Troubles with mathematical contents

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21592013
AutoresMarco Facchin (0000-0001-5753-9873, Linguistics and Philosophy IUSS Center, Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori IUSS Pavia, Pavia, Italy, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume37
Fascículo8
Páginas2110-2133
Data de publicação2024-11-16
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPhilosophical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0951-5089 • E-ISSN: 1465-394X
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09515089.2022.2119952
OpenAlexW3208806881
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas70

To account for the explanatory role representations play in cognitive science, Egan’s deflationary account introduces a distinction between cognitive and mathematical contents. According to that account, only the latter are genuine explanatory posits of cognitive-scientific theories, as they represent the arguments and values cognitive devices need to represent to compute. Here, I argue that the deflationary account suffers from two important problems, whose roots trace back to the introduction of mathematical contents. First, I will argue that mathematical contents do not satisfy important and widely accepted desiderata all theories of content are called to satisfy, such as content determinacy and naturalism. Secondly, I will claim that there are cases in which mathematical contents cannot play the explanatory role the deflationary account claims they play, proposing an empirical counterexample. Lastly, I will conclude the paper highlighting two important implications of my arguments, concerning recent theoretical proposals to naturalize representations via physical computation, and the popular predictive processing theory of cognition

Cognitive science · Epistemology · Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills · Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms · Philosophy · Psychology · Teaching and Learning Programming