I. the view that reasons cannot be causes. II. the view that the explanatory relevance of psychological states such as beliefs and intentions derives from their content, their explanatory role is not causal and we thus have no good reason to ascribe causal power to them. III. the idea that if the mental supervenes on the physical, then what really explains our actions is the physical properties determining our propositional attitudes, and not those attitudes themselves. IV. the thesis that (...) since there are no laws linking (intentional) mental states to actions, those states cannot be genuine causes of action. (shrink)

Dynamical systems play a central role in explanations in cognitive neuroscience. The grounds for these explanations are hotly debated and generally fall under two approaches: non-mechanistic and mechanistic. In this paper, I first outline a neurodynamical explanatory schema that highlights the role of dynamical systems in cognitive phenomena. I next explore the mechanistic status of such neurodynamical explanations. I argue that these explanations satisfy only some of the constraints on mechanistic explanation and should be considered pseudomechanistic explanations. I defend this (...) argument against three alternative interpretations of the neurodynamical explanatory schema. The independent interpretation holds that neurodynamical explanations and mechanisms are independent. The constitutive interpretation holds that neurodynamical explanations are constitutive but otherwise non-mechanistic. Both the independent and constitutive interpretations fail to account for all the features of neurodynamical explanations. The partial interpretation assumes that the targets of dynamical systems models are mechanisms and so holds that neurodynamical explanations are incomplete because they lack mechanistic details. I contend instead that the targets of those models are dynamical systems distinct from mechanisms and defend this claim against several objections. I conclude with a defense of the pseudomechanistic interpretation and a discussion of the source of their explanatory power in relation to a causal-mechanical description of the world. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Dance requires optimal range-of-motion and cognitive abilities. Mental imagery is a recommended, yet under-researched, training method for enhancing both of these. This study investigated the effect of Dynamic Neuro-Cognitive Imagery (DNI™) training on developpé performance (measured by gesturing ankle height and self-reported observations) and kinematics (measured by hip and pelvic range-of-motion), as well as on dance imagery abilities. Thirty-four university-level dance students (M age = 19.70 + 1.57) were measured performing three developpé tasks (i.e., 4 repetitions, 8 consecutive (...) seconds hold, and single repetition) at three time-points (2 x pre-, 1 x post-intervention). Data were collected using three-dimensional motion capture, mental imagery questionnaires, and subjective reports. Following the DNI™ intervention, significant increases (p <.01) were detected in gesturing ankle height, as well as in hip flexion and abduction range-of-motion, without significant changes in pelvic alignment. These gains were accompanied by self-reported decrease (p <.05) in level of difficulty experienced and significant improvements in kinesthetic (p <.05) and dance (p <.01) imagery abilities. This study provides evidence for the motor and non-motor benefits of DNI™ training in university-level dance students. (shrink)

Psychophysiological correlations form the basis for different medical and scientific disciplines, but the nature of this relation has not yet been fully understood. One conceptual option is to understand the mental as “emerging” from neural processes in the specific sense that psychology and physiology provide two different descriptions of the same system. Stating these descriptions in terms of coarser- and finer-grained system states macro- and microstates, the two descriptions may be equally adequate if the coarse-graining preserves the possibility to (...) obtain a dynamical rule for the system. To test the empirical viability of our approach, we describe an algorithm to obtain a specific form of such a coarse-graining from data, and illustrate its operation using a simulated dynamical system. We then apply the method to an electroencephalographic recording, where we are able to identify macrostates from the physiological data that correspond to mental states of the subject. © 2009 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.3072788. (shrink)

Markman and Dietrich¹ recently recommended extending our understanding of representation to incorporate insights from some “alternative” theories of cognition: perceptual symbol systems, situated action, embodied cognition, and dynamical systems. In particular, they suggest that allowances be made for new types of representation which had been previously under-emphasized in cognitive science. The amendments they recommend are based upon the assumption that the alternative positions each agree with the classical view that cognition requires representations, internal mediating states that bear information.² In the (...) case of one of the alternatives, dynamical systems³, this is simply false: many dynamically-oriented cognitive scientists are anti-representationalists.^4,5,6. (shrink)

