Contextuality: A Philosophical Paradigm, with Applications to Philosophy of Cognitive Science

We develop on the idea that everything is related, inside, and therefore determined by a context. This stance, which at first might seem obvious, has several important consequences. This paper first presents ideas on Contextuality, for then applying them to problems in philosophy of cognitive science. Because of space limitations, for the second part we will assume that the reader is familiar with the literature of philosophy of cognitive science, but if this is not the case, it would not be a limitation for understanding the main ideas of this paper. We do not argue that Contextuality is a panaceic answer for explaining everything, but we do argue that everything is inside a context. And because this is always, we sometimes ignore it, but we believe that many problems are dissolved with a contextual approach, noticing things we ignore because of their obviousity. We first give a notion of context. We present the idea that errors are just incongruencies inside a context. We also present previous ideas of absolute being, relative being, and lessincompleteness. We state that all logics, and also truth judgements, are contextdependent, and we develop a “Context-dependant Logic”. We apply ideas of Contextuality to problems in semantics, the problem of “where is the mind”, and the study of consciousness

Bioethics and the Hypothesis of Extended Health

Dominant views about the nature of health and disease in bioethics and the philosophy of medicine have presumed the existence of a fixed, stable, individual organism as the bearer of health and disease states, and as such, the appropriate target of medical therapy and ethical concern. However, recent developments in microbial biology, neuroscience, the philosophy of cognitive science, and social and personality psychology (Ickes..

Andy Clark and his Critics

In this volume, a range of high-profile researchers in philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, and empirical cognitive science, critically engage with Clark's work across the themes of: Extended, Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, and Affective Minds; Natural Born Cyborgs; and Perception, Action, and Prediction. Daniel Dennett provides a foreword on the significance of Clark's work, and Clark replies to each section of the book, thus advancing current literature with original contributions that will form the basis for new discussions, debates and directions in the discipline

Philosophy for the rest of cognitive science

Abstract Cognitive science has always included multiple methodologies and theoretical commitments. The philosophy of cognitive science should embrace, or at least acknowledge, this diversity. Bechtel's (2009a) proposed philosophy of cognitive science, however, applies only to representationalist and mechanist cognitive science, ignoring the substantial minority of dynamically oriented cognitive scientists. As an example of nonrepresentational, dynamical cognitive science, we describe strong anticipation as a model for circadian systems (Stepp & Turvey, 2009). We then propose a philosophy of science appropriate to nonrepresentational, dynamical cognitive science

The Recent Engagement between Analytic Philosophy and Heideggerian Thought: Metaphysics and Mind

Martin Heidegger is a towering figure in the history of continental philosophy, but his work has recently been brought into productive engagement with analytic philosophy. This paper introduces and explores two channels along which such engagement has been taking place. The first is in metaphysics, where Heideggerian thought has been interpreted either as making the metaphysical concept of being literally senseless or as mandating a revision to classical logic. The second is in philosophy of mind, and more particularly in philosophy of cognitive science, where Heideggerian thought has been used to mount a challenge to representational theories of mind

The Body Social: An Enactive Approach to the Self

This paper takes a new look at an old question: what is the human self? It offers a proposal for theorizing the self from an enactive perspective as an autonomous system that is constituted through interpersonal relations. It addresses a prevalent issue in the philosophy of cognitive science: the body-social problem. Embodied and social approaches to cognitive identity are in mutual tension. On the one hand, embodied cognitive science risks a new form of methodological individualism, implying a dichotomy not between the outside world of objects and the brain-bound individual but rather between body-bound individuals and the outside social world. On the other hand, approaches that emphasize the constitutive relevance of social interaction processes for cognitive identity run the risk of losing the individual in the interaction dynamics and of downplaying the role of embodiment. This paper adopts a middle way and outlines an enactive approach to individuation that is neither individualistic nor disembodied but integrates both approaches. Elaborating on Jonas’ notion of needful freedom it outlines an enactive proposal to understanding the self as co-generated in interactions and relations with others. I argue that the human self is a social existence that is organized in terms of a back and forth between social distinction and participation processes. On this view, the body, rather than being identical with the social self, becomes its mediator

