The "Center Leo Apostel" invites everyone to the 27th of CLEA's interdisciplinary seminars in the Foundations series. In these series scholars that are actively engaged in the research on the foundations of a particular discipline are invited. Their lectures will always be directed to an interdisciplinary audience, and the discussions aim at confronting the foundations of the different disciplines.


 

FOUNDATIONAL PROBLEMS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE

by Prof. Dr. Mark H. Bickhard
(Cognitive Science, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania)
Tuesday, May 5, 1998 at 5 p.m. in room 4G113 (building G, 4th floor)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Campus Oefenplein

About the lecture:

Cognitive Science is founded on notions of representation, and shifts in models of representation have constituted the major internal revolutions in the field. Symbol System and related conceptions were long dominant, but the frontiers passed first to connectionism and more recently to autonomous agent orientations. In spite of its foundational role, representation has never received a consensual or adequate characterization within cognitive science. This is not surprising, given that millennia of effort in philosophy have also failed to achieve consensus or adequacy, but the situation nevertheless constitutes something of a scandal or impasse in a field in which representation is so central. More recently, workers in dynamicist and autonomous agent approaches have argued that representation is not even a useful notion. I argue that this confusion and impasse concerning representation is due to a fundamental misconception about the nature of representation, and offer an alternative model.

About the speaker:

Mark H. Bickhard is currently the Henry R. Luce Professor of Cognitive Robotics and the Philosophy of Knowledge at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA. He is interested in pursuing a consistent naturalistic understanding of the world, from quantum fields to social processes, with a particular focus on persons. He is affiliated with the Departments and Programs of Cognitive Science, Psychology, Philosophy, Computer Science, and Counseling. He has recently published a book: Bickhard, M. H., Terveen, L. (1995). Foundational Issues in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (Elsevier Scientific). In addition, he has written numerous papers about topics such as constructivism, representation, learning, language, variation and selection, and emergence.
 

Mark H. Bickhard
Cognitive Science
17 Memorial Drive East
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA  18015
610-758-3633
mhb0@lehigh.edu
http://www.lehigh.edu/~mhb0/mhb0.html

The presentation with questions will last about an hour. Afterwards, an hour or more is reserved for an in-depth, group discussion of the topic.

More info at the CLEA office: phone 02-644 26 77