In explaining aspects of the natural world, including the aspects of mind, scientists have frequently used the concept of function. But what are functions? Here, 15 leading scholars of philosophy of psychology and philosophy of biology present new essays on functions.
In explaining aspects of the natural world, including the aspects of mind, scientists have frequently used the concept of function. But what are funct...
The World in the Head collects the best of Robert Cummins' papers on mental representation and psychological explanation. Running through these papers are a pair of themes: that explaining the mind requires functional analysis, not subsumption under "psychological laws," and that the propositional attitudes--belief, desire, intention--and their interactions, while real, are not the key to understanding the mind at a fundamental level. Taking these ideas seriously puts considerable strain on standard conceptions of rationality and reasoning, on truth-conditional semantics, and on our...
The World in the Head collects the best of Robert Cummins' papers on mental representation and psychological explanation. Running through these papers...