Representations are about things other than themselves and are intentional in the sense of being about ‘this’ or ‘that’. Because the mental representations have content, which is related to belief, intention, thought, and action, they are also intentional in the sense of being purposive. Now we may ask: What is it that distinguishes items that serve as representations from other objects or events? And what distinguishes the various kinds of symbols from one another? As for the first question, there has been general agreement that the basic notion of a representation involves things like ‘standing for’, ‘being about’, ‘referring to’, and ‘un denoting’ something else. Some theorists have maintained that it is only the use of symbols that exhibits or indicates the presence of mind and mental states. Mental representation, like beliefs and thoughts, constitutes the broad domain of cognitive science. They explain how cognition takes place in the human mind. Cognitive science (including cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology) has brought about a cognitive revolution in the study of mind. Here, we can undertake two important developments in cognitive science. One is the representational theory of mind. For, to accept the representational theory of mind is to accept that mental representations are very much like the inter representational states of a digital computer. The other is the adoption of a computational model of mind or computational theory of mind.
In turn, two questions have to be answered in this connection: What kinds of representational systems are employed in cognition? What is machine intelligence or artificial intelligent? Fodor has answered these questions in his computational representational theory of mind (CRTM in short). The computational representational theory of mind makes a strong assumption about mental processes: Mental processes are computational processes, i.e., formal operations defined over symbols. In Fodor’s view, “computational processes are both symbolic and formal. They are symbolic because they are defined over representations, and they are formal because they apply to representations in virtue of (roughly) the syntax of the representations.”[i] The theory purports to offer a solution to the problem raised by the compositionality of propositional attitudes like beliefs, thoughts, etc.; secondly, it proposes to vindicate the strong reading of the intentional realist casual thesis regarding the mental phenomena. Again, it may be noted that the CRTM is consequently based on two fundamental assumptions; the first is Fodors’ Language of Thought (LoT) hypothesis, and the second is the view that psychological explanation that is both intentional and nomological.
[i] Fodor, J. A., Representations: Philosophical Essay on the Foundation of Cognitive Science, The Harvester University Press, Sussex, 1981, p.226.
In my opinion, there does not exist a dilemma per se. intentional realism is his attempt at formalism or even axiomatic definition to provide some context for continued research. Representation within many related fields has been studied, as you know, remarkably well. I found good definitions in Polyna’s and Kahana’s work if I remember the names correctly. Physics also has interesting definitions for the nuances between presentation and representation. I explored those definitions in my dissertation years ago as well. hope this helps some.
In my opinion, there does not exist a dilemma per se. intentional realism is his attempt at formalism or even axiomatic definition to provide some context for continued research. Representation within many related fields has been studied, as you know, remarkably well. I found good definitions in Polyna’s and Kahana’s work if I remember the names correctly. Physics also has interesting definitions for the nuances between presentation and representation. I explored those definitions in my dissertation years ago as well. hope this helps some.
In my opinion, there does not exist a dilemma per se. intentional realism is his attempt at formalism or even axiomatic definition to provide some context for continued research. Representation within many related fields has been studied, as you know, remarkably well. I found good definitions in Polyna’s and Kahana’s work if I remember the names correctly. Physics also has interesting definitions for the nuances between presentation and representation. I explored those definitions in my dissertation years ago as well. hope this helps some.
Thank you. But this work on representation is about mind and Jerry Fodor is trying analyse this representation from mechanistic perspectives. Now the question is: Is mind subject to mechanistic laws? If yes how?
You asked “Is there any dilemma on Fodor's theory representation and intentional realism?” unrelated to any specific work? To help with better context What is the end goal of your questions? What overall hypothesis are you exploring with your questions? I also suggest, if you haven’t read it, Fodor’s Mind and body https://www.jstor.org/stable/24964264, seems to talk to your follow up question and linkages. Do you believe mind is separate and distinct from mechanistic processes or inexplicably linked? Trying to understand your overall objective of the dialog. Polyn and kahanas work is physical representation research within the brain. Another good reference is Article Memory search and the neural representation of context
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