Bielecka, Krystyna and Miłkowski, Marcin (2024) Representationalism and Rationality: Why Mental Representation is Real. [Preprint]
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Abstract
This paper presents an argument for the realism about mechanisms, contents, and vehicles of mental representation at both the personal and subpersonal levels, and showcases its role in instrumental rationality and proper cognitive functioning. By demonstrating how misrepresentation is necessary for learning from mistakes and explaining certain failures of action, we argue that fallible rational agents must have mental representations with causally relevant vehicles of content. Our argument contributes to ongoing discussions in philosophy of mind and cognitive science by challenging anti-realist views about the nature of mental representation, and by highlighting the importance of understanding how different agents can misrepresent in pursuit of their goals. While there are potential rebuttals to our claim, our opponents must explain how agents can be rational without having mental representations. This is because mental representation is grounded in rationality.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | |||||||||
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| Additional Information: | forthcoming in Synthese | |||||||||
| Keywords: | mental representation; anti-representationalism; subpersonal representation; misrepresentation; aboutness; instrumental rationality; vehicles of content; learning from mistakes | |||||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations Specific Sciences > Psychology General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Marcin Miłkowski | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 05 May 2024 08:42 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 05 May 2024 08:42 | |||||||||
| Item ID: | 23361 | |||||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations Specific Sciences > Psychology General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism |
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| Date: | 24 February 2024 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23361 |
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