Behavioural Explanation in the Realm of Non-mental Computing Agents
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2015Metadata
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Aguilera Dreyse, Bernardo
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Behavioural Explanation in the Realm of Non-mental Computing Agents
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Abstract
Recently, many philosophers have been inclined to ascribe mentality to
animals (including some insects) on the main grounds that they possess certain
complex computational abilities. In this paper I contend that this view is misleading,
since it wrongly assumes that those computational abilities demand a psychological
explanation. On the contrary, they can be just characterised from a computational
level of explanation, which picks up a domain of computation and information
processing that is common to many computing systems but is autonomous from the
domain of psychology. Thus, I propose that it is possible to conceive insects and
other animals as mere computing agents, without having any commitment to ascribe
mentality to them. I conclude by sketching a proposal about how to draw the line
between mere computing and genuine mentality.
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Minds & Machines (2015) 25:37–56
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