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6 MA ' WMOMARRAfFA

pattern of re . pon e (overt behavior) to , timuli (phy ical ev,ents in the


eniromnent . The ,o utcome was an extr-emely austere concepti,o n of psychologica ~
explanation: the p ychologit equipped with nothing but Pavlo conditioning and
Thorndike law of effect (precur ~ or of Skinner s .operant conditionmg) had to chart
a· ~ ociative c,onnection, betwen cla ,e of environmental input ' (,or h~ ,'ori of
exposur,e to, environmental input -) and da -ses ofbehavi,oral output -. What occurred
in the ~ head~' . behvee:n input and output- was a topk for physiology (the ultimale
behavioral science). The organi,s m was regarded as a 'black box".
In ofar a beha iori m remoes the inner tate and proce , 'e from
psycho~ogy s explan.ation and ontology it can be considered a variant .of the
doctrine of eliminativism. ls In its s,t rongest form eHminativism predicts that part or
all of our folk p ycho~ogical ~ onceptual apparatu wiUani hint-o thin air ju t a it
hap'pened~nllie p',ast. when scientific progress led 10 drop tbe fo~ktbeory of
witchcraft Qf the protosclentific 'theOl·ie ~ , of phlo,gi ton and c;aloricfluid. This
prediction rests Oon an argument which :moves froOm the pr,e mise of considering foUe
psycho~ogy as a ma ~ sive~y defecti e theory to' the cO'nclusion that-just as witches
phlogi ton and c;31ormc fluidL-folk p ychologieal entitie do not exi t ( . orn:etim'e
his negative ontological ,oonclusion is set by the weaker ,coOnclusion that folk
p ydlo~ogkal entities ill not be part of the ontology of .a mature cience.) The
behavio,ri t version of elim..inativi. m predicts that th dentific theo,ry which
fi place , th s'eriou ~ ly mistak · n folk psychological theory win b couch.e d in the
vocabulary ofphy .ieal beha lor.
liminative bebaviorm Ul i a recurrent theme in the writing of Watson and
Skiooer, although in some passages they waver between an eliminative
interpretatioOn of behaviorism n ontological and ,exp~anatory thesis: mental entiti,es
do not xi t and h nced! xplanatio.n .of anima~ behaVior wiU b non-me.ntahstic-
and other two interpretations: (i) the methodological claim that mental entities exist
but are irre~evant to the scientific study of animal behavior· and Om) the s,emantic.al
claim-kno,wn a • analytic' or " logical b ~ ha i.ori m-that tatement containing
psycho~ogkal terms are translatable intoO state:mentts containing just terms reFerring
toO p.hy' ical beha ior. Thi ' i a reductive program: mental ,enti ies are not eliminated
but r-atber identified with di po iHon · to behav,e in certain wa~ und r certain
circumstances. 16 -

n
A ,po,int i w . worth empha i .. A· Larry Hau er rightly ay , 'although
behaviorism as an a ' owed movement may have few remaining advocates ' some of
its 'metaphy ica~ and methodo:logic.al. chanenge 'are till erym ~ chali · e. 17 ' irt
and foremo .tthe fundam,ental obJection that Skinner had to the mentali ti,c
explana.tion in p _ychO'logynamely tjhe homunculus fallacy L a. vital con_traint on
any · ,e rioumentaH tic p ychology. Thati a p,lau .bIe th,eory of cognition mu 't
avoid the; infinit ~ r gr ~ s triggered by tb att: ~ mpt to ' x.plain a cognitiv capacity by
tacitly positing an internal agent with dIal very ,eap.aeity. 18

Cognitive map ,a nd syntactic ' tructures. Since the 1930s and 19'4 0s th,e
increas,.ing p,e r:ception of the limits of the S(Hmulus)~R:(esponse) explanation mak,es
behaviorism eol ,e toward what would be since the~960 cognitive psyc.ho~ogy.

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SE'ITI <0 THE STAG : P RSO 7

A landmark in thi ,evolutEon is the dasi,cal series of rat experiments in the Berkeley
laboratory of Edward C. Tolman. The e ,e xperiment , demon trated that the maze-
na.vigation bha ior of rat could not be explained in tenn of -R mechanim
1 admg Tolman to sugg - t that the animals: w ·re building up cOlIlpl -,x
repr'e enta~ional . tate or' cognitive map which helped them ~ocate remnforcers. ]9
I ,

Tbe e Te' ult were pointing mtbe "arne din~ction a ' Kenneth Craik , ugge tion that
the mind does not work directly on reality, but rather on ~sman-sca[e models' ofit. 20
Some ingenious at~empts to refine the S.. R schema we're made to account For
olman eperimental re ultswithout hi troub~esome mlenta~i tic ,oonce ion ,.2 ] I

However such a schema turned out to b totally powedess when the focus shifted
fi"ommaze navigation behavior in ra,t sto verbal be.havior in human beings. Thus it
i hardly urpri ing that one of the main factor of the nan ition from behavior. m ~o
cognitivism was the impetuous development since tbe late 1'950,5 of a mentalistic
theory of language ,namely I oamhom _ky generative linguLtks.22
Over the course of his trenchant ,criticism of empiridst theories of linguisti,c
tea,m ing Chomsky put forward an argument that would become one of the tools of
he cognitivi '~ trade: the poverty ofthe ";timulu:s argument. 2 Let examine the input
and the output of the pmoess of first-language acquisition. A large amount of
empirical e idence attest to. a gap between ~be I.e aming target achie ed by th.e ehi.M
(it mature lingllli tic comp tence) and the)lrimary lingui tic data-; (tb cbUd'
I
e

observations of utterances produced by adult members of its speech community). In


oth r tenn ' the llltput c ntain- moreinformaHon than wa pre ent in the input. Tbi
extra infonnaHon can be nothing but a contribution Inade by the human learner- that
is.- the inna~e cognition of certain facts about universal constraints on possible human
languages (tile so..caU.ed Universal Grammar).
I

J.3 Inside the' black box: The vicissi'tudes ofinformation

Bi,% leal information procesing. The ,cope of th hom ' kian argum.ent
goes far beyond the case of language acquisition. And it is not. an overstatement to
c ~aim that iModem ognitivism starts with the u -,e of pov,erty of the stimlu ~us
argument ' .24 Ifit tom out ,that thelle i more information in the re ,pon '_ than~here
is in the sHmulus that promptsth :respo;nse , we must assume the interv ntion of
orne kind of inner proce ingof the timulu. Thi I , work that the or-ganism doe is
an unQbser:able c-au that th ,oogniti i t wfe - from behavior. And thi 1
epi temologic.aUy corr'e ct ,· nce po tulating unobservables uch as elcJctrons and
genes is the standard practice in science'.
Th -refore cognitive p -yc,hology can be d -fm -d asth - -cience that
investigate' the processing of infonnation mnthe head- tha~ is- aU the processes by
which the sensory input is transformed reduced elaborated stored recovered) and
used .15 In _te,ad of the beha ~orist • ',empty organism" cognitivisL rein roduce the
mind construed as an information processor intervening between the
impingements on sensory org~ns and the beha.vioral respone .26 The input

