16:185:602 (Seminar in Cog Sci III-Objects and Places)
Index Number 11294
Instructor:  Zenon Pylyshyn
Thursdays, 9:30am to 12:00pm, in RuCCS A139
Crosslisted with Psychology:  16:830:637:01 and Philosophy:  16:730:675

In this course will discuss the classical view of perception as a process that takes us from physical signals to descriptions in some symbolic “language of thought.” This “Representational” theory of vision is virtually unanimously accepted in psychology as well as most of philosophy – and for many good reasons that I will review.  Then I will discuss some of the shortcomings of this view.  In particular it fails to provide a way to ground the description in individual things in the world. This grounding, I will claim, rests on attention-related mechanisms of nonconceptual selection and reference (which I call FINSTs), that play the role of perceptual demonstratives.  I then provide empirical support for this theory based on experimental and evidence (mostly from my laboratory) as well as neurophysiological evidence for object-based attention and tracking and I use it to argue that: (1) the only nonconceptual representations in perception are these demonstrative references,  (2) Other arguments for nonconceptual representations run into the problem that they are based on conscious contents, which I argue is highly unreliable (a claim I illustrate by examining theories of mental imagery) and (3) I apply the FINST theory to present a new externalist theory of how we represent space in reasoning. 

The motivation for the material in this course comes equally from psychological problems (perception, mental imagery, spatial reasoning) and from philosophical concerns (the nature of  “non-conceptual representation,” the concept-grounding problem, the question of what is special about representations in mental imagery and spatial reasoning).  Readings will consist mainly of parts of my recent book “Seeing and Visualizing: It’s not what you think” (MIT Press, 2003) and a pre-publication copy of my new book “Things and Places: How the Mind Connects with the World” (based in part on my Jean Nicod Lectures given in Paris in the spring of 2004) which is available at: Things and Places

Students (including those auditing the class) are expected to take an active part in class discussions, as well as discussions on the Web-based Discussion Board reachable from DiscussionBoard.  Grades will be based mainly on a 2000 word course-relevant essay that must be submitted (email preferred) by the weekend after classes end (i.e., by Dec 17) and will also take account of participation in class and Discussion-Board exchanges.