Haig’s ‘strange inversion of reasoning’ (Dennett) and Making sense: information interpreted as meaning (Haig)

David Haig (this issue) propounds and illustrates the unity of a radically revised set of definitions of the family of terms at the heart of philosophy of cognitive science and mind: information, meaning, interpretation, text, choice, possibility, cause. This biological re-grounding of much-debated concepts yields a bounty of insights into the nature of meaning and life. An interpreter is a mechanism that uses information in choice. The capabilities of the interpreter couple an entropy of inputs (uncertainty) to an entropy of outputs is dispelled by observation (input of information). The second entropy is dispelled (output of decision). I propose that an interpreter’s response to inputs meaning of the information for the interpreter. In this conceptual framework, the mechanisms of interpreters provide the much-debated link between Shannon information and semantics

Representation Wars: Enacting an Armistice Through Active Inference

Over the last 30 years, representationalist and dynamicist positions in the philosophy of cognitive science have argued over whether neurocognitive processes should be viewed as representational or not. Major scientific and technological developments over the years have furnished both parties with ever more sophisticated conceptual weaponry. In recent years, an enactive generalization of predictive processing – known as active inference – has been proposed as a unifying theory of brain functions. Since then, active inference has fueled both representationalist and dynamicist campaigns. However, we believe that when diving into the formal details of active inference, one should be able to find a solution to the war; if not a peace treaty, surely an armistice of a sort. Based on an analysis of these formal details, this paper shows how both representationalist and dynamicist sensibilities can peacefully coexist within the new territory of active inference

The problem of implementation and its relation to the philosophy of cognitive science

According to certain arguments, computation is observer-relative either in the sense that many physical systems implement many computations (Hilary Putnam), or in the sense that almost all physical systems implement all computations (John Searle). If sound, these arguments have a potentially devastating consequence for the computational theory of mind: if arbitrary physical systems can be seen to implement arbitrary computations, the notion of computation seems to lose all explanatory power as far as brains and minds are concerned. David Chalmers and B. Jack Copeland have attempted to counter these relativist arguments by placing certain constraints on the definition of implementation. In this thesis, I examine their proposals and find both wanting in some respects. During the course of this examination, I give a formal definition of the class of combinatorial-state automata , upon which Chalmers's account of implementation is based. I show that this definition implies two theorems (one an observation due to Curtis Brown) concerning the computational power of combinatorial-state automata, theorems which speak against founding the theory of implementation upon this formalism. Toward the end of the thesis, I sketch a definition of the implementation of Turing machines in dynamical systems, and offer this as an alternative to Chalmers's and Copeland's accounts of implementation. I demonstrate that the definition does not imply Searle's claim for the universal implementation of computations. However, the definition may support claims that are weaker than Searle s, yet still troubling to the computationalist. There remains a kernel of relativity in implementation at any rate, since the interpretation of physical systems seems itself to be an observer-relative matter, to some degree at least. This observation helps clarify the role the notion of computation can play in cognitive science. Specifically, I will argue that the notion should be conceived as an instrumental rather than as a fundamental or foundational one.Eräiden argumenttien mukaan laskenta eli komputaatio on havaitsijarelatiivista siinä mielessä, että monien fysikaalisten systeemien voidaan nähdä implementoivan useita komputaatioita (Hilary Putnam), tai että miltei kaikkien fysikaalisten systeemien voidaan nähdä implementoivan kaikki komputaatiot (John Searle). Sikäli kuin nämä argumentit ovat pitäviä, niillä voi olla kohtalokkaita seurauksia komputationaaliselle mielen teorialle. Jos mielivaltaiset fysikaaliset systeemit implementoivat mielivaltaisia komputaatioita, komputaation käsite näyttää kadottavan kaiken selittävän voimansa mielen ja aivojen toiminnan selittämisen yhteydessä. David Chalmers ja B. Jack Copeland ovat yrittäneet vastata edellä mainittuihin relativistisiin argumentteihin asettamalla eräitä rajoitteita implementaatiorelaation määritelmälle. Tässä tutkielmassa tarkastelen heidän ehdotuksiaan ja esitän, että molempiin liittyy joitakin ongelmia. Tarkastelun myötä annan täsmällisen määritelmän kombinatoristen tilojen automaattien luokalle, jolle Chalmersin implementaation teoria perustuu. Osoitan, että määritelmästä seuraa kaksi tulosta (joista toinen on Curtis Brownin aiemmin esittämä huomautus) liittyen kombinatoristen tilojen automaattien laskennalliseen voimaan. Argumentoin, että näiden tulosten vuoksi implementaation teoriaa ei tulisi perustaa kombinatoristen tilojen automaattien formalismille. Tutkielman loppua kohden esitän vaihtoehtoisen implementaation analyysin, joka perustuu määritelmälle Turingin koneiden implementoitumisesta dynaamisissa systeemeissä. Näytän, että ehdottamani määritelmä ei implikoi Searlen universaalin implementaation väitettä. Tästä huolimatta on mahdollista, että määritelmästä seuraa tuloksia, jotka ovat Searlen väitettä heikompia mutta silti ongelmallisia komputationalismin kannalta. Implementaation teorian ytimessä näyttää joka tapauksessa säilyvän tietty relatiivisuus, sillä fysikaalisten systeemien tulkinta näyttäisi itsessään olevan jossakin määrin havaitsijarelatiivista. Tämä huomio auttaa selvittämään sitä roolia, joka komputaation käsitteellä on kognitiotieteessä. Erityisesti esitän, että käsite tulisi ymmärtää instrumentaalisena, ei fundamentaalisena tai perustan antavana käsitteenä

