Zoe Drayson
Biographic Data
| ID | 1308799 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Zoe Drayson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Zoe |
| FAMILY NAME | Drayson |
| SIGNATURE | DRAYSON Z |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Davis |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1665-3319 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 36 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
What motivates mental fictionalism
Representations are (still) theoretical posits
The debate over whether cognitive science is committed to the existence of neural representations is usually taken to hinge on the status of representations as theoretical posits: it depends on whether or not our best-supported scientific theories commit us to the existence of representations. Thomson and Piccinini (2018) and Nanay (2022) seek to reframe this debate to focus more on scientific experimentation than on scientific theorizing. They a…
Defending the medium‐independence of computation
The computational properties of a system are generally thought to be independent in some sense from its physical properties, in virtue of the fact that computation is a formally characterized concept. Several philosophers have recently challenged the idea that such “medium‐independence” is an essential feature of computation by arguing that some kinds of computation lack medium‐independence. This paper explores and rejects three such arguments in…
Rethinking the role of language in arguments for extended cognition
Clark ( Philosophical Psychology 19(3):291–307, 2006) proposes that a standard challenge to the hypothesis of extended cognition can be avoided in the case of linguistically structured cognition, because the role played by our public manipulation of linguistic artifacts is irreducible to the role played by the brain’s operations over internal representations. I demonstrate that Clark’s argument relies on a view of the brain’s cognitive architectu…
Why I am not a literalist
Carrie Figdor argues for literalism, a semantic claim about psychological predicates, on the basis of a scientific claim about the nature of psychological properties. I argue that her scientific claim is based on controversial interpretations of scientific modelling, and that even if it were correct it would not justify her claims that psychological predicates are undergoing radical conceptual change
The realizers and vehicles of mental representation
The Personal/Subpersonal Distinction
Daniel Dennett's distinction between personal and subpersonal explanations was fundamental in establishing the philosophical foundations of cognitive science. Since it was first introduced in 1969, the personal/subpersonal distinction has been adapted to fit different approaches to the mind. In one example of this, the 'Pittsburgh school' of philosophers attempted to map Dennett's distinction onto their own distinction between the 'space of reaso…
The Uses and Abuses of the Personal/Subpersonal Distinction
It is a commonplace assumption throughout contemporary philosophy of mind that there is a distinction to be made between personal and subpersonal. What it distinguishes, however, is a matter of confusion: one finds the terms 'personal' and 'subpersonal' predicated of states, facts, explanations, events, and levels, to name a few. Opinions on the grounds of the distinction are just as wide-ranging. As a result, the personal/subpersonal distinction…
The Personal/Subpersonal Distinction
Daniel Dennett's distinction between personal and subpersonal explanations was fundamental in establishing the philosophical foundations of cognitive science. Since it was first introduced in 1969, the personal/subpersonal distinction has been adapted to fit different approaches to the mind. In one example of this, the 'Pittsburgh school' of philosophers attempted to map Dennett's distinction onto their own distinction between the 'space of reaso…
The Uses and Abuses of the Personal/Subpersonal Distinction
It is a commonplace assumption throughout contemporary philosophy of mind that there is a distinction to be made between personal and subpersonal. What it distinguishes, however, is a matter of confusion: one finds the terms 'personal' and 'subpersonal' predicated of states, facts, explanations, events, and levels, to name a few. Opinions on the grounds of the distinction are just as wide-ranging. As a result, the personal/subpersonal distinction…
The realizers and vehicles of mental representation
The Uses and Abuses of the Personal/Subpersonal Distinction
It is a commonplace assumption throughout contemporary philosophy of mind that there is a distinction to be made between personal and subpersonal. What it distinguishes, however, is a matter of confusion: one finds the terms 'personal' and 'subpersonal' predicated of states, facts, explanations, events, and levels, to name a few. Opinions on the grounds of the distinction are just as wide-ranging. As a result, the personal/subpersonal distinction…
The Personal/Subpersonal Distinction
Daniel Dennett's distinction between personal and subpersonal explanations was fundamental in establishing the philosophical foundations of cognitive science. Since it was first introduced in 1969, the personal/subpersonal distinction has been adapted to fit different approaches to the mind. In one example of this, the 'Pittsburgh school' of philosophers attempted to map Dennett's distinction onto their own distinction between the 'space of reaso…
The realizers and vehicles of mental representation
Why I am not a literalist
Carrie Figdor argues for literalism, a semantic claim about psychological predicates, on the basis of a scientific claim about the nature of psychological properties. I argue that her scientific claim is based on controversial interpretations of scientific modelling, and that even if it were correct it would not justify her claims that psychological predicates are undergoing radical conceptual change
Representations are (still) theoretical posits
The debate over whether cognitive science is committed to the existence of neural representations is usually taken to hinge on the status of representations as theoretical posits: it depends on whether or not our best-supported scientific theories commit us to the existence of representations. Thomson and Piccinini (2018) and Nanay (2022) seek to reframe this debate to focus more on scientific experimentation than on scientific theorizing. They a…
Defending the medium‐independence of computation
The computational properties of a system are generally thought to be independent in some sense from its physical properties, in virtue of the fact that computation is a formally characterized concept. Several philosophers have recently challenged the idea that such “medium‐independence” is an essential feature of computation by arguing that some kinds of computation lack medium‐independence. This paper explores and rejects three such arguments in…
Rethinking the role of language in arguments for extended cognition
Clark ( Philosophical Psychology 19(3):291–307, 2006) proposes that a standard challenge to the hypothesis of extended cognition can be avoided in the case of linguistically structured cognition, because the role played by our public manipulation of linguistic artifacts is irreducible to the role played by the brain’s operations over internal representations. I demonstrate that Clark’s argument relies on a view of the brain’s cognitive architectu…
What motivates mental fictionalism
Epistemology (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Embodied and Extended Cognition (4 works) · Action Observation and Synchronization (2 works) · Cognition (2 works) · Cognitive psychology (2 works) · Cognitive science (2 works) · Computer Science (2 works)