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Do Connectionist Representations Earn Their Explanatory Keep?
Author(s) -
RAMSEY WILLIAM
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0017.1997.tb00061.x
Subject(s) - connectionism , representation (politics) , cognition , cognitive science , nothing , mental representation , psychology , cognitive psychology , connection (principal bundle) , computer science , epistemology , mathematics , philosophy , neuroscience , geometry , politics , political science , law
In this paper I assess the explanatory role of internal representations in connectionist models of cognition. Focusing on both the internal‘hidden’units and the connection weights between units, I argue that the standard reasons for viewing these components as representations are inadequate to bestow an explanatorily useful notion of representation. Hence, nothing would be lost from connectionist accounts of cognitive processes if we were to stop viewing the weights and hidden units as internal representations.