Two open questions in the reformist agenda of the philosophy of cognitive science

Abstract: In this paper we carve out a reformist agenda within the debate on the foundations of cognitive science, incorporating some important ideas from the 4E cognition literature into the computational-representational framework. We are deeply sympathetic to this reformist program since we think that, despite strong criticism of the concept of computation and the related notion of representation, computational models should still be at the core of the study of mind. At the same time, we recognize the need for a liberalization of the computational and representational framework that can address deep dissatisfaction with the anti-biologism and radical internalism of classical cognitive science. However, reform is a difficult task, so in this article we focus on two open questions within the reformist agenda. The first concerns the possibility of combining mechanistic-computational and dynamical explanations. The second concerns related changes in the notion of representation and its use (with special attention to Andy Clark’s radical predictive processing).Keywords: Continuum of Representational Genera; Enactivism; Predictive Processing; Radical Embodied Cognition Thesis; RepresentationalismDue problemi aperti nell’agenda riformista della filosofia della scienza cognitivaRiassunto: In questo lavoro identifichiamo un’agenda riformista nel dibattito sui fondamenti della scienza cognitiva che incorpora alcune idee centrali provenienti dalla letteratura sulla cognizione 4E all’interno di una cornice computazionalista e rappresentazionalista. Tale agenda considera il quadro computazionalista e rappresentazionalista ancora imprescindibile ai fini dello studio integrato della mente e del cervello, ma ne persegue una liberalizzazione nell’intento di renderlo idoneo ad accogliere alcuni importanti spunti emersi dalla letteratura sulla cognizione delle 4E. Tuttavia, riformare è un compito difficile. In questo articolo ci concentriamo su due problemi aperti nell’agenda riformista. Il primo riguarda la possibilità di mettere assieme le spiegazioni meccaniciste e computazionaliste con quelle dinamiche. Il secondo riguarda i cambiamenti relativi alla nozione di rappresentazione e al suo impiego (con particolare attenzione all’elaborazione predittiva radicale di Andy Clark).Parole chiave: Continuum dei generi rappresentazionali; Elaborazione predittiva; Enattivismo; Tesi della cognizione incarnata radicale; Rappresentazionalism