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8 MA WMO MARRAfFA

information is codified in the mind, thus becooling inner obje1cts-mental


representations-that can undergo various types of processing. In particular thee
objec~ · can be transformed which mean . that our repre entation of reality i not the
product ofa pa siv assitnHatio.n of physic;alenvironment but an acHy c~on :truction
that can involve both a reduction: and an integration. Biological infonnation
proce ing i capac~ty-.imited and hence nece arily ~elective+ We can attend to ·a
relatively smaU number of stifnu~i , and a still s.maHer alnount of them can be
recalled. Hence it is possible that part of the input information gets lost and then a
reduction takes p~ace. Alternati el:y, , en ory input may be integrat,ed ,enrk.hed, and
it is in such a case that some weU ~known poverty of the stimulus arguments
concerning per,r eption and m,emoryma~e their appearance.
P,ercep'tual con mncie are ,a ca e in point. In the ca Ie ofiZie con. tancy ':t7or
instance the visua. ~ system takes account of the perceived distance of objects and
cale pevceptual ize up accordingly. Therefore in this ca e a in that of lingui tic
acquismtion. there is mOore i.nformation in thepercepmal response than there :is in the
proximal stimulus and this ,extra information ,can be nothing but a. contribution made
by the perceiving organi . m.
P,erceptual integration had attracted psychologists attention well before the
rise ofcognitivi·. m. Mo t, notably Hermann .on Helmholtz considered perceptual
proce ,e a , uncon cious il'lfel~ences , which take p .cification ' .of proxima.
stimulations as premises and yweld hypodles s about theIr distal. 'c ause ,as
conclu :ion , Thi · co~structive conception of percepHon ha- b _en named
~. : ' talbHshment Viw" 27 and ind -ed, nlot of the work, on vi i.onthat cognitiv
scieOlti . ts have done since 1970.s r'esls on this .approach. In this lapse of time
howeve'r~ constructivism did not go unchallenged. The advocates of J.1. Gibson s
ecological optic ' have contended that the visual ystem far from reoon tructing or
infeH~ng .merely extractspic~ out th.e information gresent in the stimulation
attu:mng Itself' to. tjhe relevant mformatton tructures'. And we hall see below
Cub ection 3.2) that ibon i the main 'ource of in piration for a recent th _ory of
cognition known as 'active extemaHsm~ .

omputational functionalism . According to a largely donlinant


interpretation, the proce-- se;~ of tran~ fonnation storage r -cov,e ry and use ,o f
information ar _ computation's, name y rule-goemed ~ 'eq cnce- of operation upon
data structures (mental representations) which. mediate the organism s behavioral
respon _e ,to perceptual. timuli.
The notion of computation here pre uppo. ·ed goe. back to A~an Turing-
wodc His " Tu:ring machines' are ab tract compu'ters _inee their charactedzati.o n
do , - not take into account con traint that ar 'e ential in planning a :r,.al comput. r
(e.g. memory spac1 e and computing time ), and above al ..in that they are defined
without allY reference 10 their phys.ical .m akeup (Le. the type of .hardware that
realize. ' tbem)+ In fact uring machine tate ar,e fill y defmable in term of (i) the
machine s input, (ii) the output of th machin given its state and that input- and (Hi)
the next state of the machine given the current state. That is the states M'e

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SETTING THE STAGE: PERSO S MrND ,ANn BRAr 9

functionally defined since aU tha.t matters to what they are, is what the machine does
rather ~han its phy i,cal realization.
- ow tf:ogniti e proce are comp1lltatio they al mu t be fUDctionally
individuated that is" individuated by tbe causal roOle (or function) they play in the
cognitive · y tem of which th _y are a part independently from how uch a rol!e i
phy -ica ly (or b -tte ~ neurologically) realized. Tbi~ tb .-i - on the 'e - ence ,o f
,oognltion is known as computational funcHonalism '.
Insofar as cognitive psycho~ogy subscribes to computational functionalism it
contribute ' to ,cogniti ·... ,e "ci,ence, namely t e project of interdi .ciplillary study of
natural and artificial inteUigence that begins its matura~ion in the~ate 19'5 0s and
rea.ches a stable intellectua~ and institutional set-up in the ea:rly 19,80s. 29
One point i orth emphaizin .ogniti . e cience i the .tudy of cognition
as infonnation processing by a natural or artificial computer but research in
cogniti e '_ dence i typi!cally about a specific type of computer: for in-tance
co.mputational psychology investigat,es the biological ,c omputer whereas artificial
intelligence (AI) exp·lores the artificial one. The[iefore cogniti e science is not a
di cipHnebut rather a. 'doctrine'; that ha oriented and i , orientinginquiri,e in. a
number of disciplines 3°-s.ome descriptive and empirical (e.g. ·eognitiv,e
psycn.o.ogy hngui tic and more recent~y neuroscience) some pe.culative and
foundationa~ ( .g.,. pb'lo ophy), adome both peculativ . and applied ( .g." _ ).31

David Murr 's tripartite model of explan,ation. ,omputationa~functionaH m


underlie Marr' deeply influ ntial anaiy, i of how diffef1 nt lev, l of xplaoation
can b · iot grated to understand a ,o ognitivepheoomenon. 2 This analysis can be
regarded as " the first full~blown version of computationalism' .
ftel" attempting to ,e lucidate how the bra'in perfonns cognitive task · by
starting wlthfue re .p onsepatterns of individual neurons (e. g., Hube~ and Wiesel S
on-centered,' and 'off-centered cells) Marr realiz,e d 'that discovering such patterns
i ' on~y a decription ,o f what ihappening In the brain no an ,explanation ,o f how it,
discharges its tasks. Consequently he condudedthat a. ,oomputational account of a
cogniti e phenOomenon need _ tOo integrate 'the ~evel of analysi . ,o f the 'wetware' with
oth r two lev,e l of analysi .
t the rno -t all -tract lev -.1 of -xplanation i- the ~ compurtationaltheory'
where we pecify wb.a't a y tern i doing and why. In arr" theory of vi ion, 't7or
examp~e, the :function of the visual system is to .constnlct on the basis of mputs to
thephotor _ceptors. a, 3-D object-centred hape repre _utaHon. At thi ~,eve~
p ychological function are chara.c t .rized only in t,erms of their mput data the fmal
output and ,the ,goa of the computation in ways that are neutral ,on ,t hemechani _m.
Between the computa'tional theoryt. ve~ and the level of' imp],ementation' (a- ,a K
terms thel,e vel of analy is of the wetware) is the - ~alg,m'ithmic" level. This leve[-
whi.ch is the one spe,eific to psychology ooc' ms the ,cognitiv,e mechanism (the
a~gorithm)tha p rFonn the function decribed atth 1 .vel of the co;mputational
theory. For exampl Marr outlines at th algorithmic I vel the in~erm dial
repr,esentations between the retinal image and the final output (prima.~ sketch and
2Y2-D sketch) and uggest. some of~he subsystems that compute them. 34