Dynamical systems theory (DST) is gaining popularity in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Recently several authors (e.g. J.A.S. Kelso, 1995; A. Juarrero, 1999; F. Varela and E. Thompson, 2001) offered a DST approach to mental causation as an alternative for models of mental causation in the line of Jaegwon Kim (e.g. 1998). They claim that some dynamical systems exhibit a form of global to local determination or downward causation in that the large-scale, global activity of the system (...) governs or constrains local interactions. This form of downward causation is the key to the DST model of mental causation. In this paper I evaluate the DST approach to mental causation. I will argue that the main problem for current DST approaches to mental causation is that they lack a clear metaphysics. I propose one metaphysical framework (Gillett, 2002a/b/c) that might deal with this deficiency. (shrink)

People prefer linguistic stimuli with an inward (e.g. BODIKA) over those with an outward articulation dynamic (e.g. KODIBA), a phenomenon known as the articulatory in-out effect. Despite its robustness across languages and contexts, the phenomenon is still poorly understood. To learn more about the effect’s boundary conditions, mental representation, and origin, we crossed the in-out effect with evaluative conditioning research. In five experiments (N = 713, three experiments pre-registered), we systematically paired words containing inward versus outward dynamics with (...) pictures of negative versus positive valence. Although this evaluative conditioning procedure reversed the preference for inward over outward words, this was the case only for words with the same consonant sequences as the conditioned words. For words with inward/outward dynamics but different consonant sequences than the conditioned ones, a regular in-out effect emerged. Also, no preference reversal at all emerged for the conditioned consonant sequences when the contingency between single consonants at specific positions and positive/negative valence was zero. Implications of these findings for the in-out effect and evaluative conditioning are discussed. (shrink)

Dynamical systems promise to elucidate a notion of top–down causation without violating the causal closure of physical events. This approach is particularly useful for the problem of mental causation. Since dynamical systems seek out, appropriate, and replace physical substrata needed to continue their structural pattern, the system is autonomous with respect to its components, yet the components constitute closed causal chains. But how can systems have causal power over their substrates, if each component is sufficiently caused by other components? (...) Suppose every causal relation requires background conditions, without which it is insufficient. The dynamical system is structured with a tendency to change background conditions for causal relations anytime needed substrates for the pattern's maintenance are missing; under the changed background conditions, alternative causal relations become sufficient to maintain the pattern. The system controls the background conditions under which one or another causal relation can subserve the system's overall pattern, while the components remain causally closed under their given background conditions. (shrink)

Mental time travel is the ability to simulate alternative pasts and futures. It is often described as the ability to project a sense of self in the service of diachronic agency. It requires not only semantic representation but affective sampling of alternative futures. If people lose this ability for affective sampling their sense of self is diminished. They have less of a self to project hence are compromised as agents. If they cannot “feel the future” they cannot imaginatively inhabit (...) it and hence their agency is compromised. The extent of such losses and consequent impairments to moral agency can be matters of degree. (shrink)

Mental imagery is an important topic in classical and modern philosophy, as it is central to the study of knowledge; since subjects can recall features of perceptual experiences in different ways and times, even modifying their structure, in this brief essay we will focus on non-perceptive mental images and to this purpose we will analyse, on the one hand, the nature of perceptive mental images ; on the other hand, NPMI generation according to different strategic conditions and (...) retrieval modalities and, so, their structural relationships with PMI. Thus, we will clarify what NPMI amounts to and, to this purpose, we will address the issue of epistemic correlation and semantic reference. As regards the former, we will adopt the notion of ‘belief’, both to describe which attitude supports the use of an NPMI and to account for its relationship with a PMI. As regards the latter, we will talk about weak ontology between an NPMI and the world, to conceive ‘the way in which’ mental imagery, despite the absence of a sensorial modification, refers to physical objects. As the subject’s mental contents determine, but do not constrain, what NPMI is like, we will deal with the ‘involvement’ of prior knowledge and the notion of meaningful space to underline that its generation is always the result of a wide process which involves perceptive visual information already processed and stored together with further mental contents. So, though some Authors consider mental imagery to be a ‘percept-like’ image and, somehow, espouse the theory of reactivation, we will pose a challenge to this theory – i.e. to what we call mental imagery standard framework – describing an NPMI in terms of configurational setting and indeterminacy. Consequently, we will propose a non-linear dynamic framework of mental imagery generation , according to which an NPMI is not reducible to a mere recalling of figural features of a perceptive image. (shrink)

