Each member of
the small groups should briefly
indicate what they found most striking in the reading; the group as a whole
should ultimately formulate a question for full seminar.
Q1. Churchland
presents a brief summary of the history of 20th century philosophy
(at least as practiced in England and North America). What events does she
highlight? What is logical empiricism or analytical philosophy? Why does
Churchland think the term “logical empiricism” is something of a misnomer?
Q2. Churchland stresses the
importance of Quine’s criticism of the analytic/synthetic knowledge
distinction? What is Quine’s
position. How does it support
Churchland’s vision of naturalized epistemology?
Q3. In chapter 7, Churchland
contrasts her “brain-friendly approach” to representation with the “autonomy of
psychology approach” associated with functionalism, especially computer
functionalism. How is psychology autonomous or not autonomous from other disciplines
in these two approaches? How does she see her approach as differing from
functionalism? How does she justify her approach?
Q4. Churchland presents Garrison Cottrell’s face
recognition artificial neural network (ANN) at some length. Without getting bogged down in the details
of her explanation, discuss the “conceptual point” she sees illustrated by this ANN (p. 300). How might such an ANN help us understand
representation of categorical knowledge in “real neural networks”? Would such an approach (if more fully
developed) provide an answer to the question of how we represent categorical
difference or the more general epistemological question of what categorical knowledge is?
Q5. Churchland concludes (p.
327) that “we do know enough to know that the nature versus nurture debate has
been substantially misconceived”? What considerations does she find relevant to
this conclusion? Has she convinced you?
Q6. In chapter 8, Churchland
describes research that goes beyond the
work of Kandel and Joseph LeDoux
to present a neuroscientific account
of declarative memory. Do you think
that this holds promise in explaining how brains learn? What, if anything, might a more computational neurscience that incorporates
something likes Sejnowski’s ICA learning algorithm (p 364) add to our
understanding of learning in real brains?
Q7. Churchland concludes her
discussion of epistemology by contrasting the “naturalized epistemology” she
has been sketching with the position of the “idealist”? (p. 366 ff). She goes
on to suggest that there is an element of truth in the idealist’s approach (p.
368), but that no idealist’s conclusions follow from accept it? Do you buy her argument? What, if anything,
is wrong with it?
Q8. (Based on the
Searle’s book and the video this morning.) According the Searle video what
position does the “Chinese Room” thought experiment challenge? What is Searle’s
argument against it? What responses
does he consider? Does he successfully
challenge them? What are the implications, as Searle sees them, for artificial
intelligence broadly conceived? What position do you take with respect to this
issue in light of his comments?