Two open questions in the reformist agenda of the philosophy of cognitive science

The authors argue for a reformist agenda in cognitive science that retains computational models while incorporating insights from 4E cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive). They advocate liberalizing the computational-representational framework to address classical cognitive science's anti-biologism and radical internalism. The paper examines two open questions: combining mechanistic-computational with dynamical explanations, and revising the notion of representation, particularly in light of Andy Clark's radical predictive processing. The authors are sympathetic to reform but acknowledge its difficulty, focusing on these issues without presenting empirical findings.

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Abstract

In this paper we carve out a reformist agenda within the debate on the foundations of cognitive science, incorporating some important ideas from the 4E cognition literature into the computational-representational framework. We are deeply sympathetic to this reformist program since we think that, despite strong criticism of the concept of computation and the related notion of representation, computational models should still be at the core of the study of mind. At the same time, we recognize the need for a liberalization of the computational and representational framework that can address deep dissatisfaction with the anti-biologism and radical internalism of classical cognitive science. However, reform is a difficult task, so in this article we focus on two open questions within the reformist agenda. The first concerns the possibility of combining mechanistic-computational and dynamical explanations. The second concerns related changes in the notion of representation and its use (with special attention to Andy Clark’s radical predictive processing).