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The Resilience of Computationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Gualtiero Piccinini
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Abstract

Computationalism—the view that cognition is computation—has always been controversial. It faces two types of objection. According to insufficiency objections, computation is insufficient for some cognitive phenomenon X. According to objections from neural realization, cognitive processes are realized by neural processes, but neural processes have feature Y, and having Y is incompatible with being (or realizing) computations. In this article, I explain why computationalism has survived these objections. To adjudicate the dispute between computationalism and its foes, I will conclude that we need a better account of computation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 5 , December 2010 , pp. 852 - 861
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

This article benefited from comments by Anibal Astobiza, Carl Craver, Tony Dardis, Mark Sprevak, and an anonymous referee and from research support from the University of Missouri Research Board. Thanks also to my audience at the 2008 PSA meeting. Thanks to James Virtel for editorial assistance.

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