Analogy-making is an ability with which we can abstract from surface similarities and perceive deep, meaningful similarities between different mental objects and situations. I propose that mental objects are dynamically changing sets of potentially interchangeable connotations. Unfortunately, most models of analogy seem devoid of both semantics and relevance-extraction, postulating analogy as a one-to-one mapping devoid of connotation transfer.

In this paper I will investigate the possibility of defending the concept of ‘mental representation’ against certain contemporary critiques. Some authors, likeAnthony Chemero, argue that it is possible to explain offline actions with dynamic concepts. Hence, the dynamic discourse preempts the representational one. I doubt that this is a recommendable strategy. A form of representation is necessary, though one which is different from the classical one. Instead of eliminating the concept of representation (as radical dynamicists do) or of splitting (...) cognitive explanation in two separate discourses (as the adepts of the hybrid cognition version do), I consider that a dynamic concept of ‘representation’ is a better option. In my view, the higher level order resulted from the complex brain-body-environment coupling can be interpreted as being representational in nature. The dynamic paradigm involves a significant change concerning the intentional nature of representational states: the basic forms of representations are not maps of reality implemented as such in the brain, but limit conditions, attractors constraining the cognitive system’s evolution in its space state to reach its goals. On a certain threshold of complexity, the system develops stable attractors and attractor landscapes which could be interpreted as standing for something outside the system. This conception offers the advantages of avoiding preemptionargument, of unifying the cognitive explanation and, by its interscalar account, offers dynamic tools for building more complex artificial intelligent systems. (shrink)

This article argues that the process of development as such explains a great deal of the forms and properties of individual developmental trajectories, without the necessity of having to rely on either external or internal factors or causes. Both the problem of developmental change and invariance can be explained by employing a dynamic systems conceptualization of development. It is shown that dynamic systems models on the one hand and those of the genuine developmental models in psychology on the other, share (...) a set of important general properties that are able to explain both the universal and the idiosyncratic aspects of developmental processes. The concept of mental and behavioral ecology, which may serve as a starting point for specific theories of development of cognition, social behavior, personality and so forth, is discussed. It is concluded that both long-term and short-term developmental patterns will be shown to follow similar abstract dynamical principles. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of the nature of mental imagery from a new perspective. It suggests that sign-theoretical approach as elaborated by C. S. Peirce can give a better and more comprehensive explanation of mental imagery. Our empirical findings follow the methodology of cognitive semiotics and they show that (i) properties of mental images are heterogeneous in nature; (ii) properties of mental images are dependent on the characteristics of object-stimulus; (iii) properties of mental images (...) are dependent on individual differences in imaginary capacities. This suggests that, contrary to representational accounts, mental imagery is not based on one dominant representational format. Imagery constitutes a complex system of signs consisting of several sign elements and dynamic relations. A sign-theoretical account may give a better explanation of the nature of mental imagery, as it accommodates heterogenous evidence from this experiment. (shrink)

Discourse and rhetoric of service-user involvement are pervasive in all mental health services that see themselves as promoting a Recovery ethos. Yet, for the service-user movement internationally, ‘Recovery’ was articulated as an alternative discourse of overcoming and resisting an institutionalized and oppressive psychiatric model of care. Power is all pervasive within mental health services yet often overlooked in official discourse on user-involvement. Critical research is required to expose the unacknowledged structural and power constraints on participants. My research problematizes (...) practices of user involvement in one mental health service area in Ireland. Part I of this article examines the background context of policies and practices of user-involvement from the service-user perspective and explains developments in relation to service-user involvement in the case of Ireland. Participants in my study articulate their motivation for engagement with mental health service reform in terms of the right to participate in social justice terms, of wanting to improve services and humanise care. Power dynamics emerge as one of the primary obstacles to equitable involvement. Part II of this article presents an explanatory framework of power, using a model developed in the field of development studies; Gaventa’s (2006) ‘power cube.’ The three dimensions of the cube represent the forms, spaces and levels of power. The explanatory potential of this model to highlight how hidden and invisible power operates in mental health services is illustrated by selected comments from the same participants. The power cube is a useful tool to illuminate the dynamics occurring in service-user involvement spaces. Showing how different forms of power operate in the spaces and levels of mental health involvement can develop service-users’ awareness of the hidden and invisible aspects of power. Through this awareness, they can strategize around their potential to influence decision-making in mental health services. (shrink)

