Title: A New Perspective on Representational Problems
Abstract: I argue that current flaws in the methodology of contemporary cognitive science, especially neuroscience, have adversely affected philosophical theorizing about the nature of representation. To highlight these flaws, I introduce a distinction between adopting the animal`s perspective and the observer`s perspective when characterizing representation. I provide a discussion of each and show how the former has been unduly overlooked by cognitive scientists, including neuroscientists and philosophers. I also provide a specific neuroscientific example that demonstrates how adopting the animal`s perspective can simplify the characterization of the representation relation. Finally, I suggest that taking this perspective seriously supports in a specific thesis regarding content determination: the statistical dependence hypothesis.
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-07-31
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 24
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