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10 MA ' MMOMARRAfFA

2. FOLK PSYCHOLOGY ADO PUTATIO AL PYCHOLOGY

2. J Folk psychological ,computationali m

Mind as a syntax-driven machine. What kind ofr,elation is there between the


computational ' tates and proc s po tulated at the algorithmic lev land th folk
psycho~ogical mental states and processes? Accordi:ng to Fodor the re~ation is one
of legitimation. or groundin,g for our folkp · .ycho~ogical explanatory practice: 'One
can say ina phrase what it is thatcompu.ta~ional psycbology has been proving so
sllccessful at: viz. the 'Vindi.catiOlt of generalizations about proposltional attitudes
pe'cifically., of the more or les comm.o nense 'o rt of generalization about
propo itiona! aUitud ',Therefore ~[w]lhat a. computationa~ theory doe i to make
clea.r the mec:hanism of intentional causation- to' show how it is (nom()logjcaJ~y)
po: iM . that purely computational-indeed , purel yphy ical-sy· tern , hould act,
out Qf theirbeh f: , and d '. if, " ,15
Tiler are two dim Ilsions to the problem of makmg clear .Htlle mechanism of
Lnt ntional ,eau ation ' , of . howing how it i , po ibl that pur,.ly physical y tem
should act out of their propositional attitudes.
The first problem concern the nature of the in.tentiona.1 menta~ tate. Tbey
are both sem'antt:cally evaluable and causally ejJicacious two properties that
app·arently n·e r occur together ,eI b ·re. ' hi puta'ti e uniqu ' me ha fI d ll1any
perplexitie about the per pec~ive of a physicali t explication of inten~ional tate. .
For many ph m~osop.hers they still .remain. +n Quine~s famous phrase '~creatures of
darkne ' ,16
ctuallyth ~ i om thing , 1 ' that i 'both mantically valuabl and
causally efficacious: mbols. They can be about things (e.g. the word' cat refers
to ca s)' and they are physicaUy ins.tantiated ortokened, which makes them causally
efficaciou ' (the or1i 'cat con i t of e. g. ink on paper). H . nee tJhere i an ana~o-gy
between thoughts and sYlnbol and~·the hi ·tory of philo ophical andp ychological
theorizing aboutdte mind ,c on.ists largely of attempts to exploit it by deri. in.g the
cau aV ,emantie propertie. of the vonn,e r from the c-au a~1 emantic properttie of the
latter' ,37 Fodor RJepre, entational Theory of Mind (RTM) is the most r·ecent heir to
Ihis trndition ,claiming that intent,io:na~ s~ates are relations between an ag,. nt and
mental repre. ,entation r,egarded a ymbol of a QI'lguage o/Thought (l oT) .. Thi i
a formallanguag akIn to tll first -ord . rpr dicate calculus.
The second problem concerns the mechanics of thinking Olver time. The folk
p ychological laws that govern intentional mental processes ubsume caual
interactions among intentional .tates pr serving their semantic coherence. For
exampl,e reasoning (the mental proc·ess par exc,e Uence)is a caJUsal sequenc·e O!f
intentional ctat,es that tend . toO preserve tbeir ~ ,emantic (rati.onal epj ~ temk)
properti,- , But what ifnot an Lnner interpreter might be en itive to - uch propertie ?
Here RTM i at risk of the above-mentioned homunculus fallacy. ccordingly. a
mechanical explanation of rationalit tha~ is~he proof that a purely physical
mechani m call implem -ot ,causal interaction' among int,entionai tate pre erving

New Section 1 Page 47


SEITING THE STAOE: PERSO . S MrND' AND BRAn - 11

their semantic coner,e nce-need , a. strategy to prevent the regre of i11ner


interpreters,.
Tbi trafegy Fodor ugge t con it of combining RT- with the
Co,mputational Theo,ry of Mind (CTM) namely the hypothe is that int - ntjona ~
mental proce ·· e are c,a ual equence of ymbol tran fonnation driv,en byrul'e
that are -en -itive to tbe .syntactic forrn oftl'le '-ymbol - and not to their cont,ent.
t the foundations of CTM there are the methods Oof proof theory and the
Turing rna,cbines. 8
he' proof-theoretic ,approach in logic, has ' howed u how to ~ink up
semantics to syntax. fOor any fonnaHzable system of symbOols it is possilb.e to
specify a set of foonal derivation rules whi.c h albeit sensitive only to the syntactic
form of ymbol ~ allow u ·, ~o make an and ,only the emantically ,alid inference . In
this way c~ertai.n semantic r,elations between symbols M,e - ~mimicked'l by their purely
syntactic one _'.
The r,elevance of this result ,c annot be exaggerated. Aocordingto Fodor and
Pylyshyn the' classical' co'g nitive science ,c an be described as 'an extended attempt
~o appt . the m,e thod of proof theory to the modeling f ,t hought (and imil8lrly . of
whatever other mental processes areplausiMy viewed as involving inferences', pre-
eminendy lea:ming and perception), .J9 Accordingly the hope is that • yntactie
analogue can be c~n tructed for non-demon trative inference (or info·rma~
oommons nse reasoning) in something lik th · way that proofth -ory has provid . d
yntactic analogue. for vaHdity".40
Formalization , ugge t a tr.ategy~o bridge the gap betweenemantic and
causal efficacy that blocks the mechanization of the semantic coherence of thought
in fact given the connection that forrnal.ization makes between semantics and
syntax- if a link was s t up also b tween syntax and causal. efficacy, th n it would be
possib~.eto connect semantmes with causation via syntax. Here :is where Turing s
theory of computability com,es into. play.
Any fo·rmaHzable p:roce can be ch8lra,c erized in tenn of effectt. ely
computaMe functions (Le. functiOons for whi,ch an a~gorithm can be given). As stated
by ~he "' hur.ch-Turing thesi aU the effectiely computable function can be
carried out by a Turing nlachine (a umjng tbat both the tape and tim are infinite).
Since any Turing machme ,can b implemented bya phy ,ical mechani m (e.g. a
dig.i'tal computer) it fol~Qow that, for ,any finite forma~ ystem it i pO' ible ~o devise
a ma.,chine which is aMe to a.utomate the inFerences of that system. Becaus,e certain
.of the emanti,c r.el.ation among the ymbol · in .a formal y tern can be .' mimicked'
by their ynta,ctic relation ~ and b .cau' e uch a· .y tem can be implement .dby a
computer it foUow _ that it L po:sible ,to con _truct a machine diiven byyntax
who e , tate tran Lion ati fy emantic criteria ,o f cohe:renoe.. Becau digital
comput -rs are purdy phy ical -yst ms., this hows us that it i po sible fo:r a pur ly
physical system to make inferences which respect the semantics Oof tile symbols
without invoking a. quetion-begging homunculu +41
ccordmg to the Representational and Computational Tl100ry of ind
(RCfM) ~be mind is a p.articular .kind of computer and the ,causal interactions
among intentional state' are imp~emen~ed by ,computation on the yntactic

New Section 1 Page 48


12 MA ' WMOMARRA ' A

properties of LoT synlbols, which ar,e physicaUy to~ened intbe brain li.ke data
structures in a computer.. LoT is a formal sy J:em a:nd hence it rule _ pr'e _elVe the
elnantic propertie of the ymbo~ + Mind . are , in Dennett' oft-cited phra e
~ syntactic -ngin -s that can m+micthe co,mp tence ,o f s mantic engines' ,42
In ReT the propo itional attitude relation in RIM are idntHied witJh the
co!mputational relation ' in CTM. ach propo itio,nal attitude i identified witba
cbaracteJistic cornputationaVfunctional role played by the LoT sentence that it is the
content of til at kind of attitude. For example a LOoT sentence p mi.g ht be tbe content
of a belief inee it i chamcteri .tkallythe output of perceptual '. y.temsand input to
an inferential system that interacts deoeision-theoreti.caHy with des.ires tOo produce
further sentences or action -commands .43 Or equivalently to be~ieve that p is for p
to be avaHable to one set of computation whereas to de ir-e, to r-egretto ho-pe thatp
is for p to be avai1ahleto otber sets of compu~ations.

