Christopher D. Green (1998) Idealisation is Fine; Opportunism is Not
. Psycoloquy: 9(37) Connectionist Explanation (30)
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Psycoloquy 9(37): Idealisation is Fine; Opportunism is Not
IDEALISATION IS FINE; OPPORTUNISM IS NOT
Reply to Opie on Connectionist-Explanation
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
Canada
http://www.yorku.ca/faculty/academic/christo
christo@yorku.ca
Abstract
Opie (1998) seems to accept my worries about the
ontological base of connectionism and resolves them by accepting my
suggestion that neurology is the ground of connectionist cognitive
science. He goes on to argue that scientists should be given some
room to idealise the entities under study. One cannot agree.
However, he seems to begs the question in suggesting that units and
connections are the very things that units and connections model.
There also appear to be some problems with the use of sources in
support of his position.
Keywords
artificial intelligence, cognition, computer modelling,
connectionism, epistemology, explanation, methodology, neural nets,
philosophy of science, theory.
References
- Cartwright, N. (1983) How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford University Press.
- Dennett, D.C. (1991) Real patterns. Journal of Philosophy 88:27-51
- Green, C.D. (1998) Are connectionist models theories of cognition? PSYCOLOQUY 9(4) ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/Psycoloquy/1998.volume.9/ psyc.98.9.04.connectionist-explanation.1.green
- Hacking, I. (1983) Representing and Intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Holton, G.J. (1978) The scientific imagination: Case studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Lakatos, I. (1978) The methodology of scientific research programmes. J. Worrall & G. Currie (eds.). Cambridge University Press.
- Opie, J. (1998). Connectionist modeling strategies: Comment on Green on connectionist-explanation. PSYCOLOQUY 9(30) ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/Psycoloquy/1998.volume.9/ psyc.98.9.30.connectionist-explanation.27.opie