Mental time travel is defined as projecting the self into the past and the future. Despite growing evidence of the similarities of remembering past and imagining future events, dominant theories conceive of these as distinct capacities. I propose that memory and imagination are fundamentally the same process – constructive episodic simulation – and demonstrate that the ‘simulation system’ meets the three criteria of a neurocognitive system. Irrespective of whether one is remembering or imagining, the simulation system: acts on the (...) same information, drawing on elements of experience ranging from fine-grained perceptual details to coarser-grained conceptual information and schemas about the world; is governed by the same rules of operation, including associative processes that facilitate construction of a schematic scaffold, the event representation itself, and the dynamic interplay between the two ; and is subserved by the same brain system. I also propose that by forming associations between schemas, the simulation system constructs multi-dimensional cognitive spaces, within which any given simulation is mapped by the hippocampus. Finally, I suggest that simulation is a general capacity that underpins other domains of cognition, such as the perception of ongoing experience. This proposal has some important implications for the construct of ‘MTT’, suggesting that ‘time’ and ‘travel’ may not be defining, or even essential, features. Rather, it is the ‘mental’ rendering of experience that is the most fundamental function of this domain-general simulation system enabling humans to re-experience the past, pre-experience the future, and also comprehend the complexities of the present. (shrink)

Do we have control over the content of our imaginings? More precisely: do we have control over what our imaginings are about? Intentionalists say yes. Until recently, intentionalism could be taken as the received view. Recently, authors like Munro & Strohminger (2021) have developed some arguments against it. Here, I tentatively join their ranks and develop a new way to think about the way in which imaginings develop their contents that also goes against intentionalism. My proposal makes use of what (...) we may call a ballistic framework for mental dynamics, which I sketch to some length. In this model, imaginings are articulated by ballistic events sensitive to constraints that modify the trajectories that imaginings trace in a special working space. This framework leaves room for alternatives to pre-assigned-content models, such as Kung’s (2016). In the ballistic-based models sketched here, and against intentionalism, imaginings can fail to be about what we intend them to be about. The framework also has applications beyond the intentionalism debate, some of which I will sketch. (shrink)

Time Perspective (TP) is a central aspect of human daily psychological functioning, with a pronounced impact on human thoughts, feelings and behaviors. The particular TP dimensions are strongly associated with a range of various mental well-being indicators and were shown to predict as much as 40% of their variance. However, the relationship between TPs and specific mechanisms that enhance mental well-being still requires further exploration. In the present article, we conceptually analyze a potential interplay of TPs and three (...) well confirmed well-being ‘boosters’ (WBBs) – gratitude, savoring the moment, and prioritizing positivity – which may prove responsible for the vital effects of TP on mental well-being. Each of the ‘boosters’ has a clear temporal anchoring: Gratitude stems from the appreciation of the past, savoring the moment refers mainly to the experience of the present, and prioritizing positivity engages planning behaviors that require future focus. We propose four theoretical models to be verified in further experimental research. The first model, the trait-behavior model, proposes that trait-TPs increase the tendency to use particular WBBs in order to increase mental well-being. The second model, referred to as the accumulation model, offers that TPs mediate between WBBs and mental well-being, and finally, a regular practice of a specific WBB develops a specific TP (e.g. exercising a gratitude intervention enhances Past-Positive TP). The third model, the feedback loop, suggests that WBBs and TPs strengthen one another and contribute to higher mental well-being. The last model, which can be called the match-mismatch model, presents the influence of WBBs on mental well-being, where a particular TP plays a role of a moderator (e.g. Present-Hedonistic TP moderates the relationship between savoring and well-being). Implications of potential confirmation of each of the models for theory and practice are also discussed. (shrink)

