Structural representation and the two problems of content

A promising strategy for defending the role that representation plays in explanations of cognition frames the concept in terms of internal models or map‐like mechanisms. “Structural representation” offers an account of representation that is grounded in well‐specified, empirical criteria. However, a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mind & language 2019-11, Vol.34 (5), p.606-626
Main Author: Lee, Jonny
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cognition
Cognitive science
content
eliminativism
mechanism
representation
Semantics
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Summary:A promising strategy for defending the role that representation plays in explanations of cognition frames the concept in terms of internal models or map‐like mechanisms. “Structural representation” offers an account of representation that is grounded in well‐specified, empirical criteria. However, anti‐representationalists continue to press the issue of how to account for the paradigmatic semantic properties of representation at the subpersonal level. In this paper, I offer an account of how the proponent of structural representation should think about content. There are really two problems of content any account of representation must overcome: the “hard problem of content” and the “content determination problem.” I argue that the structural representation account has the resources to provide a naturalistically respectable notion of content that overcomes both problems.
ISSN:0268-1064
1468-0017
DOI:10.1111/mila.12224