{"title":"Representational Kinds","authors":"Joulia Smortchkova, Michael Murez","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190686673.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190686673.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Many debates in philosophy of mind and cognitive science focus on whether folk or scientific psychological notions pick out cognitive natural kinds. Examples include memory, emotions, and concepts. A potentially interesting type of kind is kinds of mental representations (as opposed, for example, to kinds of psychological faculties). This chapter outlines a proposal for a theory of representational kinds in cognitive science. It argues that the explanatory role of representational kinds in scientific theories, in conjunction with a mainstream approach to explanation in cognitive science, suggests that representational kinds are multilevel. This is to say that representational kinds’ properties cluster at different levels of explanation and allow for intra- and interlevel projections.","PeriodicalId":149645,"journal":{"name":"What are Mental Representations?","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115368255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reifying Representations","authors":"M. Rescorla","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190686673.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190686673.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The representational theory of mind (RTM) holds that the mind is stocked with mental representations: mental items that represent. They can be stored in memory, manipulated during mental activity, and combined to form complex representations. RTM is widely presupposed within cognitive science, which offers many successful theories that cite mental representations. Nevertheless, mental representations are still viewed warily in some scientific and philosophical circles. This chapter develops a novel version of RTM: the capacities-based representational theory of mind (C-RTM). According to C-RTM, a mental representation is an abstract type that marks the exercise of a representational capacity. Talk about mental representations embodies an ontologically loaded way of classifying mental states through representational capacities that the states deploy. Complex mental representations mark the appropriate joint exercise of multiple representational capacities. The chapter supports C-RTM with examples drawn from cognitive science, including perceptual representations and cognitive maps, and applies C-RTM to long-standing debates over the existence, nature, individuation, structure, and explanatory role of mental representations.","PeriodicalId":149645,"journal":{"name":"What are Mental Representations?","volume":"194 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133567118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}