The myriad controversies embroiling the mental health field—heightened in the lead-up to the release of DSM-5 —merit a close analysis of the field and its epistemological underpinnings. By using DSM as a starting point, this paper develops to overview the entire mental health field. Beginning with a history of the field and its recent crises, the troubles of the past “external crisis” are compared to the contemporary “internal crisis.” In an effort to examine why crises have recurred, the (...) internal dynamics of the field are assessed: applying Kuhn’s paradigmatic framework, crises are appraised to situate the differences between the natural sciences and the mental health field. Next, a Foucauldian analysis examines the functioning of the field’s power over the body, which is disproportionate in comparison to its scientific grounding. This is followed by investigating the field’s combination of contested scientific grounding and significant power, through a Latourian consideration of the assumptions and meaning behind the mental health field’s deployment of science. This includes scrutinizing the history of the classification of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The paper closes by assessing the field’s potential to address these issues effectively. (shrink)

We may be at the brink of a Kuhnian paradigm shift when it comes to the categorical classification system of mental disorders. Reviewing more than 30 years of critical literature on the categorical classification of personality disorders, Kueger, Hopwood, Wright, and Markon conclude that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is "fundamentally broken". Just before, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health declared that the institute will no longer support research that is based (...) on DSM categories.The critique on the categorical system of mental disorders consists of several arguments that are briefly mentioned as they have been... (shrink)

This book is a sequel to Recanati’s Mental Files (OUP 2012), and pursues the exploration of the mental file framework for thinking about concepts and singular reference. Mental files are based on 'epistemically rewarding' relations to objects in the environment. Standing in such relations to objects puts the subject in a position to gain information regarding them—information which goes into the file based on the relevant relation. Files do not merely store information about objects, however. They refer (...) to them and serve as singular terms in the language of thought, with a relational (nondescriptivist) semantics. Crucially, files also play the role of ‘modes of presentation’. They are used to account for cognitive significance phenomena illustrated by so-called ‘Frege cases’. This book considers what happens to mental files in a dynamic setting. Mental files are construed as both continuants (dynamic files) and as time-slices thereof (static files). Dynamic files are needed to account for confusion, recognition and tracking. The book considers what happens to the relation of coreference de jure, central to the functional characterization of files, when one adopts a dynamic perspective. Only a weak form of coreference de jure is said to hold between stages of the same dynamic file. The second part of the book argues that communication involves interpersonal dynamic files. Special attention is paid to the communication of indexical thoughts (de se contents), and to communication using proper names. (shrink)

A final version of this paper is in press as: Bickhard, M. H.. The Dynamic Emergence of Representation. In H. Clapin, P. Staines, P. Slezak Representation in Mind: New Approaches to Mental Representation. Praeger.

Vaesen infers unique properties of mind from the appearance of specific cultural innovation – a correlation without causal direction. Shifts in habitat, population density, and group dynamics are the only independently verifiable incentives for changes in cultural practices. The transition from Acheulean to Late Stone Age technologies requires that we consider how population and social dynamics affect cultural innovation and mental function.

