The tripartite model of representation
- 1 September 2002
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Informa UK Limited in Philosophical Psychology
- Vol. 15 (3), 239-270
- https://doi.org/10.1080/0951508021000006085
Abstract
Robert Cummins [(1996) Representations, targets and attitudes, Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT, p. 1] has characterized the vexed problem of mental representation as "the topic in the philosophy of mind for some time now." This remark is something of an understatement. The same topic was central to the famous controversy between Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld in the 17th century and remained central to the entire philosophical tradition of "ideas" in the writings of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid and Kant. However, the scholarly, exegetical literature has almost no overlap with that of contemporary cognitive science. I show that the recurrence of certain deep perplexities about the mind is a systematic and pervasive pattern arising not only throughout history, but also in a number of independent domains today such as debates over visual imagery, symbolic systems and others. Such historical and contemporary convergences suggest that the fundamental issues cannot arise essentially from the theoretical guise they take in any particular case.Keywords
This publication has 40 references indexed in Scilit:
- Thinking about thinking: language, thought and introspectionLanguage & Communication, 2002
- Internal and external picturesPhilosophical Psychology, 1999
- Representations and Cognitive Explanations: Assessing the Dynamicist's Challenge in Cognitive ScienceCognitive Science, 1998
- Representation and resemblance: A review essay of Richard A. Watson'srepresentational ideas. From Plato to Patricia ChurchlandPhilosophical Psychology, 1997
- The third contender: A critical examination of the Dynamicist theory of cognitionPhilosophical Psychology, 1996
- Doing without representing?Synthese, 1994
- Man not a subject for science?Social Epistemology, 1990
- SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT MACHIAN POSITIVISM: A REPLY TO FEYERABENDThe British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 1981
- Minds, brains, and programsBehavioral and Brain Sciences, 1980
- Propositional AttitudesMonist, 1978