ABOUT

Prof. Gabriel Greenberg [[email protected]]
Philosophy 286​​: Graduate Seminar in Philosophy of Mind
When: TBA
Where: TBA
Office hours: TBA

Requirements:

• Short paper -- Due Sunday 2/15
• Long paper outline -- Due 
• Long paper meeting -- Before 
• Long paper -- Due ​

Details

Long paper:
In 10-15 pages, discuss an issue that is deals with, or is related to, the themes of this course.  Prioritize depth over breadth.  Detailed examples are essential.  Illustrations are recommended.  The long paper may build upon the short paper.

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SYLLABUS

This seminar will examine the question of format in mental representation, from the perspective of an informational and computational theory of mind.  Taking the language of thought hypothesis as our foil, we will look at evidence and arguments for the existence of diagrammatic, pictorial, and map-like representations in the mind and in the brain. 

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Subject to revision!  Please refresh regularly.

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1. Iconic and symbolic representation
1/6

[Old I/S Handout]

Reading:  

• Greenberg (2023) "The iconic-symbolic spectrum"

​​Recommended:

• Shimojima​ (2001) "The graphic-linguistic distinction"​
• Giardino and Greenberg (2015) "Varieties of iconicity"

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2. Teleosemantics
1/13

[Old Teleoesemantics handout]

Reading:

• Introduction to naturalizing intentionality, includes:
  
  • Dretske (2009) "Information-theoretic Semantics"
    Millikan (2009) "Biosemantics"

Recommended:

• Garson (2019) "A new kind of teleosemantics" from What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter.
• Shea (2018) Representations in Cognitive Science  , Chapter 3: "Functions for representation", and  Chapter 4: "Correlational Information"
• Neander (2017) A Mark of the Mental, Ch. 5: "Simple Minds"
• Gallistel and King (2009) Memory and the Computational Brain, Chapter 4: "Representations" and Chapter 5: "Symbols"
• ​Schulte and Neander (2002) SEP: "Teleological Theories of Mental Content"

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3. Language of thought
1/20

[Old LOT Handout]

Reading:​​

• Fodor (1987) "Why there still has to be a language of thought"​

Recommended:

• Rescorla (2021) SEP: "The language of thought hypothesis"
• Quilty-Dunn, Porot, and Mandelbaum (2022) "The best game in town: the re-emergence of the language of thought hypothesis across the cognitive sciences"

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4. Analog Magnitude Representation
​1/27

Reading:​​

• Beck (2014), "Analogue Magnitude Representations: A Philosophical Introduction"
• Harvey et al (2013), "Topographic Representation of Numerosity in the Human Parietal Cortex"​

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5 Iconic Teleosemantics
2/3
​
[Old Structural rep handout]

Reading:​​

• Shea (2014), "Exploitable Isomorphism and Structural Representation"

Recommended:

• Neander (2017) A Mark of the Mental, Ch. 8 "Causally driven analogs"
• Shea (2023), "Organized representations forming a computationally useful processing structure"
  
• Shea (2018) Representations in Cognitive Science, Ch: 5 "Structural correspondence"
• Moser, Kropff,and Moser (2008) "​Place Cells, Grid Cells, and the Brain’s Spatial Representation System"​
• Shepard and Chipman (1970) "Second-order isomorphism of internal representations"

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​6. Map-like thought
2/10
​
[Old Cognitive map handout]

Reading:​​

• Camp (2007) "Thinking with maps"

Recommended: ​​

• Rescorla (2009) "Cognitive maps and the language of thought"
• Camp (2018) "Why maps are not propositional"
• Peer et al. (2021) "Structuring knowledge with cognitive maps and cognitive graphs"

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7. Symbolic perception
2/17
​
[Old ​Object file handout]
​[Old Iconic Perception handout]

Reading:​

• Green and Quilty-Dunn (2017) "What is an object file?"

​Recommended

• Pylyshyn (2007) Things and Places, Ch. 1: "Introducing the problem: connecting perception and the world"
• Quilty-Dunn (2019) "Perceptual pluralism"

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8. Retinotopic maps
2/24
​
[Old Retinotopy handout]
​[Old Retinotopy slides]

Reading:

• Schwarzlose (2021) Brainscapes, ​Ch. 1: "An atlas of you: what is a brain map?"
• Frisby and Stone (2010) Seeing, Ch. 9: "Seeing with brain maps" [229-238, 247-253]

​Recommended:

• ​​Kaas (1997) "Topographic Maps are Fundamental to Sensory Processing"
• Chklovskii and Koulakov (2004) "Maps in the brain: What can we learn from them?" [369-374, 384-388]
• Brewer and Barton (2012) "Visual field map organization in human visual cortex"
• Wandell et al. (2007) "Visual field maps in human cortex"
• ​​Schwarzlose (2021) Brainscapes, ​​
  • Ch. 2: "The tyranny of numbers: why brain maps exist"
  • ​Ch. 3: "How brain maps determine what we see and feel"​

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9. The problem of retinotopy
3/3
​​
[Old ​​Retinotopic rep handout]

Reading:

• Proponents omnibus, includes:
  • Kosslyn et al 2006, "Depictive Representations in the Brain"
    from The Case for Mental Imagery
  • Burge 2022, "Iconic Aspects of Perceptual Spatial Representation"
    from Perception: First Form of Mind
• Opponents omnibus, includes:
  • Pylyshyn (2007) "Are neural layouts always representations?"
    from Things and Places
  • Lyons (2022) "Iconic Mental Representations"
    from "Three grades of iconicity in perception"
  • Langland-Hassan (2025) "Deep Neural Networks: An Alternative View of Retinotopic Organization"
    from "The The Imagery Debate Exhumed and Reanimated"

​ Recommended:

• SEP: "The Quasi-Pictorial Theory of Imagery, and its Problems"

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10. Retinotopy and representation
​3/10

(Old Mental iconicity handout]

Reading:

• Greenberg (MS) "Neural Images"

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Recent work on the iconicity of perception

• Block (2022) ​The Border Between Seeing and Thinking
• Burge (2022) Perception: First Form of Mind, Ch. 9: "The Iconic Nature of Perception"
• Clarke (2022) "Mapping the visual icon"
• Peacocke (2019) The Primacy of Metaphysics, Ch. 2: "Magnitudes"
• Beck (2019) "Perception is analog: the argument from Weber's Law"
• Beck (2018) "Analog mental representation"​
• Lyons (2022) "Three grades of iconicity in perception"

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