The overall goal of this target article is to demonstrate a mechanism for an embodied cognition. The particular vehicle is a much-studied, but still widely debated phenomenon seen in 7–12 month-old-infants. In Piaget's classic “A-not-B error,” infants who have successfully uncovered a toy at location “A” continue to reach to that location even after they watch the toy hidden in a nearby location “B.” Here, we question the traditional explanations of the error as an indicator of infants' concepts of objects (...) or other static mental structures. Instead, we demonstrate that the A-not-B error and its previously puzzling contextual variations can be understood by the coupled dynamics of the ordinary processes of goal-directed actions: looking, planning, reaching, and remembering. We offer a formal dynamic theory and model based on cognitive embodiment that both simulates the known A-not-B effects and offers novel predictions that match new experimental results. The demonstration supports an embodied view by casting the mental events involved in perception, planning, deciding, and remembering in the same analogic dynamic language as that used to describe bodily movement, so that they may be continuously meshed. We maintain that this mesh is a pre-eminently cognitive act of “knowing” not only in infancy but also in everyday activities throughout the life span. Key Words: cognitive development; dynamical systems theory; embodied cognition; infant development; motor control; motor planning; perception and action. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate how the dynamic nature of words’ meanings plays a role in a philosophical theory of meaning. For ‘dynamic nature’ we intend the characteristic of being flexible, of changing according to many factors (speakers, contexts, and more). We consider meaning as something that gradually takes shape from the dynamic processes of communication. Accordingly, we present a draft of a theory of meaning that, on the one hand, describes how a private meaning is formed as a (...) class='Hi'>mental state of individual agents during a lifetime of experiences, and, on the other hand, shows how a public meaning emerges from the interaction of agents. When communicating with each other, agents need to converge on a shared meaning of the words used, by means of a negotiation process. A public meaning is the abstract product of many of these processes while, at the same time, the private meanings are continually reshaped by each negotiation. Exploring this dynamics, we have been looking at the work done by computer scientists dealing with problems of heterogeneity of sources of information. We argue that a suitable solution for both disciplines lies in a systematic characterization of the processes of meaning negotiation. (shrink)

“Force dynamics” refers to a previously neglected semantic category—how entities interact with respect to force. This category includes such concepts as: the exertion of force, resistance to such exertion and the overcoming of such resistance, blockage of a force and the removal of such blockage, and so forth. Force dynamics is a generalization over the traditional linguistic notion of “causative”: it analyzes “causing” into finer primitives and sets it naturally within a framework that also includes “letting,”“hindering,”“helping,” and still (...) further notions. Force dynamics, moreover, appears to be the semantic category that uniquely characterizes the grammatical category of modals, in both their basic and epistemic usages. In addition, on the basis of force dynamic parameters, numerous lexical items fall into systematic semantic patterns, and there exhibit parallelisms between physical and psychosocial reference. Further, from research on the relation of semantic structure to general cognitive structure, it appears that the concepts of force interaction that are encoded within language closely parallel concepts that appear both in early science and in naive physics and psychology. Overall, force dynamics thus emerges as a fundamental notional system that structures conceptual material pertaining to force interaction in a common way across a linguistic range: the physical, psychological, social, inferential, discourse, and mental‐model domains of reference and conception. (shrink)

Abstract“Force dynamics” refers to a previously neglected semantic category—how entities interact with respect to force. This category includes such concepts as: the exertion of force, resistance to such exertion and the overcoming of such resistance, blockage of a force and the removal of such blockage, and so forth. Force dynamics is a generalization over the traditional linguistic notion of “causative”: it analyzes “causing” into finer primitives and sets it naturally within a framework that also includes “letting,”“hindering,”“helping,” and still (...) further notions. Force dynamics, moreover, appears to be the semantic category that uniquely characterizes the grammatical category of modals, in both their basic and epistemic usages. In addition, on the basis of force dynamic parameters, numerous lexical items fall into systematic semantic patterns, and there exhibit parallelisms between physical and psychosocial reference. Further, from research on the relation of semantic structure to general cognitive structure, it appears that the concepts of force interaction that are encoded within language closely parallel concepts that appear both in early science and in naive physics and psychology. Overall, force dynamics thus emerges as a fundamental notional system that structures conceptual material pertaining to force interaction in a common way across a linguistic range: the physical, psychological, social, inferential, discourse, and mental-model domains of reference and conception. (shrink)

François Récanati has pioneered the 'mental file' framework for thinking about concepts and how we refer to the world in thought and language. He now explores what happens to mental files in a dynamic setting: Recanati argues that communication involves interpersonal dynamic files.

