BoBI Brownbag Meeting Friday, October 3

Posted on September 30, 2014

Friday October 3 at noon SR2 401. Our Speaker will be BoBI Faculty member Dr. Anne Jacobson.

Title: Mental/Neural Representations and Enactive Theories of Mind

Abstract: Enactive theories of mind seek to explain human cognition in terms of our bodily engagement with our environment. Its proponents accept a standard interpretation of ‘representation,’ and they oppose any approach to the mind that employs an idea of an inner representation, including cognitive neuroscience. In this talk I will present a new argument which both discredits representations as standardly understood (in philosophy) and makes it implausible to think of them as used in cognitive neuroscience. I will also delineate an alternative notion of representation which is quite compatible with enactivist theories. Finally, I will argue that combining cognitive neuroscience with some of the insights of enactivist theories IS A VERY GOOD THING.”