PPIG: Philosophy, Psychology, and Informatics Group
Presenter: Rob Rupert (University of Colorado Boulder)
Title: Naturalism Meets the New Anti-representationalism
Abstract: Anti-representationalist views have, in recent years, become increasingly popular in philosophy of mind and the philosophy of cognitive science (see the work of Frances Egan, Bill Ramsey, Dan Hutto, Nico Orlandi, and Tony Chemero, among others). In this talk, I argue that mental representations are in good standing and that many negative claims about them rest on a mixture of unmotivated constraints (seemingly delivered a priori) and a failure to attend to the naturalistic vision at the heart of much positive theorizing about mental representation. As bits of naturalistically minded speculation, such theories can (relatively) freely stipulate representational relations and role-specifications, as posits, the value of which is determined by the causal-explanatory work such posits do. I’ll discuss some such work.
Further information
We are a group of researchers from diverse backgrounds in the above-mentioned groups (and beyond) who aim to gain an interdisciplinary yet deep understanding of the threads that bind the human mind and the world. In particular, this seminar series focuses on the nature of cognition, metacognition and social cognition. We’ll be tackling questions such as, what does it mean to think? What does it mean to think about thinking? And, what does it mean to think about one’s own thinking versus thinking about the thinking of other people? Please come along!
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Contact details
PPIG: Philosophy, Psychology, and Informatics Group
Room 1.20, Dugald Stewart Building, 3 Charles Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD