Cognitive Penetrability, Rationality and Restricted Simulation

Mind and Language 12 (3-4):297-326 (1997)
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Abstract

Heal (1996a) maintains that evidence of cognitive penetrability doesn't determine whether stimulation theory or theory theory wins. Given the wide variety of mechanisms and processes that get called ‘simulation’, we argue that it's not useful to ask‘who wins?’. The label ‘simulation’picks out no natural or theoretically interesting category. We propose a more fine‐grained taxonomy and argue that some processes that have been labelled ‘simulation’, eg.,‘actual‐situation‐simulation’, clearly do exist, while other processes labelled ‘simulation’, e.g., ‘pretence‐driven‐off‐line‐simulation’are quite controversial. We do concede that evidence of cognitive penetrability isn't decisive evidence against pretence‐driven‐off‐line‐simulation. Nonetheless, advocates of pretence‐driven‐off‐line‐simulation need to provide some explanation of the experimental evidence of penetrability. We argue that Heal's suggestion that simulation is restricted to‘rational’processes is unprincipled, and we offer an alternative proposal for restricted simulation.

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Author Profiles

Stephen Stich
Rutgers - New Brunswick
Shaun Nichols
Cornell University

References found in this work

Epistemology and cognition.Alvin I. Goldman - 1986 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Change in View: Principles of Reasoning.Gilbert Harman - 1986 - Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
Can human irrationality be experimentally demonstrated?L. Jonathan Cohen - 1981 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4 (3):317-370.
Change in View: Principles of Reasoning.Gilbert Harman - 1986 - Studia Logica 48 (2):260-261.

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