Laura E. Weed
Analytic philosophers and cognitive
scientists have long argued that the mind is a computer-like syntactical
engine, and that all human mental capacities can be described as digital
computational processes. This book presents an alternative, naturalistic
view of human thinking, arguing that computers are merely sophisticated
machines. Computers are only simulating thought when they crunch symbols,
not thinking. Human cognition -semantics, de re reference, indexicals,
meaning and causation - are all rooted in human experience and life. Without
life and experience, these elements of discourse and knowledge refer to
nothing. And without these elements of discourse and knowledge, syntax
is vacant structure, not thinking.
"Weed's book is a sustained
and perceptive deconstruction of the Cartesian outlook, particularly as
it continues to inform - or infect - the materialism that claims to have
left Descartes behind. ... The Structure of Thinking is a powerfully
argued reminder that we are not complex algorithms running on networks
of neurons, we are creatures with a 'point of view'." Philosophy Now,
July/August 2003
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Mental Activity and Computation
- Causation
- Objections and Replies
- Cognitive Science on Kausation Rather Than Causation
- Semantical Causation
- What Objects Are
- The Concept of an Object
- Stalnaker vs. Husserl
- Relation Between X-type & Y-type Thinking Processes
- The Third Man
- Is Platonic Heaven All That Pure?
- Overview and Conclusion
- Bibliography
Laura Weed teaches in the Department
of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the College of Saint Rose.
· ISBN 0-907845-27-4
· Published in January 2003 by Imprint Academic ·
Hardback · 250 pages · $49.90
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.
A
process-oriented account of mind