On Referential Semantics and Cognitive Science
James T Higginbotham · 2001
Abstract Cognitive science is predicated on the view that mental states and processes (or many of them, and not only cognitive but also emotional states) are computational; that is, (a) that they are classified in part according to what they represent, and (b) that causal transactions between them have a purely formal basis. The states and processes of abstract machines, for instance in the sense of Eilenberg (1974), illustrate both features. What the machine is computing is determined by coding the inputs and decoding outputs, through codes that normally lend themselves to a .coding of the internal configurations as well. But the states and configurations within the machine have what effects they do in virtue of their formal characteristics, indifferent to the coding, or what interpretation they may have. I am interested here in the role of referential semantics within cognitive science, so conceived.