Few areas of study have led to such close and intense interactions among computer scientists, psychologists, and philosophers as the area now referred to as cognitive science. Within this discipline, few problems have inspired as much debate as the use of notions such as meaning, intentionality, or the semantic content of mental states in explaining human behavior. The set of problems surrounding these notions have been viewed by some observers as threatening the foundations of cognitive science as currently conceived, and by others as providing a new and scientifically sound formulation of certain classical problems in the philosophy of mind. The chapters in this volume help bridge the gap among contributing disciplines-computer science, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience-and discuss the problems posed from various perspectives.

The chapters in this book have evolved from talks originally presented at The First International Workshop on Human and Machine Cognition. Although the workshop took place in1989, the papers that appear here are more recent, completed some time after the workshop. They reflect both the spontaneous exchanges in that halcyon setting and the extensive review process.

This book presents a collection of essays on foundational and methodological issues in cognitive science. Topics range from the philosophical problems surrounding intentionality and holism to specific scientific issues concerned with the architecture of systems for problem solving, planning, language processing, vision and visual-motor coordination. The larger theme is cognitive architecture and the twelve chapters show the generality of the problems associated with this theme as it impinges on almost every area of cognitive science and most methodological approaches adopted to date.

The question, "What is Cognitive Science?" is often asked but seldom answered to anyone's satisfaction. Until now, most of the answers have come from the new breed of philosophers of mind. This book, however, is written by a distinguished psychologist and computer scientist who is well-known for his work on the conceptual foundations of cognitive science, and especially for his research on mental imagery, representation, and perception. In Computation and Cognition, Pylyshyn argues that computation must not be viewed as just a convenient metaphor for mental activity, but as a literal empirical hypothesis. Such a view must face a number of serious challenges. For example, it must address the question of "strong equivalents" of processes, and must empirically distinguish between phenomena which reveal what knowledge the organism has, phenomena which reveal properties of the biologically determined "functional architecture" of the mind. The principles and ideas Pylyshyn develops are applied to a number of contentious areas of cognitive science, including theories of vision and mental imagery. In illuminating such timely theoretical problems, he draws on insights from psychology, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, and psychology of mind. A Bradford Book

The chapters in this book have evolved from talks originally presented at The First International Workshop on Human and Machine Cognition. Although the workshop took place in1989, the papers that appear here are more recent, completed some time after the workshop. They reflect both the spontaneous exchanges in that halcyon setting and the extensive review process.

Two prominent thinkers argue for the possibility of a theory of concepts that takes reference to be concepts' sole semantic property. In cognitive science, conceptual content is frequently understood as the "meaning" of a mental representation. This position raises largely empirical questions about what concepts are, what form they take in mental processes, and how they connect to the world they are about. In Minds without Meaning, Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn review some of the proposals put forward to answer these questions and find that none of them is remotely defensible. Fodor and Pylyshyn determine that all of these proposals share a commitment to a two-factor theory of conceptual content, which holds that the content of a concept consists of its sense together with its reference. Fodor and Pylyshyn argue instead that there is no conclusive case against the possibility of a theory of concepts that takes reference as their sole semantic property. Such a theory, if correct, would provide for the naturalistic account of content that cognitive science lacks-and badly needs. Fodor and Pylyshyn offer a sketch of how this theory might be developed into an account of perceptual reference that is broadly compatible with empirical findings and with the view that the mental processes effecting perceptual reference are largely preconceptual, modular, and encapsulated.

This book presents a collection of essays on foundational and methodological issues in cognitive science. Topics range from the philosophical problems surrounding intentionality and holism to specific scientific issues concerned with the architecture of systems for problem solving, planning, language processing, vision and visual-motor coordination. The larger theme is cognitive architecture and the twelve chapters show the generality of the problems associated with this theme as it impinges on almost every area of cognitive science and most methodological approaches adopted to date.