Existential Cognition: Computational Minds in the World

By Ron McClamrock

While the notion of the mind as information-processor--a kind of computational system--is widely accepted, many scientists and philosophers have assumed that this account of cognition shows that the mind's operations are characterizable independent of their relationship to the external world. Existential Cognition challenges the internalist view of mind, arguing that intelligence, thought, and action cannot be understood in isolation, but only in interaction with the outside world.

Arguing that the mind is essentially embedded in the external world, Ron McClamrock provides a schema that allows cognitive scientists to address such long-standing problems in artificial intelligence as the "frame" problem and the issue of "bounded" rationality. Extending this schema to cover progress in other studies of behavior, including language, vision, and action, McClamrock reinterprets the importance of the organism/environment distinction. McClamrock also considers the broader philosophical question of the place of mind in the world, particularly with regard to questions of intentionality, subjectivity, and phenomenology.

With implications for philosophy, cognitive and computer science, AI, and psychology, this book synthesizes state-of-the-art work in philosophy and cognitive science on how the mind interacts with the world to produce thoughts, ideas, and actions.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226556417
• ISBN13: 9780226556413
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Real Externalism

This is a very good book. It argues for externalism in the philosophy of mind in a clear and convincing way. Unlike most arguments for externalism that depend heavily on intuitions about language or various thought-experiments, McClamrock does the work of grounding his agruments in real science and actual cases. Anyone tempted by Kim-style a priori arguments about the mind should especially read the book and hopefully see what one can do when one engages w/ real cases. The only thing keeping me from giving the book 5 stars is that I wish some of the cases and arguments were pushed a bit further, but it's still and excellent book, and one that anyone interested in externalism and the philosophy of mind should read.