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Structural Content: A Naturalistic Approach to Implicit Belief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Paul Skokowski
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Abstract

Various systems that learn are examined to show how content is carried in connections installed by a learning history. Agents do not explicitly use the content of such states in practical reasoning, yet the content plays an important role in explaining behavior, and the physical state carrying that content plays a role in causing behavior, given other occurrent beliefs and desires. This leads to an understanding of the environmental reasons which are the determinate content of these states, and leads to a better grasp of how representational content can be carried by systems without an explicit representation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , July 2004 , pp. 362 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

The author would like to thank Fred Dretske, John Perry, and Martin Davies for helpful comments on an earlier draft, and would also like to thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments and suggestions.

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