The representational theory of mind and common sense psychology

Autores

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18012/arf.v8iesp.60021

Palavras-chave:

Mental representations, psychological explanations, behaviorism, Wittgenstein

Resumo

The goal of this paper is to present some advantages of the representational and computational theories of mind when compared to other views, especially behaviorism. The idea is that representational and computational theories allow us to conceive propositional attitudes (mental states such as beliefs and desires) in a way that preserves two essential features we take them to have in common sense psychological explanations: semantic evaluability and causal efficacy. Behaviorism reconceives mental states in a way that doesn’t preserve these essential features. In so doing, it makes a mystery of the success of common sense psychology. I illustrate some of the difficulties that behaviorism faces by considering and criticizing Wittgenstein’s approach to linguistic understanding. The upshot is that representational and computational theories of mind do a better job at vindicating common sense psychology, and so are to be preferred when compared to behaviorism.

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Biografia do Autor

Raquel Krempel, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brasil

Pesquisadora de Pós-­doutorado em Filosofia ­ Unifesp/FAPESP.

Referências

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Arquivos adicionais

Publicado

2021-07-01

Como Citar

Krempel, R. (2021). The representational theory of mind and common sense psychology. Aufklärung: Journal of Philosophy, 8(esp), p.71–86. https://doi.org/10.18012/arf.v8iesp.60021