Connectionism and the mind-body problem: exposing the distinction between mind and cognition

Abstract

Does PDP-style connectionism imply that there are no such things as belief? Ramsey, Stich & Garson (1991) have argued that it does, but their argument depends on a particular construal of the ontology of beliefs, according to which beliefs are discrete inner causal entities. In this paper I situate their argument within the broader issues of the clash of scientific and manifest images of the world, and the ontological mind-body problem. Their way of understanding belief places them in a long tradition of philosophers who conceive of mind and cognition as the same thing, a tradition that includes people as diverse as Descartes, Fodor, Churchland, and virtually all current cognitive scientists and cognitive neuroscientists. An alternative perspective on the nature of belief was championed by Ryle and is currently exemplified by Dennett's neo-instrumentalism. I argue that PDP-style connectionism, rather than implying that there are no beliefs, implies that the construal of the ontology of belief within the mind-as-cognition framework is mistaken. Beliefs are not discrete inner causal entities. Mind is not ontologically homogeneous; rather, like an economy, it is made up of a diversity of entities of very different ontological kinds interrelated in complex ways. Hence cognitive science is not the science of the mind; it is the science of cognition, which is only one aspect of mind.