Linguistics

Contains research objectives and summary of research on one research project.National Institute of Mental Health (Grant 3 P01 MH13390-08S1)National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 TOl HD00111-10)National Institute of Mental Health (Grant HD 05168-01, 02, 03)M.I.T. Sloan Fund for Basic ResearchGrant Foundatio

Linguistics

Contains research objectives and reports on two research project.National Institute of Mental Health (Grant 5 P01 MH-13390-04

Linguistics

Contains research objectives and reports on five research projects.National Institutes of Health (Grant 1 P01 MH-13390-02

Conceptual dependency as the language of thought

Roger Schank's research in AI takes seriously the ideas that understanding natural language involves mapping its expressions into an internal representation scheme and that these internal representations have a syntax appropriate for computational operations. It therefore falls within the computational approach to the study of mind. This paper discusses certain aspects of Schank's approach in order to assess its potential adequacy as a (partial) model of cognition. This version of the Language of Thought hypothesis encounters some of the same difficulties that arise for Fodor's account.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43836/1/11229_2004_Article_BF00413665.pd

What the disjunctivist is right about

There is a traditional conception of sensory experience on which the experiences one has looking at, say, a cat could be had by someone merely hallucinating a cat. Disjunctivists take issue with this conception on the grounds that it does not enable us to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible. In particular, they think, it does not explain how it can be that experiences gained in perception enable us to be in ‘cognitive contact’ with objects and facts. I develop this chal- lenge to the traditional conception and then show that it is possible to accommo- date an adequate account of cognitive contact in keeping with the traditional conception. One upshot of the discussion is that experiences do not bear the explanatory burden placed upon them by disjunctivists