Cognitive p ~ychology a anti-phenomenology. Fod.orean mentalism is not


introspectionist mentalism in. a. new guise.. As we have gle en the mind that Fodor
tak _ a· . the ubject of cognitive p ychology i . not the intra, pective con ciou ne ,
but a. kind .of formalization ofthepsychOol.ogy Oof propOositional attitudes. The
propo itional attitude states can oCoCur both in explicit coOn dOll judgments and in
mental tate that the agent oould not po ibly intro p .ct, .ven in principle. Thi
pre ' uppose that eonsciousne sand int · ntionaHty can be tudie:d inih · absence of
on.e another, an. appro·,ach to mentartythat would not have been po ible in. the pre-
udian ,cone ptual u ,iv wi con ~ciou nand inte f onality w
intrins~cany linked. However . a Fodor remmds us- Freud changed all t!lat. He
made it s,e em plausib~e that exp~ain.ng
behavior might require the postulation of
intentional but unoonscious stat s. Over th.e ~ast 'Olimtu:ry and .mo t especiaUy In
Chomskian l:inguisti.cs and 'in cognitive psychol.ogy Freud s idea appears to. bave
been amply vindicated :t4
Actually on thi matter one can be moremdical than Fodor claiming that,
cognitive psychology has not simply vindicated Freud, but has gone far beyond. In
fact the reudian concept of the unconscious is par,asitic t()· a concept of
con ,ciou ne ideali tically taken as. '~a primary quali~ of the mind' 45 where,a
cognitive psychology has giv·en rise to ~ a reinforcing overturning. of traditjona~
p ychodynami c que lion· "~ and tart with a · king, how con ',c iou . ne " rather tJh an
the unconscio1lls ispossible. 46 In this way cogn.itive psychology amends Freud in
iew of Da1Win. That i ,.~ it follow Danvin anti-ideali tic methodQologica~ Ie son
and proc ~d bouom-upattempting to explain how the oomple p ychological
functions und.er~ying fir , t-person awarenes-, ,e 'o lve from the more bajc one _.47 This
attempt do _, not appeal t our intro pectiv,e c I_ If-know]:edge, but aU tho e
discip.ines- fh t and £o .mo t dey lopimental pychology-tha~ inv stigat the
gradual cOonstruction of self-awareness. In other words ,c ognitiv,e psychologists see
the con ciou :ubjective experience as~an ,advanced or deriv,ed mental phenonlenon
not the foundation of aU intentionaHty aU mentality .48 or in mor Continental
terms cognitive psychology is an alfti-pheIfOln.enology that is ,a critique of the
subject, of its alleged 'gi.v enness ..49

New Section 1 Page 49


SETTING THE STAOE: .P ERSO MIND' ,AND BRA) .S 13

In the next section we shaH see how cognitive p y,cho~ogy ha addr,essed its
critical potential not QJ11ly again tour phenomenologkal intuitions, about
con ,ciou ne ' and elf-collS,ciou ne. " butal 0 again .t it own Lntentional ground
thu ' op ning th door to new behavioristic and ,eliminativisHc objection ' .

2.2 Behavioristic and elim.inatii~'1tic challenges to RCTM


Anti-introspection ism .. externalism an:d the yntactic theory of mind. The
oompatibili t view of the interfac,e between propo itiona attitude p ychology and
scientific psychology takes the former aa g,o od working hypothesis. on the overall
computational orga ' ization ,o f the human . indo oteworthy work in cogoitiv,e
cience ha ' a umed that the folk ,a,c count of the architecture of the mind 1:, I.argely
corr,e ctthougb .t is far from comp~ete. However, there are also findlugs and theori,es
which seiem ~o suggest that our ,cognitive system is organi1Jed along Hnes ,quite
different fr,omthose ~heorized by ':Folk p ychology.. Her . i a c]a '. ie example.
In 1977 a8 r r i wing th -, p rim ntal oOciai p ychology lit ,atuJi on
dissonance and self-attribution Richard E. 'isbett and Timothy D. Wilson
concluded that the r,eport about the caue. of our behavior are not recoil trlllctioll of
real mental states and proc'esses due tOo a dire,ct introsp. ctive awareness, but :rather a
.~ confabulatory activity originated by the e.mp~oyment of 'a priori cau al
theorie · .so In thi · per. pective intro pection booomesa form ofe/f-deception.sl,
t

These ideas hav,e beenbugely influentiaL In deve~op[nental psychology and


cognitive p-sychiatty, the hypothesis that behind th.e iUusion of a. direct introspective
access therei . an inferential a.cti . ity ba . ed on _ocially shared ep:~anab)ry theories
ha been develop d in tbe fr-amework of th.e theory-tbeory app,roach t,o the inquiry
into the oogniti e mechanisms undedying mindreading . Here "theory' refers toO a
tacit kno~ ~edge tructure a body of mentally r-epre 'entedinfonnation driving the
oogniti e machinery und -rlying mentalization.52 For mOl t advocate . of thi
approach. thi ' theory underlie. botb elf-attributiml and hetero-attribution of mental
states. Therefore, "even though we see'm to pe'rce~v,e our own menta~ states dire\c tly
fhi du,ect percpti,on is an iUuio:n. In fact ,OUf knowl -dge of ,ourselv - like our
knowledge ·o f otheli ." i· the re·· u]t ,o f a ,theory;.S
l,eufopsycho,l,ogy is another r,esearch area that abounds with phenomena
undennining the reliabiHty ,o f intllo pective oondou ne . '. on icLr for exa.mp~e
the Lp~it-brain;' yndrome. 5<1 . p,lit-br.ain patient are patient , who e oorpu caUo un1
has been evered. a result the hem+,p beres of their brain , can :no longer
communicate with one another giving rise to a complex array of deficits. Suppose
for . xample tbatthe command ~ Walk • i ' fla ' hed to the right henri cpbere of a spUt-
brain subJect: '~the p,atient typically stands up from the chair and begins to take leave
from the testing van .. When asked where she is going she the left side of the brain)
I

. ay . rm going into 'the house to get a. oke .55 A possible explanation of this
1

pattern ofbehav~or is that the right hemisphere responds to the command by making
inferences that the subject cannot introOspect or report whereas the left .h emisphere

