The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 35, 1998

Philosophy of Mind

Vincenzo P. Lo Monaco
Pages 149-155

La cuestión de la Sistematicidad en el Análisis Computacional de la Mente

Fodor, Pylyshyn and McLaughlin reject connectionism and argue that connectionists are unable to explain systematicity without implementing a classical architecture. In this paper, I contend that the traditionalist conclusion only seems to follow if they are able to sketch a neutral account of systematicity. But in absence of such an explanation, connectionists bear no special burden in this matter. In support of this view, I set out three specific weaknesses: circularity, epistemological insufficiency, and atomism/reductionism, which affect the classical argument of systematicity. I conclude that there may be other ways to accommodate systematicity in a scientific framework, for instance, in the manner of Davidson’s holistic semantics, and indeed connectionist representation is one of these legitimate ways for doing that.