this paper we investigate the claim that complex causal interactions cause trouble for the notion of inner representational vehicles. We review some of the cases supposed to put pressure on a representational-vehicle based understanding and conclude that the threat, even in these ongoing, interactive cases, is more apparent than real. The main contribution of the present paper, however, is to go beyond this negative thesis

Nearly all listeners consider the subjective aspects of music, such as its emotional tone, to have primary importance. But contemporary philosophers often downplay, ignore, or even deny such aspects of experience. Moreover, traditional philosophies of music try to decontextualize it. Using music as an example, this paper explores the structure of qualitative experience, demonstrating that it is multi-layer emergent, non-compositional, enacted, and situation dependent, among other non-Cartesian properties.

We discuss the nature of cognitive representations and present a scheme for the encoding of information which accounts for both categorical and graded aspects of cognitive events. Accordingly, object categories are mapped onto the identity of cell populations via the process of categorical perception, while graded aspects such as vividness and con dence level are mapped onto the rate and degree of synchrony of neural populations. We show that the process of categorical perception can solve the problem of reference of perceptual-cognitive states, and we demonstrate by computer simulation models that synchrony can encode for grouping and binding of coherent information. In these models, recurrent connections play a major role in generating synchronised activity in cell populations which receive consistent sensory stimulation, and in generating temporal uctuations in their discharge rate. We suggest that such uctuations underlie autonomous computations re ecting uctuations in the certainty (con dence level) of perceptual and cognitive hypothesis.

Crane, this was a readable introduction, overview and rationale for approaching the philosophy of mind from a particular outlook. Specifically, it identified and defended the core and foundational assumptions that inform mainstream analytic philosophy of mind. The book advanced a kind of ‘ideological argument ’ in that its author recognized that attraction to its central idea “depends on accepting a certain picture of the world; the mechanical/causal world picture. This picture sees the whole of nature as obeying certain general causal laws – the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. – and it holds that psychology too has its laws, and that the mind fits into the causal order ” (Crane 1995, p. 62). Endorsement of causalism about the mind lay at the heart of this view. Thus Crane acknowledged, “the causal picture of thought is the key element in what I am calling the ‘mechanical ’ view of the mind ” (Crane 1995, p. 58). Mental life is, accordingly, not merely expressed or made manifest in what certain living creatures do; rather to adopt the kind of causalist understanding of the mind (that is today widely accepted) is to think of mental states as productive. They do the behind the scenes toil

The word “concept ” is used in various ways; its sense is sometimes psychological, sometimes logical, and sometimes perhaps a confused mixture of both. (Gottlob Frege 1892a, p. 42) What is a concept? Philosophers have given many different answers to this question, reflecting a wide variety of approaches to the study of mind and language. Nonetheless, at the most general level, there are two dominant frameworks in contemporary philosophy. One proposes that concepts objects. This paperlooks at the differences between these two approaches, the prospects for combining them, and the issues that are involved in the dispute. We argue that powerful motivations have been offered in support of both frameworks. This suggests the possibility of combining the two. Unlike Frege, we hold that the resulting position is perfectly coherent and well worth considering. Nonetheless, we argue that it should be rejected along with the view that concepts are abstract objects—the two have a shared failing—and that the mental representation framework is to be preferred. Here is how we proceed. In sections 1 and 2, we introduce the two frameworks and briefly review their supporting motivations. Next, in section 3 we show how mental representations and abstract objects can be combined into a unified theory of concepts—what we call the Mixed View. Much of the rest