Plato's camera : how the physical brain captures a landscape of abstract universals / Paul M. Churchland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Churchland, Paul M., 1942-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Philosophy of mind.

Universals (Philosophy).

Cognitive neuroscience--Philosophy.

Cognitive neuroscience.

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

x, 289 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, [2012]

Contents:

1 Introduction: A Fast Overview 1

1 Some Parallels and Contrasts with Kant 1

2 Representations in the Brain: Ephemeral versus Enduring 4

3 Individual Learning: Slow and Structural 11

4 Individual Learning: Fast and Dynamical 16

5 Collective Learning and Cultural Transmission 25

6 Knowledge: Is It True, Justified Belief? 30

2 First-Level Learning, Part 1: Structural Changes in the Brain and the Development of Lasting Conceptual Frameworks 35

1 The Basic Organization of the Information-Processing Brain 35

2 Some Lessons from Artificial Neural Networks 38

3 Motor Coordination 45

4 More on Colors: Constancy and Compression 50

5 More on Faces: Vector Completion, Abduction, and the Capacity for 'Globally Sensitive Inference' 62

6 Neurosemantics: How the Brain Represents the World 74

7 How the Brain Does Not Represent: First-Order Resemblance 78

8 How the Brain Does Not Represent: Indicator Semantics 90

9 On the Identity/Similarity of Conceptual Frameworks across Distinct Individuals 104

3 First-Level Learning, Part 2: On the Evaluation of Maps and Their Generation by Hebbian Learning 123

1 On the Evaluation of Conceptual Frameworks: A First Pass 123

2 The Neuronal Representation of Structures Unfolding in Time 139

3 Concept Formation via Hebbian Learning: Spatial Structures 157

4 Concept Formation via Hebbian Learning: The Special Case of Temporal Structures 165

5 A Slightly More Realistic Case 170

6 In Search of Still Greater Realism 174

7 Ascending from Several Egocentric Spaces to One Allocentric Space 180

4 Second-Level Learning: Dynamical Changes in the Brain and Domain-Shifted Redeployments of Existing Concepts 187

1 The Achievement of Explanatory Understanding 187

2 On the Evaluation of Conceptual Frameworks: A Second Pass (Conceptual Redeployments) 196

3 On the Evaluation of Conceptual Frameworks: A Third Pass (Intertheoretic Reductions) 204

4 Scientific Realism and the Underdetermination of Theory by Evidence 215

5 Underdetermination Reconceived 223

5 Third-Level Learning: The Regulation and Amplification of First- and Second-Level Learning through a Crowing Network of Cultural Institutions 251

1 The Role of Language in the Business of Human Cognition 251

2 The Emergence and Significance of Regulatory Mechanisms 255

3 Some Prior Takes on This Epicerebral Process 261

4 How Social-Level Institutions Steer Second-Level Learning 268

5 Situated Cognition and Cognitive Theory 274.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [281]-285) and index.

ISBN:

9780262016865

0262016869

OCLC:

727126736