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Embodied Functionalism and Inner Complexity: Simon’s 21st-Century Mind

The second in a series of excerpts from Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon. Robert D. Rupert One can hardly underestimate Herbert Simon’s influence on contemporary cognitive science and empirically oriented philosophy of mind. Working with collaborators at Carnegie Mellon and the Rand Corporation, he wrote Logic Theorist and General Problem…

Jerry Fodor

Obit (of sorts) in LRB but well worth reading his IEP entry. Update: here is the NYT obit. I hate relativism. I hate relativism more than I hate anything else, excepting, maybe, fiberglass powerboats… surely, surely, no one but a relativist would drive a fiberglass powerboat. Cognitive sciencefunctionalismJerry FodorPhilosophy of mindrepresentationalism

Hilary Putnam 1926-2016

It is notable that the so-called “new atheists” never did take on Putnam. Shows how lily-livered they really are, picking on the usual easy targets. Ditto for his critique of scientism. Putnam’s Mind, Language and Reality. Philosophical Papers, vol. 2. remains one of my favorite books. The Guardian obit. Martha Nussbaum on Putnam. EpistemologyethicsfunctionalismHilary PutnamJewish PhilosophymetaphysicsPhilosophy of Languagephilosophy…

Embodied Functionalism and Inner Complexity: Simon’s 21st-Century Mind

The second in a series of excerpts from Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon. Robert D. Rupert One can hardly underestimate Herbert Simon’s influence on contemporary cognitive science and empirically oriented philosophy of mind. Working with collaborators at Carnegie Mellon and the Rand Corporation, he wrote Logic Theorist and General Problem…

Extensive enactivism: why keep it all in?

This open access from Frontiers in Human Neuroscience Radical enactive and embodied approaches to cognitive science oppose the received view in the sciences of the mind in denying that cognition fundamentally involves contentful mental representation. This paper argues that the fate of representationalism in cognitive science matters significantly to how best to understand the extent…

Functionalism and mental boundaries

I’ve decided to dust off some of the papers from a themed issue that I co-edited five years ago since I happen to be very much in “extended mind” mode just now. First up is Larry Shapiro – below is his into; here is his abstract. 1. Introduction Where are minds? For most people the…

Jack Smart

Here’s an obituary by the ever excellent Jane O’Grady. CognitionCognitive neuroscienceconsciousnessDavid ChalmersfunctionalismJ. J. C. Smartjack smartNeurophilosophyneuroscienceNinian SmartPhilosophyPhilosophy of mindPhysicalismType physicalismUtilitarianism