New Section 1 Page 50


14 MA WMO MARRAfFA

~·interpr.ets' the right hemisphere's r,esponse and tells a:n implau ible tory
unconnected with the command.
We fmd a le ry imilar bypotbe i ab ut the cognitive mechani , I

underlying confabulation in Wilson (1985). He hypotheize two reiatiy ly


independent cogniive y ~,ems: an. une'lln dou ' y tern underlying nonverbal
behavior and a largely con -ciou - -y-tm who - unction i-, to attemp't to 'VI rbali
explain and com:municate what IS occurring in the unoon CIOUS syst'em. The latter
takes information from the former as input and ma~es inferences based on
repertorie of rati.ona.lizationaff<nded by theode about the self and the ituation.
Reflec~ing on Wilson s hypothesis, Stich has highlighted its cri.tical po~enti al
aga.inst the foUe concept ofbeHef A fundamental tenet of 'Folk psychology is that our
eogniti ey ~em. i 0, organized that the ery ametate hich under~ie tJhe incere
assertion of .p" also may .ead to a. variety of .nonverbal behaviors. But from
WH .on dual system hypothesi _ foUows that thLprmciple is radicaUy rong, and
, in those cases when the verbal subsyslem leads us 10 say "p ' and our nonverbal
subsystle m leads us to beha ,e as though " e believed some incompatible proposition
there iUimplybe n,O aying hich e b . lie . e".56 Therefore ' tich conclude .
Wilson s model shows that the 't enability of the folk conception of mental
architecture 't he legitimacy .of taking it as the ground .on which ~o build a scientific
theory of the mind ,.~. very much an open empirica que .tiooO".57
Stl'ch (1983) oombine , th . doubts about the sorts of sta~es and mechanisms
that folk p ychology Invoke with another line f eliminativi t argumentation
focu ·. ed on folk p .ychology , r .liance on manti,c ,oontent:.
Earlier we '. aw that Fodor'~s argument for a scientific intentional psychotogy
rests on a ,oorrei.ation thesis " according to which differ,e nces in cont,e nt M'e
mirrored by chfference ' in syntax.S8 It is thanks to this ,correlation tbat the senlantlc
properties of mental slates are causally imp~icated il1lthe production of behavior. The
thesi.s however seems to be fa]se: ~heweU-.kn.owm. Putnam s and Burge s argu,ments
foremantic externalism 'oem. to dem,on trat .' that the ordinary emanti,c properti<e
(wide content pif operties) of me.nta~ states do not supe:f vene on their formal
properties. 59 Hence Fodor cannot ha ,e it both ways ': he cannot endorse both an
indillidzlali lic method.ology (i.e. ,eognitiv,e p ychol flY bould be re tricted to
,quantifying ,over the formal prop · rties of mental ,-tate -) and the ' dentific intentional
realism (i.e. 'the intentional prQpertie of mental tate propertie ,that a.re not forma~
are and win be part of the on~ology oftbe cognitive psychol.ogy).
A umingthatcientific p ychologymu t be individuaH tic a w.ay out from
Uli impa .e ito deny that intentional prope:rtie have any legitimat c rol,e in
cientitic psycholo'g ica:1 explanation. Stich"·. ' ynta:Ctic theory of mind take thi
eliminativi t option, and argue that cognWv p ychology hould r,e eat it theori'e
and explanation in a way that doe . not appeal to, the wide content properti ,o f
mental states but .only to then- mdividuaJistic. formal properties.6Q

Externa.li mlrike agam. RCTM is unqu stionably the Ino t powerfld


systematization .of computational functionalism .. It holds a. pivotal position in
contemporary philosophy of psycho,l ogy because it was the first major . ynthesis 'o f

New Section 1 Page 51


SETTING THE STAGE: PERSO S MrND ANn BRAr -s 15

functionali t philosophy of Inind witb the cognitive revo ution in psychology, and
with the tirst genera~.ion of Al O 'er the lat two decade howeer . thi ~heory has
been under attack rno tty owing to the expan ion f cognitive cience in two
directions: Hv,erticaHy :into tb - brain and hori~ontally into the environment ,. 61 Th,e
(moe proplling the e downward and outward d _ve~opmen~ i' the pr'essure put on
the indi viduali .t modular computationa] and repre ~ entational conce,ption of tbe
mind by neuroscl,e,nces neocoooectlOnist cognitive mode,ling dynanric approaclles
to cognit,ion artificial life real~wodd robotics, and other research programs
ometime grouped under the beading of ' noo- or po I-cia car" cognitive .cience.
The clIJrrent debate on the ,conceptual foundations of cognitive science shows
a range' of positions which ar,e characterized by the mor,e or~,ess radical attitude
toard the impH,cation. of the po t-<Cla . ice1 body of work. At one end of the
spectnJm there is the claim that RCTM is ~ 'by£ar the best theory of cognition that
we 've got 62 and ,the po._t-cla .sical research programs are much ado ab01l.lt nothing.
At the other end of the spectru:mtber,e is a view of the post classical body of
res,earch as an exerci e of extraordinary sdence which preludes to ,the establi hment
of a VI . w paradigm. 6 Then in betw,eeVl the . two po~ei a "re i ioni ·t ' per pective
which accep'ts some critical req1l.lirements of 'the post-classical research programs-
first and for,emost the deep dissatL faction ith the antibiologi m. and indmviduali ' m
of RCTM- and u ·e tbem a guideline t~ r-eoon trl!lctthe ,co nc"ep tual ba e. ,o f
oognitiv - seine .
A.ndy lark i ,a leadin~, advoca,te of revi ionim. He b · Hev,e that R TM can
be ((~con tructed making due aUowance; for 4the ,environmental embedded
oorporeally embodied and neurally efubrained ~ character of natural cognition ~. 64
but without coUapsin,g into the' anti ..re'p reentationalism chara.cteristic of the most
radi,cal r ading of post-classical cognitive science. coordingly, Clark pursu s the
metamorpbosis of RCTM into just one component in a thr,ee... ti,ered 'explanatory
strategy:

(i) a dynamidst aCcoWlt of the gross behavior of the agent~environment


sy_tem·65
(ii) a mechanistic a.c-count,66 de.cribing how the component · ofth . agent-
environm [It ' ystem int oractto pif'oduce till collective prop rHes
de cribed in (i)+
(Hi) a repres.entational and computational account ,o f ,the c,omponents
identifi,oo in (ii).67

lark caU · thi ,'trip,artite e planatory , trategy • minimal repf1esentationa~i' m'


and put it into a wider the,oretical framework: the . active externaH ,m;-.6 Unli.ke the
above-mentioned emantic xternahsm; wher, the mental contents of a subj . ,ct
depend o.n aspect of the en.vironment wh ~ch are clearly external to the -ubject'
cognitive proc acHv tnlalim a - rts thatth environmnt cam playa
active role in constituting and driving cognitive processes. In the wake of Gibson
thi . environm,ent is viewed as a ,complex of '~affordances ' , which brings to the

New Section 1 Page 52


16 MA ' WMOMARRAfFA

forma~ion ofi:n~emal ',tate that de cribe partial ,a peet .of the world and pre cribe
po _ sib~e actions. 6'9 These are "ac ion-oriented representatmons which unli~e Lo,T
ymbol. M'e per, onal (in that th yare related to th agent' need and tbe kin that
it bas)1 lo'cal (in that tbey re~at to the drcumstanc currendy surrounding the
agent) and computationally cheap (compared with Marr' rich inner model of the
vicual scene).
Clark's active externalism confmns a point we made eadi,er namely the
relevance to the pre£ent day of some behavioristic metap,hysica. and methodological
cballenge, . In fact- in ·ofar a 'empha' i on the outward or bella ioral a pect of
thought or intelligeno nd attendant de- mphasis of inward experiential or inner
procedural aspects-is ,tbe hallmark Oof behaviorism" 7U active externalism is
beha iori 'tic.

