Abstract
In the bulk of these discussions, I have been attempting to come to terms with a beguiling but, I believe, fundamentally false theory of conduct and cognition; one which, as Haugeland has put it, takes as its ‘guiding inspiration’ the view that a theory of cognition ‘should have the same basic form as the theories that explain sophisticated computer systems’;1 I have also been advancing some methodological and conceptual arguments in support of a sociologically-sensitive alternative to the rule of computationalism in cognitive studies. I am in full agreement with Heil who, in a recent paper on Fodor’s metatheory for cognitive science,2 argues as follows:
we must take care to avoid the error of supposing that descriptions of things done are really indirect descriptions of the mechanisms which get them done. This is where the use of computer models of the activities of persons seems especially pernicious. To coax a computing machine to perform a certain task, we must first say what it is we want done. This requires that we describe in a precise way the performances we have in mind.
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Notes
John Haugeland, ‘Semantic Engines: An Introduction to Mind Design’ in his edited collection, Mind Design (Montgomery, Vermont: Bradford Books, 1981), p. 2.
John Heil, ‘Does Cognitive Psychology Rest on a Mistake?’ Mind, vol. XC, no. 359, July 1981.
Ibid., p. 327.
Haiganoosh Whitaker and Harry Whitaker, ‘Language Disorders’ in Ronald Wardhaugh and H. Douglas Brown (eds), A Survey of Applied Linguistics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977). This paper contains an excellent overview of contemporary work on aphasia from a neurolinguistic point of view.
W.C. Watt, ‘Mentalism in Linguistics 11’, Glossa, vol. 8, 1974, as in Whitaker and Whitaker, ‘Language Disorders’.
Richard Rorty, ‘Epistemology and Psychology’ in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979) p. 255. Rorty seems to endorse this view.
See the important discussion by Kripke in his celebrated essay, ‘Naming and Necessity’ in Donald Davidson and Gilbert Harman (eds), Semantics of Natural Language (Boston: D. Reidel, 1972), especially p. 261ff: ‘They [some philosophers — JC) think that if something belongs to the realm of a priori knowledge, it couldn’t possibly be known empirically. This is just a mistake. Something may belong in the realm of such statements that can be known a priori but still may be known by particular people on the basis of experience.’ I would add that propositions in what I have termed ‘conceptual phenomenology’ may often have the form of synthetic a prioris. For a fuller discussion of the a prioristic character of various ethnomethodological propositions grounded upon real-worldly materials, see my ‘Contingent and A Priori Structures in Sequential Analysis’ in J.M. Atkinson and J.C. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Action (forthcoming).
Jerry Fodor, The Language of Thought (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975), p. 63.
Hilary Putnam, ‘What is Innate and Why: Comments on the Debate (between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky)’ in Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini (ed.), Language and Learning: The Debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1980) p. 294.
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© 1983 Jeff Coulter
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Coulter, J. (1983). Conclusion. In: Rethinking Cognitive Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06706-0_10
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