The Imagery Debate
Journal of Mind and Behavior 15:291-294 (1994)
| Abstract | This book is a philosopher's examination of the dispute, which raged amongst cognitive psychologists in the 1970s, and has continued to sputter on since, about the nature of mental imagery. As Tye sees things (and, indeed, as the textbooks generally have it) on the one side of the issue we find Stephen Kosslyn and certain close associates, arguing that mental images are best understood on analogy with pictures; and on the other side we find Zenon Pylyshyn, ably seconded by Geoffrey Hinton, arguing that the pictorial analogy is thoroughly misleading, and should be replaced by an analogy to descriptions. Tye's consideration of this debate, attempting to clarify and arbitrate a tangled mess of argument and to explore the implications of what he takes to be the proper outcome, is generally excellent. If you want to understand the strengths of the arguments of Kosslyn, Pylyshyn, and their allies, then this book is to be recommended very warmly. | |||||||||
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Kim Sterelny (1986). The Imagery Debate. Philosophy of Science 53 (December):560-83.
Peter Slezak (2002). The Imagery Debate: Déjà Vu All Over Again? Commentary on Zenon Pylyshyn. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (2):209-210.
Gianfranco Dalla Barba, Victor Rosenthal & Yves-Marie Visetti (2002). The Nature of Mental Imagery: How Null is the “Null Hypothesis”? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (2):187-188.
Stephen M. Kosslyn, William L. Thompson & Giorgio Ganis (2002). Mental Imagery Doesn't Work Like That. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (2):198-200.
Ned Block (1983). The Photographic Fallacy in the Debate About Mental Imagery. Noûs 17 (November):651-62.
Markus Raab & Marc Boschker (2002). Time Matters! Implications From Mentally Imaged Motor Actions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (2):208-209.
Michael Tye (1991). The Imagery Debate. Cambridge: Mit Press.
Peter P. Slezak (2002). The Imagery Debate: Déjà-Vu All Over Again? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (2):209-210.
Zenon W. Pylyshyn (1981). The Imagery Debate: Analog Media Vs. Tacit Knowledge. Psychological Review 88 (December):16-45.
Zenon W. Pylyshyn (2003). Return of the Mental Image: Are There Really Pictures in the Brain? Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7 (3):113-118.
Romi Nijhawan & Beena Khurana (2002). Motion, Space, and Mental Imagery. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (2):203-204.
Evan Thompson (2007). Look Again: Phenomenology and Mental Imagery. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (1-2).
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