Foundations of Cognitive Science: The Essential Readings

Cognitive Science is an exciting new frontier in which four previously distinct fields of' study converge: cognitive psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and the philosophy of mind. As with any young discipline, cognitive science is still characterized by open debate on issues of theory and methodology. In Foundations of Cognitive Science: The Essential Readings, Jay L. Garfield has collected the perspectives of major contemporary philosophers on such key foundational disputes as the structure of psychological theory, the nature of language, and the existence of mental representations. These now classic pieces introduce students to the five central themes of cognitive science, which are critical distinctions, computation theory, artificial intelligence, human intelligence, and the new frontiers.

Intended as a reader in the philosophical foundations of cognitive science, this book is structured to corroborate with James Fetzer's text, The Philosophy and Cognitive Science. The essays collected here present alternative and sometimes conflicting positions on the issues raised in that text. The host of essay writers include Pylyshyn, Lucas, Fodor, and Chomsky. Each section opens with an essay explaining the principal questions addressed, the importance of these questions in the philosophical foundations of cognitive science, and the range of positions taken with respect to them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
Jay L. Garfield

PART I. CRITICAL DISTINCTIONS
1. Convention, Context, and Meaning: Conditions on Natural Language Understanding
Jay L. Garfield
2. Computation and Cognition: Issues in the Foundations of Cognitive Science
Zenon W. Pylyshyn
3. Epistemics: The Regulative Theory of Cognition
Alvin I. Goldman
4. Three Kinds of Intentional Psychology
Daniel Dennett

PART II. COMPUTATION THEORY IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE
1. Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry: Symbols and Search
Allan Newell and Herbert A. Simon
2. The Four-Color Problem and Its Philosophical Significance
Thomas Tymoczko
3. Lucas’ Number Is Finally Up
G. Lee Bowie
4. Why I Am Not a Turing Machine: Gödel’s Theorems and the Philosophy of Mind
Thomas Tymoczko

PART III. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
1. Minds, Brains, and Programs
John R. Searle
2. Selected Replies to Searle from Behavioral and Brain Science
Bruce Bridgeman, Daniel Dennett, Jerry A. Fodor, John Haugeland,
Douglas Hofstadter, William G. Lycan, and Zenon W. Pylyshyn
3. Modules, Frames, Fridgeons, Sleeping Dogs, and the Music of the Spheres
Jerry A. Fodor
4. Artificial Intelligence as Philosophy and as Psychology
Daniel Dennett

PART IV. HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
1. Ecological Optics
J. J. Gibson
2. How Direct Is Visual Perception? Some Reflections on Gibson’s “Ecological Approach”
Jerry A. Fodor and Zenon W. Pylyshyn
3. Grammar, Psychology, and Indeterminacy
Stephen Stich
4. What the Linguist Is Talking About
Noam Chomsky and Jerrold Katz

PART V. NEW FRONTIERS
1. $RESTAURANT Revisited or “Lunch With BORIS”
Michael G. Dyer
2. The Role of TAUs in Narratives
Michael G. Dyer
3. Moving the Semantic Fulcrum
Terry Winograd
4. An Introduction to Connectionism
John L. Tienson
5. Understanding Natural Language
John Haugeland
References
Index

JAY L. GARFIELD is a professor of philosophy in the School of Communications and Cognitive Science at Hampshire College. He is also a member of the core faculty at the University of Massachusetts Cognitive Science Institute. His previous books include Belief in Psychology: A Study in the Ontology of Mind, Cognitive Science: An Introduction, and Meaning and Truth: The Essential Readings in Modern Semantics.