Two widely accepted assumptions within cognitive science are that (1) the goal is to understand the mechanisms responsible for cognitive performances and (2) computational modeling is a major tool for understanding these mechanisms. The particular approaches to computational modeling adopted in cognitive science, moreover, have significantly affected the way in which cognitive mechanisms are understood. Unable to employ some of the more common methods for conducting research on mechanisms, cognitive scientists’ guiding ideas about mechanism have developed in conjunction with their (...) styles of modeling. In particular, mental operations often are conceptualized as comparable to the processes employed in classical symbolic AI or neural network models. These models, in turn, have been interpreted by some as themselves intelligent systems since they employ the same type of operations as does the mind. For this paper, what is significant about these approaches to modeling is that they are constructed specifically to account for behavior and are evaluated by how well they do so—not by independent evidence that they describe actual operations in mental mechanisms. (shrink)

Mental Spaces is the classic introduction to the study of mental spaces and conceptual projection, as revealed through the structure and use of language. It examines in detail the dynamic construction of connected domains as discourse unfolds. The discovery of mental space organization has modified our conception of language and thought: powerful and uniform accounts of superficially disparate phenomena have become available in the areas of reference, presupposition projection, counterfactual and analogical reasoning, metaphor and metonymy, and time (...) and aspect in discourse. The present work lays the foundation for this research. It uncovers simple and general principles that lie behind the awesome complexity of everyday logic. (shrink)

Cognitive neuroscientists are turning to an increasingly rich array of neurodynamical systems to explain mental phenomena. In these explanations, cognitive capacities are decomposed into a set of functions, each of which is described mathematically, and then these descriptions are mapped on to corresponding mathematical descriptions of the dynamics of neural systems. In this paper, I outline a novel explanatory schema based on these explanations. I then argue that these explanations present a novel type of dynamicism for the philosophy (...) of mind and neuroscience, componential dynamicism, that focuses on the parts of cognitive systems that fill certain functional roles in producing cognitive phenomena. (shrink)

Every manifestation of information, semiosis and meaning we have been able to study experimentally has a physical form. Neglect of their dynamical (energetic) ground tends towards dualism or idealism, leaving the causal basis of semiosis and the causal powers of representations mysterious. Consideration of the necessary physical requirements for the embodiment of semiotic categories imposes a discipline on semiotics required for its integration into the rest of science, especially for the emerging field of biosemiotics, as well as any future extensions (...) to chemistry physics or other realms that might constitute a general, primal semiotics. Without this discipline, or something equally strong, there is a risk of projection of anthropomorphic semiotic terminology onto unsuitable hosts, leading, if unchecked, to the sort of animism that biology in particular has only recently escaped. The problem is suspect whenever teleological notions are used outside of mental or social contexts.1 Although our animistic ancestors may have had a closer rapport with Nature than modern scientists, contemporary scientific explanation requires an understanding of causal structure (Salmon 1984). On the other hand, unless the causal rendition of semiosis can capture full blown cognitive semiosis, it is likely to be too restrictive for the evaluation of primal semiosis in general. (shrink)

The paper presents a new logic for reasoning about the formation of beliefs through perception or through inference in non-omniscient resource-bounded agents. The logic distinguishes the concept of explicit belief from the concept of background knowledge. This distinction is reflected in its formal semantics and axiomatics: we use a non-standard semantics putting together a neighborhood semantics for explicit beliefs and relational semantics for background knowledge, and we have specific axioms in the logic highlighting the relationship between the two concepts. (...) class='Hi'>Mental operations of perceptive type and inferential type, having effects on epistemic states of agents, are primitives in the object language of the logic. At the semantic level, they are modelled as special kinds of model-update operations, in the style of dynamic epistemic logic. Results about axiomatization, decidability and complexity for the logic are given in the paper. (shrink)

Cognitive neuroscientists are turning to an increasingly rich array of neurodynamical systems to explain mental phenomena. In these explanations, cognitive capacities are decomposed into a set of functions, each of which is described mathematically, and then these descriptions are mapped on to corresponding mathematical descriptions of the dynamics of neural systems. In this paper, I outline a novel explanatory schema based on these explanations. I then argue that these explanations present a novel type of dynamicism for the philosophy (...) of mind and neuroscience, componential dynamicism, that focuses on the parts of cognitive systems that fill certain functional roles in producing cognitive phenomena. (shrink)