Elbnil2ativ.e connectionism. lark s reVLlon of RCTM fOnows the anti-


individualistic guideHnes that charact,erize the body of research on situated and
embodied c'ognition. ow we tum. to another revision~ whkh r,efl.ects tbe mo ement
I.

downw.ard into the brain ari ing from the connectioni t ccOgnitive modeHng and
computational neuroscience.
During the 1970 the funclionali t approach inclined some scientificany-
minded phi 0 opbet to view computational p' ychology a mdicaUy aotonomou
from neuroscience. For xarnple in. Spedal SCIence' Fodor draws a principl . d
argument for a ,ery trong .autonomy of p ychology fro·m a combin.ation of
6unoCtionaii m, multiple realizability the i , and to en-idenHty theory?' By the late
1970s however. some philosophers were objectmg to the divorce of ,cognitive
science frOom neuroscience Paul M. and Patricia S. Church land foremost amongst
them. They t oded tooontinu . to endo~ a v rsion of til id nt' ty th ory and -to
rejec the language of thought hypothesj · .72
The Church~ands' version of the type-identity theory ,com.es from the attempt
to u e the re 'ourc,e of neoconne,ctioni t cognitive modeling to de ,elop a mo,re
biologically respectable form of computational functionaHm. That istbey view th,e
artificial neura~ nel ork a neurally inpired computational ystems and hen,c e
endore the functionaH t idea that the explanation of a cognitive pr ce di r,egar-d
the fact that it mediUlll i made.of nervous tisue: ~el!lronal detail are no mor'e
e en~ial too connectioni t conception of cognition than va.c1ilum.-tob _ or 'Ir-a ni 'tor
details ar,e essential to the dassical conception of cognition embodied in orthodox
AI Fodorean pychology and [folk pychology] it df'."
What the turchland blame on da ical computational functionali m (aka
RCTM) L tha't it failed to dLtinguLh the '~ ,evel of cer,ebral matter from the 1,evel .of
cer _bral architecture. A functionali m that ,a pir'e after bio ~og,lcal p.au ibiJity need
to vi -,W our knowl -Klg - ofth - functional, tructur .ofbrain as a SOUle - of con-traints
oQn tbe computational modeling. From this point of view the strength of artificial
neural networl (c.apacitie;.of learning and elf-.organization fl- ibility. , robu tn
in the presence of perturbations , capadty of dealing with such low- ~ vel tasks as the
processing of sensory inputs and motor outputs) depend on just those structural

New Section 1 Page 53


MrND' AND BRAl 17

features of compu.tation (the high pa:raneli -m as opposed to von eunlarm;s


sequ,e ntialproce sing) which are in pir-ed by how the brain work ' .74-
According to the hurchland ' thi give , ri e to a dp d ~ fference betwe n
classical and connectioni t computabonal, functionalism. uming as paradigm ,o f
mentation type, ofthinting tha.t lend them ,elv, " to bing ,oodified in formal model
uen ,a deductive ,ogic RCTM endo e a - ~Iingui . tic-ratiooali t tradition" in the
study of human ,cognition; which sticks to folk psychology and intentionaHst
philosophy .of mind in taking agents to represent ~he world through sentence-tile
truclure' and to perform, computation that mim"c logical mference .75 In contra t
connectionist computational functionalism is inspired by the functional organization
of the brain, which represents the world by means of very hi, gb-dimensiona~
acti a~ion vector Le. by a pattern of acti ation ~'eve~ acro _ a very large population
of neurons,; and ~'perfomls computatEons o.n those representations by effectmg
varioOus complex vector-toO-vector transformations from one neur,al population tt)
another,.76
The availabm.ty of a. brain-like co,mputational mode'~ing that breaks with the
"propo Hional kinematic" and "logical dynamic. of folk P ychology 1ead the
,1

Chur,chlands to reverse Fodor s approach to the autonomy of psychology issue.


odor daims that the irreducibility ofpsychologkal states and process to
neur,obiological one ' impli " a radical autono,my of p ycho~.ogy from neur.o cienc .
Tbe Churc.hland a.ccept this claUn but only to draw a totally diffirent implication
from it They think that we hould give up a comp1lltationa~ p ycho~ogy irreducible
becau ,- i · tricably int rtwined with oUe p ychologyand. d dicat ou , Iv to
develop a reducible successor. This is the proces ', that Robert McCauley tenns 00-
evolution namely ' co~evolution producing the eliminations of theories
cba:racteristic .of scientific revolutions ,.77 ooording to the Churchlands; 00-
evolution is the phase which computational psychol.ogy has been going through
since early 19800s, with the advent of ,connectionism. [n fact they claim that the
intertheoretic difference between on the one hand the connectioni ,t repre entation
asactwvation vectors and ,comp1llta~ions. as vector to.. ve:ctor transformations and on
the other hand the cla _sical sentence-like repre .entations and logical computations
i ufficiently grea1t to pro;mpt an ootolog"cally radical theory change, which will
brmg about the total ,eliminaHon of foUe psychology.
After th _ eliminati e tage . the n _w neur.ally in. pired Pl ychQlogy and
neuroscience wiU co-ev.olve until they are unified by ,an approximate
microreduclion" where lower-I .' 'el theorie pre erve an ,equipotent image of upper-
level theorie without compreh n· ive mappmg. 78
From the Churchland' ie therefor,e the app,roximate microre:d1llction of
p.. ycho.ogy to neuroscienc,e i the pay-o,f fof the ubtitution ,o f ub ymbohc
di tribut d repr · ntarion for LOoT tyl pr entations. But bow piau 'ibl i . th
eliminative-reductive model. of the co-evolution .of psychology and neuroscience?
An obJ-,- ction has been voiced by ome advocate of ,a plurah tic view on the
explanatory relations between psycho~ogy and neuroscience. Explanatory
pluralism' is a position in the phi~osophy of sdenceho~ding that " theories at
different le ..els of description ~ite psychology and neuroscience~ can co-evo~. · e and

New Section 1 Page 54


18 MA MMOMARRAfFA

mutually influence ,e adl other without thehigher-leve~ theory being rep~aced by or


reduced to, 'the lower-Ie el one ".79 From thi point of iew the mo _t eriou
hort,conling of the hurchlalld; model i its uni,direclionality: ' tDce't give . to
neur,oscienthic~evel a. priority , when thetheo,rie of p .ydl010gy and n~uro'- cience
fail~o ma.p onto on ,another neatly tbebla'me Ii exclu ively lo np y,cmology.80'
Ho,wever, the plura~ist c contend at: lea-t som - cae - of coO-evoOlution di -play
bidirectionality that i .; p .ychology and neuroscience InutuaUy influence each other
without reduction of the higher~level theory to tbe lower~level one. To a,c countFor
thi bidirec'tlonality we are (iequired to adopt a more pragmatic conception of 00-
evolutionary dynami,cs:: a co-evolution in the perspective' of ex.planatory p,iuralisrn. 8l
Expllanatory p.uralism seems 10 fit in very weH wi'th computational
neu.r-o cience.82 In fact"thi i a "bridge' di 'cip~jne be een p ychology and
neuroscience which on the one hand puts bottom-up cons.traints on computational
modeling, whi~e on the other hand extends ,o me principle .of cOimputational
modeling to neurosdentific research thus promoting theintegrat.ion of
neuroscientifk the()lretical con, tructs into c')mputationa~ p ~ ychology. 83

