Greg Detre
7/02/02
Campbell, Weiskrantz room
realism vs instrumentalism about representation
instrumentalism � �useful fiction�, e.g. Ptolemaic astronomy (perfect circle orbits)
Quine�s instrumentalism � fitting (true description) + guiding (cause + effect, behaver knows the rule)
Chomsky thinks of grammar without �right + wrong� but we aren't conscious of grammar, so how can we be guided by it?
Quine: can't choose between extensionally equivalent systems (dispositions to behave in observable ways in observable circumstances)
- grammar as useful fiction
instrumentalism about: input systems + central systems
predictive vs causal explanation
What does it take to sustain realism against instrumentalism?
convincing account of the physical implementation of the representations
i.e.� a story about the mechanism by which the law is implemented (as well as predictive power)
Fodor�s arguments from LOTH
methodological
psychological processes
productivity
systematicity
deductive inference
language + thought � combinatorial semantics = systematicity
ability to understand some sentences is intrinsically connected to the ability to understand many of the others
this is integral to the notion of a vocabulary
systematicity requires combinatorial semantics, and combinatorial semantics requires constituent structure
are there human input systems (or animal) that doesn�t exhibit systematicity - not sure?
primitive processor � for which the question �how does it work?� is not an issue for cognitive science
what is an �input system�???
Dennett instrumentalism vs Davidson action under description???
I very quickly � propositions that I can understand � anti-productivity
explaining vs containing a concept???