a clear exposition and critical discussion of the position held by ramsey, stich, and garon in their...

8/12/2019 A Clear Exposition and Critical Discussion of the Position Held by Ramsey, Stich, and Garon in Their Paper, Conn

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Paul Prae

6th of October, 2011

PHIL 3550

with Jagnow

Small Essay: A Clear Exposition and Critical Discussion of the Position Held

by Ramsey, Stich, and Garon in Their Paper, Connectionism,

Eliminativism, and the Future of Folk Psychology.

[Notes:

-I will refer to Ramsey, Stich, and Garon collectively as Ramsey. I will refer to

this Ramsey as a single person so the paper flows naturally.

-Due to the unfortunate length constraints on this paper, I will assume the reader

is familiar with the concepts and history of both folk psychology and

connectionism and also with the definition of eliminativism.]


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The argument: If the particular theory of connectionism defined in

Ramseys paper is found to correctly model how the human brain undergoes

cognitive processes, then the theory of folk psychology will have to be rejected

i.e. an eliminativist conclusion must be drawn against folk psychology. This will

occur because of the ontologically radical differences in these two theories.

I will begin by stating how Ramsey characterizes folk psychology. Ramsey

first makes it clear that folk psychology must be recognized as a theory. He also

states that the concepts of propositional attitudes must be assumed to be a factual

basis for the theory. In what seems to be an early attempt to weaken its validity,

Ramsey mentions that it is likely that folk psychology will share the same demise

as many folk theories and will be replaced by an empirical science. He states that

psychology, the science, exists because folk psychology is not complete. Ramsey

considers this his first premise in defense of his eliminativist argument saying

that propositional attitudes are in need of a more applicable and thorough

substitute.

Ramsey proposes that folk psychology is bound to propositional

modularity. He objectively defines propositional attitudes to meet the following

requirements: they are individually separate and distinct from one another, they

can be recognized through their meaning, they can be effected by and created

from each other, and they influence our actions. Ramsey labels these

requirements as the tenets of propositional modularity. For his argument, it is

first important to note that the semantic aspects of propositional attitudes leave


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them to be easily generalized with much room for variability. As he says, they are

projectable predicates. This is obvious when propositional attitudes are

transcribed to sentential predicates and logically manipulated. He stresses that

propositional attitudes each have a meaning that is obvious, portable, and

law-like.

Ramsey further supports this idea of propositional modularity by showing

that propositional attitudes are functionally discrete states. He does this using

several positive examples. Generically, Ramsey describes a situation in which a

person believes x and then, unknowingly, forgets x but nothing else. This person

then goes through a series of actions that would have been different had the

person remembered that belief x . So, even though the person had a long standing

belief, if it is not taken into account, the person still proceeds acting based on

whatever the person does remember. x is therefor functionally discrete from the

rest of the propositional attitudes that exist for this person.

The last characteristic of propositional modularity that Ramsey exemplifies

is that of the causal relationships between propositional attitudes. His examples

follow a particular format. Call x , y, and z propositional attitudes that exist for a

person. He says that if only x can cause z or (inclusive) y can cause z, then, if z

happens, we cannot determine which of x , y, or (exclusive) x & y caused z. We

do, though, know that it was one of those that did cause z or else z would not

have happened. If it is the case where x happens without y or vice versa then we

do know that one of these attitudes caused z without the other. This shows that


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propositional attitudes can effect other propositional attitudes independent of

each other. Ramsey concludes his defining of folk psychology via propositional

modularity by showing how common models of cognitive processes, such as

knowledge representation and retrieval, pre-circa connectionism, congeal well

with his three characteristics sketched out above.

Next, I will make clear the connectionist hypotheses Ramsey is referring to

in his eliminativist argument. I will now present the first of three properties that

may distinguish the connectionism intended for Ramseys argument from others

that exist. The first of these properties requires that the information contained in

a connectionist system be widely distributed. This is in great contrast to a

cognitive model that is based off of the concepts in propositional attitudes where,

for example, a belief may be represented by a single functionally distinct node or

group of nodes in a network graph. In this case, a belief is easily localized. In the

connectionist networks that Ramsey is considering (from here on simply called

the connectionist network), it is not possible to localize any sort of propositional

representation outside of what is provided to the system as input. This means

that it is not conceivable, to Ramsey, that the connectionist network could ever

be, or at least be known to be, in a single state that represents a particular

proposition.

For the next property, Ramsey states that we have no way of conceiving

the symbolic significance of the invisible units in the connectionist network. As

was stated in the last paragraph, the cognitive models that are able to represent


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regards to these competing models. He concludes that if connectionism is a valid

cognitive model of the psychological processes of a human, then all other

cognitive models must be wrong. This would mean that any model that is based

off of propositional attitudes and folk psychology is wrong.

I will now finish my explication of Ramseys argument by describing a

particular connectionist model of memory that Ramsey constructed. Because I do

not have his diagrams at hand, I will have to be more abstract when describing

his approach. Ramsey discusses two connectionist networks that have the three

properties mentioned above and some standard components that would be

expected in a typical connectionist system. These are presented as connectionist

networks A and B. He then presents two sets of propositions, one set for each A

and B. The sets of each intersect with a total of 16 propositions. The only

difference between the two sets is that the set for B has one more proposition in

it. Both networks are evolved so that they map each proposition from their

respective set (as an input of boolean values) to its correct truth value (as a single

output value).

It turns out that both of these networks successfully process these

propositions but, because of the added proposition in network Bs proposition set,

they both do so in dramatically different ways. And in either case, neither way is

functionally discrete. Ramsey uses this to contrast how the addition of a new

proposition in a traditional folk psychology model would be semantically

interpretable and would not cause such a dramatic change in the functioning of


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