3. 10

The tension between compatibilism and eliminativism is the dia~ectic motor of the
de 'e lopmerrtof sdent.fi·c psychology in the twentie'th century. On tbe one hand, th,e
rise of cognitiv,e psyc.hology was the resultant of the repudiation of the eliminativmst
claim ,o f bebaviori m in fav,or ofa compatibili t project that ha produced forms ,o f
mentali m. mcilcally different from the intra. pect~ont mentali m charac'eri tic of
the beginnings of scientific psychology. On the other band the new merrtaH tic
p ' ycho~ogy ha , Ii ,e d a. pr-ecariou. balance c.on tantly at ri k of collap e under the
pre ur,e of alway new behavioritic and e~iminativi ticchaUenge .
This dia.lectic is inescapable. Sdf~critidsm is consbtutive of a _dence that.
ret on uch ,a fragile theoretical ba e a our folk p y hological intuition about the
mental. We bav,e seen tha even Fodor tbe champion ,of compatibili-m radically
restri,cts the scop of his defen e of folk psychulogy .. His scientific intentional
reali m i the hypotbe i that whichevr kind of tate will b p "tulated by a
mature cientific p .ycbology; they mustb ucb that like propo iHonal attitudes , are
1

semantically va~uable, logically structured ,and causally efficadous. It is no trouble


for Fodor to adm.it that many speci.fic posits of th,e folk-psychological concep:tua ~
ch me ('p rhaps Ie en 'b lier and "de ire" 4) might rum out to b th or tically
inadequate.
On ~he other hand we cannot go '00 far .away from the fhlkpsychological
intuition on pain ,o f ~oo ing the very concept ,o f mind. Acc~rdingly information-
processing psychology is re'quired to accomplish the very a.rduous task of
negotiating ,a 'reflecti e equilibrium not only ith 'the bottom-up con traint from
neUf'O cience (a- required by the above-mentioned exp.ana1 tory pluralim) but a~ '0

New Section 1 Page 55


MIND' AND BRA] - 19

with the top-downconstra.ints from the philosophical theorizing on our folk


p ycho~ogical oonc,eptual ,cherne. 50

_ OTE

I Philosophy of neuroscience: Bechtel et al. (2001)· Bickle and Mandik 20(2); Bickle (2003).
PhHosophy of psychology: Hatfield (1995)· Block and Segal (1998); Botteri]~ and Carruthers
(1999)· Bermudez (2005)· Mason Sr~pada ,a nd Stich- (forthcoming)· Wilson (2005 b).
Phm10 ophy ofoognitive ' cjence: Clark (2001);, Gru h (2002)- Havie (2005).
2 Se thi olume. ,ehapiters 20-22_
1 The "dea that folk psychology is ,Ill theory can be differendyconstrued depending, on we
adopt a personal or sl!.lbpersona~ perspectlve (see tich and Ravenscroft 1994 . At thoe personal
] v ] folk p. ycholo,gy i a theory of mind implicit in our ryday talk about mntal tat
(see LewIs 1972). At the subpersonal ]'evel, folk psychology can be defined a ~~heory" in the
sens'e that it is a tadt knowledge structure, a body .of internally represented. informa ion wh~ch
g,u ides the cognitive mechanisms underlymng mindreading. In th "s perspective, the theory
imJ'IHcit in 'Our e eryd31y talk about the mind i ~ikely to be ' an articulation of~hat fragment of
[th _ ubpersona~ f'O~k p ychological til _my which i.s avaiJabl _ to oon do," refl _ction"
(Ravenscroft 2004~ Cm:rc/utii l'lg Remarks).
4 BJock (1995) draws a distinc ion be ween '"phenomenal consciousness and "access
,c onsciou ness". A mental state i acce _s consc~ous if ~ts content is available for use in various
infor-rnation-proce sing pmcesses, ~ike inference veiba1izafon and acti.on planning. See tbi
vo~ume. ppm190 ff.
S Brentano ([ 1874]11'973 ppm88-89).
6 It follows that in attributm n.g a true (or false) beli fto an ag nt we buHd a .tl:U?t'arepresentation
that rep,r esents hislher true (or fa lse)1repr s.entation. See this vQlume. ,c hap,t er 22 pa . '.fm.
7 Heider andimmel (1'944).

Hider 1958 p. 5).


9 Se Jervm s (1993 p.53 n. 12). See also this volume pp. l3-]4 ~55-157 , W60-164 172-l7'9.
10 'Th~s is tich (1983). tich ] 996. ,c hapter m) has "deconstruct,ed; his fonne·r eHminativism.

1'1 Fodor .B v r and Garrett (~974 p. x~).

1- Very s litably, HaUl' ld critidZ! s "the conventional story .of psycho]ogy!s, nov I founding
,ca. 1:879 (2002 ~). 213}, and argues that the new experimental psycholQgy was the ,o utcome
.of ~he' graduaJ trm -formation of a p'reviou ... natura] philosophical p ycbology" (p. 209') .
I Jervis this v.olum.e, p. 147.

14 Stich (1983 p. [).

IS Stich 0(1996 1999').


16 On ~iminative b haviQrism. see Byrne 11994 and Rey (1997 chapter 4). Hadield (2.002
pp. 215-217) convincingly argues against ~he r,e ceived view. that IQgica~ behaviorism did not
, xert a substantiv, influence Qn:n obehavio:rism.
17 Hauser (2oQ05).

I This point is emphaswzed by Dennett (1978 pp'. 58ff.) terelny (1990 p .. 33) and WHso.n
(1999, p. xix).
19 Tolman (~948.

New Section 1 Page 56


20 MA ' W
MOMARRAFFA

to' computadon" albeit only in an jnforma~

·Empty organism is the term used by E.G. Boring to char.acterjze Skinneli s position
(quoted in C\vell and Simon 1972 875).
27 Fodor and Pylyshyn (1981).
28 Pat moster. thi olume p. 55.
29 See Bechtel Abrahamsen .and Graham (1998); adel and PiaUeUi Palmarilli 2002).
30 ee Block (1983 p. 521 and Mar,coni (2001 p . 18). Harm h (2002) oppo 'es thi "narrow"
I

,cone ptjon of cogniti cience to a "broad" one.


3:1 See Bogdan (1993).
12 Marr ( 1982).
:n ord _ chi and Frixione thi ol,ume p. 39'.
On Marr s theory ofv~s ·on. see this volume, PP'. 55-56.
34

s Fodor (1985 p'. 422 empbas"s in original). BenIludez ((000) glo,s ses this, pll ssage by
making a di tinction b _tween two different type of p ychologkal _planation. The
,e -planation of folk p ychology are ·'horizontal" (they " plain a particular. vent or ta~e Ln
terms of amecdent tate and e ent). They are ·"strate,glc and predict! e", allowing u • toO
na i,gate th ocial world" (B rmud 2005 p. 33). By c{)ntra' t the xplanation · of
,computationa,l psychology are lyertic,al : they aim to provide ·'legitimati,'on ' or ' grounding
for our fo~k-p ycho~ogical horizontal exp,l.anatory practice (p. 36). B .mllidez make dear that
the latter ar the xp1ana.tion ··,exten iJy _tudL d by philo oph .fS ,o f c' enc ,. ho t nd to
u tbe ocabulary of rduction (,. hich in my term , is imp y one typ , of vertical
,e planation) p. 336).
I

36 Quine ([ 1956] 1'966).


31 Fodor 1994a p.295).
38 See ydede 2004) and Horst (1'99,6 1999, 2005) to which tbe present ubsection i
indebt .d.
39 Fodor and Pyly hyn([19'8 ] ]995, PI'. 112-1 ]3).

