思维语言假说困境新解——兼谈苏珊·施耐德理论价值之维

A New Solution to the Dilemma of the Language of Thought Hypothesis:On the Dimension of Susan Schneider’s Theoretical Value

杰瑞·福多的思维语言假说以其独有的符号表征体系为我们初步勾画了人类思维的结构和过程,基于符号-表征为特征的思维计算理论一跃成为认知科学的经典范式。然而思维语言假说自身存在计算性质飘忽不定、符号本质含混不清等诸多问题。苏珊·施耐德试图克服思维语言假说困境,其解决办法是将直接指称语义学、心灵的经典计算理论以及“宽”的心理内容理论相融合。整体看来,改善后的理论更加注重认知脑神经科学和生物伦理学,为新一代的认知科学探究人脑和心智工作提供了新的助力,能够更好地促进我们对心灵本质的认知。

For a long time, the Language of Thought Hypothesis has preliminarily outlined a wonderful picture of human’s thinking structure and mental process with its unique symbolic representation system, The Computational Theory of Mind(CTM) characterized by symbolrepresentation has thus became the classical paradigm of cognitive science.However, the Language of Thought Hypothesis itself has many problems, such as the indefiniteness of the nature of computation and the ambiguities of the nature of symbols.To solve these problems, Susan Schneider integrated the Direct Reference Semantics, the classical Computational Theory of Mind, and the “wide” Mental Content Theory.All things considered, the improved theories pay more attention to neuroscience and bioethics, providing new assistance for the new generation of cognitive science to explore the human brain and mind, can better promote our understanding of the essence of the mind.