creators_name: Bolender, John
editors_name: Andriopoulos, D. Z.
editors_name: Avgelis, N.
type: journalp
datestamp: 2005-01-08
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:55:49
metadata_visibility: show
title: Real Algorithms: A Defense of Cognitivism
ispublished: pub
subjects: phil-mind
full_text_status: public
keywords: algorithm cognitivism computation function Searle 
abstract: John Searle dismisses the attempt to understand thought as a form of computation, on the grounds that it is not scientific.  Science is concerned with intrinsic properties, i.e. those features which are not observer relative, e.g. science is concerned with mass but not with beauty.  Computation, according to Searle, presupposes the property of following an algorithm, but algorithmicity is normative, by reason of appealing to function, and hence not intrinsic.  I argue that Searle's critique presupposes the folk notion of function, which is indeed normative.  But this folk notion can be replaced by a purely descriptive analogue, thereby showing that algorithmicity can be construed as intrinsic after all.
date: 1998
date_type: published
publication: Philosophical Inquiry: International Quarterly
volume: XX
number: 3-4
publisher: Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki
pagerange: 41-58
refereed: FALSE
citation:   Bolender, John  (1998) Real Algorithms: A Defense of Cognitivism.  [Journal (Paginated)]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/4022/1/Bolender1998.pdf