Abstract

BARBERIS, Sergio Daniel. Mental Representations, Neural Representations and the Puzzle of Intentionality: About Liz Skidelsky's Representaciones mentales. Anal. filos. [online]. 2018, vol.38, n.2, pp.209-220. ISSN 1851-9636.

In Representaciones mentales, Liza Skidelsky sets out to reveal the complete split between the phenomenon of intentionality and the content of mental representations. On the one hand, she defends an internalist elucidation of the content of the mental representations postulated by cognitive science. On the other hand, she encourages us to conceive intentionality as a phenomenon linked to language and communicative practices. This reformulation would set the foundations for a broadly naturalistic project, according to which the human and social sciences would offer the appropriate interdisciplinary framework for the explanation of intentionality. In this critical notice, I argue that the narrow naturalistic project still has some conceptual tools coming from cognitive neuroscience and computational neuroscience that can eventually bridge the gap between representation and intentionality.

Keywords : Intentionality; Mental Content; Language; Mechanism; Neural Representation.