4:2:
On Perceiving Tropes
In this short paper I consider Professor Bence Nanay’s suggestion that representationalism can be supported by the theory of tropes. I argue that from a philosophical point of view such a support is nevertheless not very strong.
Language as a Tool. An Insight From Cognitive Science
In this paper it has been argued that the theory of conceptual maps developed recently by Paul M. Churchland provides support for Wittgenstein’s claim that language is a tool for acting in the world. The role of language is to coordinate and shape the conceptual maps of the members of the given language community, reducing the cross-individual cognitive idiosyncrasies and paving the way for joint cognitive enterprises. Moreover, Churchland’s theory also explains our tendency to speak of language as consisting of concepts which correspond to things we encounter in the world. The puzzle of common sense reference is no longer a puzzle: while at the fundamental level language remains a tool for orchestrating conceptual maps, the fact that the maps encode some communally shared categorization of experience fuels our talk of concepts capturing the essences of things, natural kinds, prototypes, etc.
Salva Phaenomenis. Phenomenological Dimension of Subjectivity in the Frame of the Reductionist Paradigm of the Cognitive Sciences
The paper addresses the family of questions that arose from the field of interactions between phenomenology and the cognitive sciences. On the one hand, apparently partial coextensivity of research domain of phenomenology and the cognitive sciences sets the goal of their cooperation and mutual inspiration. On the other hand, there are some obstacles on the path to achieve this goal: phenomenology and the cognitive sciences have different traditions, they speak different languages, they have adopted different methodological approaches, and last but not least, their prominent exponents exhibits different styles of thinking. In order to clarify this complicated area of tensions, the paper presents the results of philosophical reflections of such topics as: 1) philosophical presuppositions and postulates of the cognitive sciences 2) abstraction of some phenomena during idealisation and the dialectical model of science`s development 3) argumentation based on prediction of future development of the cognitive sciences. This finally leads to the formulation of a phenomenology-based postulate for adequate model of mind and the discussion of humanistic dimension of cognitive sciences.
Two Types of Visual Objects
While it is widely accepted that human vision represents objects, it is less clear which of the various philosophical notions of ‘object’ adequately characterizes visual objects. In this paper, I show that within contemporary cognitive psychology visual objects are characterized in two distinct, incompatible ways. On the one hand, models of visual organization describe visual objects in terms of combinations of features, in accordance with the philosophical bundle theories of objects. However, models of visual persistence apply a notion of visual objects that is more similar to that endorsed in philosophical substratum theories. Here I discuss arguments that might show either that only one of the above notions of visual objects is adequate in the context of human vision, or that the category of visual objects is not uniform and contains entities properly characterized by different philosophical conceptions.
Are Our Emotions True Cognitions?
The interview given by Ronald Bon de Sousa Pernes (born 1940 in Switzerland), an Emeritus Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Toronto which he joined in 1966.
