VOLUME 16 (2003), ISSUE 4

Manuscripts:

BALJINDER SAHDRA & PAUL THAGARD
Procedural knowledge in molecular biology

• Abstract: A crucial part of the knowledge of molecular biologists is procedural knowledge, that is, knowledge of how to do things in laboratories. Procedural knowledge of molecular biologists involves both perceptual-motor skills and cognitive skills. We discuss such skills required in performing the most commonly used molecular biology techniques, namely, PCR and gel electrophoresis. We argue that procedural knowledge involved in performing these techniques is more than just knowing their protocols. Creative exploration and experience are essential for the acquisition of procedural knowledge in molecular biology. With enough experience, molecular biologists make intuitive judgments without recourse to analytical reasoning. We propose that procedural knowledge is intuitive recognition of the patterns of one's environment that are the most relevant for making a decision or acting appropriately. Finally, we argue that knowledge of molecular biologists requires an integration of procedural knowledge and propositional knowledge.

JAMES W. GARSON
Simulation and connectionism: What is the connection?

• Abstract: Simulation has emerged as an increasingly popular account of folk psychological (FP) talents at mind reading: predicting and explaining human mental states. Where its rival (the theory-theory) postulates that these abilities are explained by mastery of laws describing the connections between beliefs, desires, and action, simulation theory proposes that we mind-read by "putting ourselves in another's shoes." This paper concerns connectionist architecture and the debate between simulation theory (ST) and the theory-theory (TT). It is only natural to associate TT with classical architectures where rule governed operations apply to explicit propositional representations. On the other hand, ST would seem better tuned to procedurally oriented non symbolic structures found in connectionist models. This paper explores the possible alignment between ST and connectionist architecture. Joe Cruz argues that connectionist models with distributed non-symbolic representations are particularly well suited to simulation theory. The purported linkage between connectionist architecture and simulation theory is criticized in this paper. The conclusion is that there are reasons for thinking that connectionist forms of representation are the enemy of both TT and ST. So the contribution of connectionism may be to suggest the need for an alternative to both views.

WAYNE WRIGHT
Projectivist representationalism and color

• Abstract: This paper proposes a subjectivist approach to color within the framework of an externalist form of representationalism about phenomenal consciousness. Motivations are presented for accepting both representationalism and color subjectivism, and an argument is offered against the case made by Michael Tye on behalf of the claim that colors are objective, physical properties of objects. In the face of the considerable difficulties associated with finding a workable realist theory of color, the alternative account of color experience set out, projectivist representationalism, claims that the color properties we encounter in experience exist only in the representational contents of our experiences. Color experiences are caused by the physical structure of objects, but objects are never actually colored and color experiences systematically misrepresent objects as colored. However, despite being an error theory of color, projectivist representationalism does not do violence to our everyday use and understanding of color concepts and terms, nor does it undermine the role of color experience in aiding the perceiving subject in navigating through the world.

TADEUSZ ZAWIDZKI
Mythological content: A problem for Millikan's teleosemantics

• Abstract: I pose the following dilemma for Millikan's teleological theory of mental content. There is only one way that her theory can avoid Gauker's (1995) charge that it relies on an unexplained notion of mapping or isomorphism between mental state and world. Mental content must be explained in terms of the mapping relation that is required for mental state producing and consuming mechanisms to perform their biologically proper functions, i.e., producing mental states that are consumed in systematically adaptive practical inferences. However, this proposal leads to unacceptably counter-intuitive ascriptions of content to mythological beliefs and related desires: such beliefs and desires must 'map onto' environmental states that make them adaptive, not onto the mythological states of affairs that (would) make them true or fulfilled. I conclude by discussing the merits and drawbacks of a potential solution to this problem: the view that the contents of mythological beliefs and desires are determined by the non-mythological concepts out of which they are constructed, rather than by the environmental states that make them adaptive. The affinities of this proposal with Pascal Boyer's recent (2001) theory of mythological concepts are also discussed.

Discussion: Social Psychology and the Authorship Account of First-person Authority

KRISTA LAWLOR
Elusive reasons: A problem for first-person authority

• Abstract: Recent social psychology is skeptical about self-knowledge. Philosophers, on the other hand, have produced a new account of the source of the authority of self-ascriptions. On this account, it is not descriptive accuracy but authorship, that funds the authority of one's self-ascriptions. The resulting view seems to ensure that self-ascriptions are authoritative, despite evidence of one's fallibility. However, a new wave of psychological studies presents a powerful challenge to the authorship account. This research suggests that one can author one's attitudes, but one's self-ascriptions may lack authority. I present this new challenge from social psychology and use it to argue that first-person authority is agential authority: one's self-ascriptions are authoritative, in part anyway, because they are reliable expressions of those attitudes that govern further choices and behavior.

LUCA FERRERO
An elusive challenge to the authorship account: Commentary on Lawlor's "Elusive Reasons"

• Abstract: Lawlor argues that social psychological studies present a challenge to the authorship account of first-person authority. Taking the deliberative stance does not guarantee that self-ascriptions are authoritative, for self ascriptions might be based on elusive reasons and thus lack agential authority (i.e., they are no guide to the subject's future conduct). I argue that Lawlor's challenge is not successful. I claim that we can make sense of the nature and importance of agential authority only within the framework of the authorship account. Agential authority is part of the regulative ideal of the deliberative stance, but its lack does not undermine the first-person authority of self-ascriptions, since first-person authority is primarily a matter of deliberative authorship.

KRISTA LAWLOR
Deliberation and agential authority: A rejoinder to Ferrero

• Abstract: My reply to Ferrero is divided into three parts: a recap of my argument and claim, a response to Ferrero's central criticism, and, finally, a question about his attempted defense of the authorship account.