Spring 2025 Thursdays, 4-6:30pm, South College E301 Eleonore Neufeld UMass Amherst, Philosophy
This class will be on the foundations of cognitive science. The course will revolve around the following main themes: (i) What are the empirical and philosophical advantages and disadvantages of the major ways of modeling the "mind as a computer", i.e., as an information processing system? (ii) How should we characterize the computational processes and representations of the mind? To which extent should we characterize our computational processes as computational vs. analog? Do the formats of representation differ across domains (e.g., perception vs. cognition)? (iii) What can we learn about the computational architecture of the mind from recent debates on perceptual flexibility and learning?
<aside> 💡 In Fall 2023, I taught a PhD seminar on the Foundations of Cognitive Science, focusing on classic versus connectionist architectures of the mind (including debates on LOT and LLMs), nativism versus empiricism, the nature of belief, and related topics. This Spring 2025 class will be similar in spirit but with a slightly different focus. Specifically, it will place greater emphasis on the nature of representation (e.g., analog/iconic/digital formats), the boundaries of perception, and whether different cognitive domains can be characterized in terms distinct representational formats. While this class is self-contained and fully accessible to those who didn’t take my previous seminar, it is also an excellent opportunity for those PhD students who did take my previous class and want to dig deeper into foundational questions in cognitive science.
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For each seminar, draft a one page (500 words maximum) reflection piece that (i) develops at least one important criticism of a paper; (ii) isolates a point or idea in the paper as important, astute, worth developing; and (iii) presents a question you want greater clarity on or that has been bypassed within the dialectic. Send it to us before midnight the night before the seminar. These pieces will not be formally graded, but will be distributed to others taking the course. You may skip two submissions for any reason. But you must turn in one prior to each of the other seminars to receive a grade in the course.
Students will give two presentations:
The term paper should be between 4,000 to 6,000 words. You can choose any topic in the course, including the topic that you did your presentation on. The paper should include both exposition of a theory, but also critical engagement. This can be either presenting novel considerations/evidence to support a theory, or theoretical modification or reconstruction of parts of a theory. If your home discipline isn’t philosophy, you should come talk to me to make sure you know what a philosophy paper looks like.
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