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Confusions of Symbolization in Mental Representation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2022

Paul A. Kolers
Paul A. Kolers*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

Although we all speak of “representation”, philosophers and psychologists often have quite different referents for the term. Among philosophers, “representation”, or “a representation”, usually refers to a picture of some sort; and concerns with resemblance, realism, abstraction, and the like are prominent (Goodman 1968). Psychologists and some philosophers accept the term more broadly, and by representation mean something like symbol— that is, some mark that stands for, denotes, or represents something else (Howard 1980). I shall use the word in this latter way.

Goodman's treatment of symbols and so, willy-nilly, of representation, is the most sophisticated we háve. He has been concerned largely with reference—with what symbols may mean—and expresses the concern with a theory of the structure and function of symbols.

Type
Part IV. Imagery and Representation in Psychology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1980 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1980 , 1980 , pp. 267 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

Many of the ideas expressed here have been developed in discussions with W.A. Smythe. Preparation of this paper was supported by Grant A7655 from NSERC Canada. Author's address: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto M5S 1A1, Canada.

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