40 Ibid . p. 1 B. S . . Horst (2005, subsection 1.1).

4,1 ee orst (1999 p.170; 2005, subsection 2.1)· Aydede (2004 subsection 5.2).
42 Denn _Itt (19'9 _, p. 335)..

4J ydede (.2004 . section 1).


44 odor 1991, p,. 12). See also this volume, chapt,e r 16, section 1.
45 Jervis, this volume, p. 152.

46 J _rvL mI 993 p. 301).


47 Cf. Jervis: By tak~nga methodical bottom up'approach [scientific psychology]
,examines bow .our most basic psycbological med an"sms (akin to. the learning processes in
re~ative~y simple org,anisms) cau be graduaUy revealed and provide us with tbe information

New Section 1 Page 57


MIND' ,AND BRA 21

we need to und _ mndand identify our el ' ,a tmnking on iou b ·ing .. (thl volume p.
~ 52) e al 0 Meini and Paterno ·tel'" "bo:ttom-up," app,roaeh to ,cone pt
chapter 8.
48 o.enntt (1993, 193). Objections to thi bottom-up approach to consciou ne hila ,e b .n
raised by those phi losophers who think that the only legitimate sense of consciousness ~s
phenomenal consciousness and anachronis~ically restore the classic primacy of first-person
phenomenology (see e.g. Seade 1992). Providentially however twO' much more attl'aict~ve
options ,are ava~ ~able: 0) it ~s possible to argue that the only ~egitimate sense of consdousness
i Q,cce:s oonciousne : ( 'ee. ,e.g. Denn,ett 1991- eeal 0- thi olume cbapter 17" .ction 6)'
(ii) it i po ible to argue' that phenomena] ,con iou ne mul be' e-xpJicated in. cau al
functional or rep,r esentational (i .e. access-re~ated ' ) terms (see, e .g. th is, vO'lume ,c hap't er 14' .
49 Pau~ Rkour cha:ra.c~rize Freudian p ychoanaly ' i ,as ''une anti-phenomenologi,e ,qui
,exig,e, non laJ r'eduction a Ia conscience mads ~,aJ reduction de la conscience' (1969, p. 137).
How .r a we have ju teen Fr,eud' , i.n.quiry into tl1 . unconscioOUS start from a
ccmsdou ne . taken a ' giv,en. A Jee . i note thi make p ychoanaly ,i • a di.a lectkalvari:mt
oOr phnomenology' 1993 p. 320 n. IS). In contrast" c.ogniti 'e psycJbotogy can be qu~te
I

rightly regarded as an anti.-phnomenology.


50 isbett and Wilson (19'77 p. 233).
5:1Jervis (thi ' v'Olume pp .. 149'-]500) ". es 'n the '.mpha. L on .1f-deception tb .. "'strength' of
th . Fr . udian conc .pt or the uncon clOUS. Me~ (thi volume ,c hapLr 12) d. fends a
deflationary i,ew of, If-deception ba ed.on a r . cent theory .of 1ay hypothesi. Ie ting.
52 See above , n.. 3.

Gopnikand M'e1tz'o'f{ ( 1'994~ p". 168),


4 ee this volum pp., 207-209.

S Gazzaniga. Itt a-l. ( 998, p. 544).

56 Stich (19 3 p. 231 )...But see Rey (] 988 for a ""comp-atm biHs U reply to this argument,
Recently tich himself has rad'ca1ly downsized his anti.-introspectionism in. view of some
w'Ork oOn first-person mindreading; ~tlhe kinds 'Of mwstakes that are made in [tbe 'experiments
reported by isbett and Wilson]1are typical1y not mistakes in detecting on .. sown m ntal
state .. Rather, the studies show that ubject . make mi take in rea aning about their own
mental -tate ·' ichols and Stich 2003 , p .. 16 ~ '.
57 Stich 0( 1983 p . 230).
58 Ibid. p. 188..

9 ee Putnam (1975) and Burge (1979') .


6(1See tich 1983 chapter 8). Another option i Fodor' argument ~hat scientifi,c p' ycho]ogy
should emp]oy a notion of "narrnow contenf'" tha~ is a kind of con~ent tha t supervenes on
formal properti,e Fodor 1987). Recently, howe ' er Fodor (1 9'94b) has cha.n ged hi mind and
has abandoned the narrow ,content (se·e Cain 2002 chapter 6).
6] Be-ehtel . Abrahamsen and Graham ( 199 p. 77).
62 Fodor 2000. p . 1).

63 See the oft-cited an Gelder and Port (1995 pp. 2 4).

64 van Gelder (1999, p. 244).


65 See this volume pp. 40 ff.
6(i See this volume pp . 27 ff,
67 e brrk (1997 p. ~26).

New Section 1 Page 58


22 MA ' WMOMARRAfFA

68 See tm 7 PP'. 2 2 ff.


69 On Gibsonian affordances see this volume. pp. 241ff.
70 Haus'er (2005 section ~ a v .
7:1 Fodor 19'75, chapter ]). See ,a l 0 Fodor (199'7).
72 . cchtel, Abrahamsen and Graham (1 '998 p. 65). See also Bickle and Mandik (2002)..
7 ChUf hland and Church~alld (1996 p. 22,6 I,

74 See Marconi (2001 pp,. 29-30).

1 See, g., P.M. Churchland (l98k).


76 P.M Churchland ~998 p. 41) Ho'w er thi wew of th relationship betw n
,eonnecdom mand propo 'tional attitude i contro ,e iaL .g. '. roolen ky ]995) thinks that
it i ' both ju tifiable and nece aty ~o a cribe to certain conn . cd-oni t y t.m b, Ii . f . Horgan
and Timson (1996) argue that LoT sty],e representation w both necessary in g,enera~ and
realizaJb]e within cOllnec~ionislt architectures.
71 McCauLey (1996. p. 26).
'1 Ole -e\-folution~t in ibwd .• P" 2S.
79 de Jong (2001 p,. 731),.

o Mc' a~ley (1996. p. 25).


'I , Co- _
volutioDp , in ibwd. p. 27.
82 Cf. Churchbmd ,and Sejlnowski: ''The co-evolutionary advice r,eg.ardi:ng mIlIethodological
,efficiency i , let many flo er b,loonl (quoted in McCauley ~996, p. .33). On computafona~
neuroscjence~ see the classic Churchbmdand Sejnowsk~ (~992) and the ree'e nt Eliasmith
(20005).
3 Cf. Clafik and Hwa.. mith: " It i pred Jy the compl x r,Jation b,tw, n ImpL mentation and
function that have spawned a, recent sur,g eof interest in compu,ta,tional neurodence. With the
xpHc't goa] of taking biologica1 constroinL a riou]y a'_ computati.ona~ one _
,computational n UTO cience' ha bgun to xp]ore' a va t rang ofr a.li tic n urn] mod 1 '. I •••

Such modJhould pro ,u eful in providing constraints ofthjrown. [ ... ] · 0 ., not only do,s
biology inform the' construction of computat~onal mod, 1 but ide~Uy tho am . mod, L can
help suggest important experiments £or neuroscien ists to. perfoml' (2002 p,. 8,87).
4 Lower and Rey (1991. p. x~v).

8S In thi olum the chapters 16- 9' focll on the top-d.own con tra~nt whe:rea the chapter
2 and 23 emplha .ire the bottom-up .one .

New Section 1 Page 59

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