Miscellaneous Readings
in Cognitive Science

On Computationalism

1. Newell, Allen; & Simon, Herbert A. (1961), "Computer Simulation of Human Thinking", Science 134(3495) (22 December): 2011-2017.
   • A very clear, early statement of the value of computational studies of human cognition.

2. Newell, Allen, & Simon, Herbert A. (1976), "Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry: Symbols and Search", Communications of the ACM 19(3) (March): 113-126.

3. Gigerenzer, Gerd; & Goldstein, Daniel G. (1996), "Mind as Computer: Birth of a Metaphor", Creativity Research Journal 9(2-3): 131-144.

4. Rapaport, William J. (1998), "How Minds Can Be Computational Systems", Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 10: 403-419.

   Abstract: The proper treatment of computationalism, as the thesis that cognition is computable, is presented and defended. Some arguments of James H. Fetzer against computationalism are examined and found wanting, and his positive theory of minds as semiotic systems is shown to be consistent with computationalism. An objection is raised to an argument of Selmer Bringsjord against one strand of computationalism, viz., that Turing-Test-passing artifacts are persons; it is argued that, whether or not this objection holds, such artifacts will inevitably be persons.

   • If you read this paper for CSE 575, you only need to read §1. (The remaining sections were commentaries on other papers in that issue of JETAI and might be incomprehensible without reading them :-)

5. Dietrich, Eric (2000), "Cognitive Science and the Mechanistic Forces of Darkness, or Why the Computational Science of Mind Suffers the Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune", Techne: Journal of the Society for Philosophy and Technology 5(2).

6. Anderson, John R. (2007), How Can the Human Mind Occur in the Physical Universe? (New York: Oxford University Press).
   • The latest description of Anderson's ACT-R theory of cognitive architecture, showing how closely it models the human brain.

   • The title of his book is taken from a lecture by Allen Newell. I believe that the question posed in the title is equivalent to the question I propose as the fundamental question of cognitive science: How is cognition possible?

On Situated Cognition

1. Clancey, William J. (1997) Situated Cognition: On Human Knowledge and Computer Representations (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).
   See also:
   • Clancey, William J. (forthcoming), "Scientific Antecedents of Situated Cognition", in Philip Robbins & Murat Aydede (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (New York: Cambridge University Press).

On the Intentional Stance

1. Dennett, Daniel C. (1971), "Intentional Systems", Journal of Philosophy 68: 87-106; reprinted in Daniel C. Dennett, Brainstorms (Montgomery, VT: Bradford Books): 3-22.

On the Representational Theory of Mind and the Language of Thought

1. Fodor, Jerry A. (1975), The Language of Thought (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell).
   • "The Language of Thought: First Approximations", reprinted from Cummins, Robert; & Cummins, Denise Dellarosa (eds.) (2000), Minds, Brains, and Computers: The Foundations of Cognitive Science, an Anthology (Malden, MA: Blackwell): 51-68.
   • 
     See also:
     Sprevak, Mark (2019), Review of Susan Schneider, The Language of Thought: A New Philosophical Direction (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), in Mind 128(510) (April): 555-564.
     

2. Fodor, Jerry A. (1980), "Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research Strategy in Cognitive Psychology", Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 63-109.

On Dynamical Cognitive Science

1. van Gelder, Timothy J. (1998), "The Dynamical Hypothesis in Cognitive Science", Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21: 1-14.

On Philosophy of Cognitive Science

• Chemero, Anthony; & Silberstein, Michael (2008), "After the Philosophy of Mind: Replacing Scholasticism with Science", Philosophy of Science 75 (January): 1–27.
  • Despite its title, a nicely organized overview of philosophical issues in cognitive science.