This book provides a sustained and penetrating critique of a wide range of views in modern cognitive science and philosophy of the mind, from Turing's famous test for intelligence in machines to recent work in computational linguistic theory. While discussing many of the key arguments and topics, the authors also develop a distinctive analytic approach. Drawing on the methods of conceptual analysis first elaborated by Wittgenstein and Ryle, the authors seek to show that these methods still have a great deal (...) to offer in the field of the cognitive theory and the philosophy of mind, providing a powerful alternative to many of the positions put forward in the contemporary literature. Amoung the many issues discussed in the book are the following: the Cartesian roots of modern conceptions of mind; Searle's 'Chinese Room' thought experiment; Fodor's 'language of thought' hypothesis; the place of 'folk psychology' in cognitivist thought; and the question of whether any machine may be said to 'think' or 'understand' in the ordinary senses of these words. Wide ranging, up-to-date and forcefully argued, this book represents a major intervention in contemporary debates about the status of cognitive science an the nature of mind. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars in philosophy, psychology, linguistics and computing sciences. (shrink)

Rule following is often made an unnecessary mystery in the philosophy of social science. One form of mystification is the issue of 'rule finitism', which raises the puzzle as to how a learner can possibly extend the rule to applications beyond those examples which have been given as instruction in the rule. Despite the claim that this problem originated in the work of Wittgenstein, it is clear that his philosophical method is designed to evaporate, not perpetuate, such problems. The supposed (...) problem of rule finitism is malformed, deriving from misconceptions about the relation between understanding a rule and making an application of it. (shrink)

This comment provides an overview of the four articles by Lindwall, Lymer and Ivarsson; Lynch and Wong; Macbeth, Wong and Lynch; and Macbeth and Wong, which make up the kernel of this Special Issue of Discourse Studies on Epistemics; and it also examines the reasons for the assorted difficulties the authors of those articles have with the Epistemic Programme being proposed for conversation analysis. The legitimacy of their concerns is underscored by showing that the charge the EP makes, which is (...) that the CA developed by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson gives an incomplete account of linguistic interaction, is founded on a number of mistakes. The first mistake is the idea that CA cannot effectively address so-called action formation. The second is a misunderstanding of the idea of ‘proof procedure’ in CA. The third mistake is that conversation can better be understood through an abstract analytic construction, rather than an emphasis on participants’ analysis. And the fourth is that it is necessary to rely upon an imputed cognitive machinery that is asserted to underlie conversation. The systematicity and generative power of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson’s radical work on turn-taking in conversation is emphasised and a question that begs to be answered arises, which is how well the EP compares to that earlier and still-radical work, something that the kernel articles address in their return to key transcripts used in the EP. (shrink)

Early reactions to the publication of Harold Garfinkel's Studies in Ethnomethodology, which have persisted over the passing decades, was that ethnomethodology could not address what sociology deemed to be socially significant matters such as 'power' and 'the state'. This, however, is not the case. How such matters enter into the practical everyday affairs of members is of equal interest to ethnomethodology when compared to how any matter enters into members' everyday life, and how they display that. It just does not (...) have more importance. Egon Bittner spelt this out with regard to Weber's interest in bureaucracy when he reminds sociology that when Weber talked about efficiency he was not referring to an objective standard but as something that is attuned to practical interests as they emerge in the context of everyday life. This paper examines some of the actions and interactions that were encountered in a Governmental Department in one of the European countries. It makes visible how characterisations of bureaucracy such as 'rational', and 'efficient' are achieved in the actions and interactions of Department employees, and some of the practices involved in that achievement. Garfinkel, and ethnomethodology in general, are not, in principle, to be found wanting where matters of overarching, primordial interest to sociology are concerned. (shrink)