Mechanism is not enough

Bickhard, Mark H.

doi:10.1075/pc.15.3.10bic

Article published In: Mechanicism and Autonomy: What Can Robotics Teach Us About Human Cognition and Action?
Edited by Maria Eunice Quilici Gonzalez, Willem F.G. Haselager and Itiel E. Dror
[Pragmatics & Cognition 15:3] 2007
► pp. 573–585

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Mechanism is not enough

Mark H. Bickhard | Lehigh University

Published online: 13 December 2007

https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.15.3.10bic

I will argue that mechanism is not sufficient to capture representation, thus cognition. More generally, mechanism is not sufficient to capture normativity of any sort. I will also outline a model of emergent normativity, representational normativity in particular, and show how it transcends these limitations of mechanism. To begin, I will address some illustrative attempts to model representation within mechanistically naturalistic frameworks, first rather generally, and then in the cases of the models of Fodor and Millikan.

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