On the cognitive architecture of insects and other information-processing systems

Análisis Filosófico 28 (1):13-33 (2008)
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Abstract

According to Carruthers ants and bees have minds. This claim is to be understood realistically. We do not interpret the overt behaviour of ants and bees by ascribing to them beliefs and desires in an instrumental manner. They rather possess minds in the relevant cognitive sense. In this paper, I propose to pave the way for a reductio against such a polemic view. In particular, I shall argue that if ants and bees have minds, by the same token, plants do have minds too. In my view, the problem has to do with Carruthers' underlying technical concept of cognitive architecture; a concept which, as I shall argue, can be called into question both on empirical and conceptual grounds. Según Carruthers, las hormigas y las abejas tienen mente. Esta afirmación debe entenderse de modo realista. No es que interpretemos la conducta abierta de hormigas y abejas en términos de creencias y deseos atribuidos instrumentalmente. Se trata más bien de que tienen tales estados mentales en el sentido cognitivo relevante. En este trabajo, me propongo llevar esta polémica concepción a una reductio. En particular, argumentaré que si las hormigas y las abejas tienen mente, por la misma razón las plantas también la tendrían. A mi modo de ver, el problema tiene que ver con el concepto técnico de arquitectura cognitiva de Carruthers ; un concepto que puede ser cuestionado sobre bases empíricas y conceptuales, según argüiré

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Vision.David Marr - 1982 - W. H. Freeman.
Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong.Jerry A. Fodor - 1998 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Consciousness in Action.Susan L. Hurley - 1998 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Representation Reconsidered.William M. Ramsey - 2007 - Cambridge University Press.

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