Structure And Thought

Analytic philosophers and cognitive scientists have long argued that the mind is a computer-like syntactical engine, and that all human mental capacities can be described as digital computational processes. This book presents an alternative, naturalistic view of human thinking, arguing that computers are merely sophisticated machines. Computers are only simulating thought when they crunch symbols, not thinking. Human cognition - semantics, de re reference, indexicals, meaning and causation - are all rooted in human experience and life. Without life and experience, these elements of discourse and knowledge refer to nothing. And without these elements of discourse and knowledge, syntax is vacant structure, not thinking.

How does a person’s way of thinking influence their personality, their values and their choice of career? In this important study, originally published in 1985, Susan Aylwin uses such questions as a starting point for elucidating the relationship between thought and feeling. Three modes of thought are compared in detail: inner speech, visual imagery and enactive imagery – the last being an important addition to our understanding of mental representations. The structural characteristics of all three types are analysed using an association technique. Their affective aspects are then explored through a variety of means, including the analysis of daydreams, an examination of the evaluative complements of categorizing, the study of cognitive style, an exploration of such social feelings as embarrassment, and the experiential study of strong emotion. The author ends by integrating her findings, showing how thought and feeling are related aspects of the temporal organization of consciousness. Structure in Thought and Feeling is written in a lively and accessible style, and brings a refreshing perspective to many issues of central concern to psychologists interested in cognition, emotion, personality and psychotherapy.

If anyone deserves the title "father of social cognition," it is William J. McGuire who, along with his wife and colleague Claire V. McGuire, has written the target article for this volume. The culmination of many years of work, the article discusses their highly developed theory of human thought systems, and establishes many new directions for theoretical and empirical inquiry. Equally important, however, are the chapters -- written from many different theoretical and empirical perspectives -- that challenge various assumptions underlying the McGuires' work. In addition to examining implications not explicitly considered in the target article, these contributions explore the new directions that future research and theorizing might take.

First Published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Does the brain create the mind, or is some external entity involved? This book synthesizes ideas borrowed from philosophy, religion, and science. Topics range widely from brain imagining of thought processes to quantum mechanics and the essential role of information in brains and physical systems.

Among the most original and provocative musicological writers of his generation, James Hepokoski has elaborated new paradigms of inquiry for both music history and music theory. Advocating fundamental shifts of methodological reorientation within the quest for potential musical meanings, his work spans both disciplines and offers substantial challenges for each. At its core is the conviction that a close study of musical genres, procedures, and structures those qualities of a composition that are specifically musical is essential to any responsible hermeneutic enterprise. Selected from writings from 1984 to 2008, this collection of essays provides a generous introduction to the author‘s most innovative and influential work on a wide variety of topics: musicological methodology, issues of staging and performance, Italian opera, program music, and exemplary studies of individual pieces.

William Jaworski provides an elegant solution to the question of how mental phenomena fit into the physical world by defending an original account of hylomorphism: the idea that structure is a basic ontological and explanatory principle. On his view, mental phenomena are structural phenomena, and are uncontroversially part of the physical world.