Phenomena and Mechanisms: Putting the Symbolic, Connectionist, and Dynamical Systems Debate in Broader Perspective Export

@misc{citeulike:6080386, abstract = {Cognitive science is, more than anything else, a pursuit of cognitive mechanisms. To make headway towards a mechanistic account of any particular cognitive phenomenon, a researcher must choose among the many architectures available to guide and constrain the account. It is thus fitting that this volume on contemporary debates in cognitive science includes two issues of architecture, each articulated in the 1980s but still unresolved: • Just how modular is the mind? (section 1) – a debate initially pitting encapsulated mechanisms (Fodorian modules that feed their ultimate outputs to a nonmodular central cognition) against highly interactive ones (e.g., connectionist networks that continuously feed streams of output to one another). • Does the mind process language-like representations according to formal rules? (this section) – a debate initially pitting symbolic architectures (such as Chomsky's generative grammar or Fodor's language of thought) against less language-like architectures (such as connectionist or dynamical ones). Our project here is to consider the second issue within the broader context of where cognitive science has been and where it is headed. The notion that cognition in general—not just language}, author = {Bechtel, William and Abrahamsen, Adele}, citeulike-article-id = {6080386}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.110.6986}, keywords = {connectionism, dynamics}, posted-at = {2009-11-06 10:19:49}, priority = {2}, title = {Phenomena and Mechanisms: Putting the Symbolic, Connectionist, and Dynamical Systems Debate in Broader Perspective}, url = {http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.110.6986} }

TY - ELEC ID - citeulike:6080386 L3 - citeulike-article-id:6080386 N2 - Cognitive science is, more than anything else, a pursuit of cognitive mechanisms. To make headway towards a mechanistic account of any particular cognitive phenomenon, a researcher must choose among the many architectures available to guide and constrain the account. It is thus fitting that this volume on contemporary debates in cognitive science includes two issues of architecture, each articulated in the 1980s but still unresolved: • Just how modular is the mind? (section 1) – a debate initially pitting encapsulated mechanisms (Fodorian modules that feed their ultimate outputs to a nonmodular central cognition) against highly interactive ones (e.g., connectionist networks that continuously feed streams of output to one another). • Does the mind process language-like representations according to formal rules? (this section) – a debate initially pitting symbolic architectures (such as Chomsky’s generative grammar or Fodor’s language of thought) against less language-like architectures (such as connectionist or dynamical ones). Our project here is to consider the second issue within the broader context of where cognitive science has been and where it is headed. The notion that cognition in general—not just language TI - Phenomena and Mechanisms: Putting the Symbolic, Connectionist, and Dynamical Systems Debate in Broader Perspective KW - connectionism KW - dynamics AU - Bechtel, William AU - Abrahamsen, Adele UR - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.110.6986 ER -