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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Journal | Volume | Article

150903

Pragmatism and the predictive mind

Daniel Williams

pp. 835-859

Abstract

Predictive processing and its apparent commitment to explaining cognition in terms of Bayesian inference over hierarchical generative models seems to flatly contradict the pragmatist conception of mind and experience. Against this, I argue that this appearance results from philosophical overlays at odd with the science itself, and that the two frameworks are in fact well-poised for mutually beneficial theoretical exchange. Specifically, I argue: first, that predictive processing illuminates pragmatism's commitment to both the primacy of pragmatic coping in accounts of the mind and the profound organism-relativity of experience; second, that this pragmatic, "narcissistic" character of prediction error minimization undermines its ability to explain the distinctive normativity of intentionality; and third, that predictive processing therefore mandates an extra-neural account of intentional content of exactly the sort that pragmatism's communitarian vision of human thought can provide.

Publication details

Published in:

(2018) Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 17 (5).

Pages: 835-859

DOI: 10.1007/s11097-017-9556-5

Full citation:

Williams Daniel (2018) „Pragmatism and the predictive mind“. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 17 (5), 835–859.