Abstract
One of the main issues in the philosophy of cognitive science is to understand how natural systems represent and manipulate informational content. This chapter focuses on the representational formats that are involved in action cognition, that is, the structures that informational contents can take to guide our actions. Contrary to a common view, I argue that there are different formats by which information can take part in cognition and that this difference in the structure of contents allows relevant cognitive abilities, such as the planning and execution of practical skills, to be accounted for.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
It should be noted that the thesis according to which practical knowledge is a case of propositional knowledge, also known as “intellectualism” (Stanley and Williamson 2001), is a consequence of the more general view according to which all intentional states are propositional states, also known as “propositionalism” (Davidson 1970).
- 2.
- 3.
This view allows for conceiving actions as special types of morphisms, that is, transformations of bodily states in different bodily states. Once it is realized that action concepts cannot be merely interpreted as predicates, and that the constructive constituents of intentions are bodily grounded, the related representational structure is strictly linked to the categorical analysis of logic (see Peruzzi 2000).
- 4.
- 5.
There is evidence of the fact that long training in executing a skilled action changes the cortical organization of the motor cortex. For example, Monda et al. (2017) have recently shown significant differences in the motor cortex excitability between trained athletes and non-athletes, supporting the hypothesis that training determines a specific organization of the motor cortex. Further evidence of the existence of differences in the functional organization of the motor cortex between trained and non-trained agents can be revealed by experiments on “motor imagery” (e.g., Lacourse et al. 2005; Wei and Luo 2010).
References
Andersen, R. A., & Buneo, C. A. (2003). Sensorimotor integration in posterior parietal cortex. Advances in Neurology, 93, 159–177.
Bermúdez, J. L. (2007). What is at stake in the debate on nonconceptual content? Philosophical Perspectives, 21(1), 55–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2007.00120.x.
Bratman, M. E. (1999). Intention, plans, and practical reason. Stanford, Calif: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
Campbell, L. (2018). Propositionalism about intention: shifting the burden of proof. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 0(0), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00455091.2018.1512819.
Davidson, D. (1970). Mental Events. In L. Foster & J. W. Swanson (Eds.), Essays on Actions and Events (pp. 207–224). Clarendon Press.
Dretske, F. (1995). Naturalizing the Mind. MIT Press.
Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., Gallese, V., & Rizzolatti, G. (2000). Visuomotor neurons: ambiguity of the discharge or ‘motor’ perception? International Journal of Psychophysiology, 35(2), 165–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-8760(99)00051-3.
Ferretti, G. (2016). Through the forest of motor representations. Consciousness and Cognition, 43, 177–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2016.05.013.
Ferretti, G., & Zipoli Caiani, S. (2018). Solving the interface problem without translation: The same format thesis. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1111/papq.12243.
Ferretti, G., & Zipoli Caiani, S. (2019). A model for the interlock between propositional and motor formats. In Á. Nepomuceno-Fernández, L. Magnani, F. J. Salguero-Lamillar, C. Barés-Gómez, & M. Fontaine (A c. Di) (Eds.), Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technology (pp. 427–440). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32722-4_24.
Fodor, J. A. (1980). The language of thought (1st ed.). Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Fodor, J. A. (1990). A Theory of Content and Other Essays. MIT Press.
Fogassi, L., & Luppino, G. (2005). Motor functions of the parietal lobe. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 15(6), 626–631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2005.10.015.
Fridland, E. (2013). Problems with intellectualism. Philosophical Studies, 165(3), 879–891. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9994-4.
Fridland, E. (2016). Skill and motor control: intelligence all the way down. Philosophical Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0771-7.
Grzankowski, A. (2016). Limits of propositionalism. Inquiry, 59(7–8), 819–838. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2016.1157034.
Haugeland, J. (1978). The nature and plausibility of cognitivism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(2), 215–226. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00074148.
Horst, S. (2011). Symbols, Computation, and Intentionality. Steven Horst.
Iacoboni, M. (2006). Visuo-motor integration and control in the human posterior parietal cortex: evidence from TMS and fMRI. Neuropsychologia, 44(13), 2691–2699. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.04.029.
Jackendoff, R. (1987). Consciousness and the Computational Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jeannerod, M. (2006). Motor Cognition: What Actions Tell the Self. Oxford: OUP.
Lacourse, M. G., Orr, E. L. R., Cramer, S. C., & Cohen, M. J. (2005). Brain activation during execution and motor imagery of novel and skilled sequential hand movements. NeuroImage, 27(3), 505–519. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.04.025
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. Basic Books.
Marr, D. (2010). Vision: a computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.
Mele, A. R., & Moser, P. K. (1994). Intentional action. Noûs, 28(1), 39–68. https://doi.org/10.2307/2215919.
Millikan, R. G. (2009). Biosemantics. In B. P. McLaughlin & A. Beckerman (Ed.), Journal of Philosophy (pp. 281–297). Oxford University Press.
Monda, V., Valenzano, A., Moscatelli, F., Salerno, M., Sessa, F., Triggiani, A. I., Viggiano, A., Capranica, L., Marsala, G., De Luca, V., Cipolloni, L., Ruberto, M., Precenzano, F., Carotenuto, M., Zammit, C., Gelzo, M., Monda, M., Cibelli, G., Messina, G., & Messina, A. (2017). Primary motor cortex excitability in karate athletes: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study. Frontiers in Physiology, 8, 695. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2017.00695
Montague, M. (2007). Against propositionalism. Noûs, 41(3), 503–518. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00657.x.
Pacherie, E. (2008). The phenomenology of action: a conceptual framework. Cognition, 107(1), 179–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2007.09.003.
Pacherie, E. (2011). Nonconceptual representations for action and the limits of intentional control. Social Psychology, 42(1), 67–73. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000044.
Pavese, C. (2017). A theory of practical meaning. Philosophical Topics, 45(2), 65–96.
Peruzzi, A. (1994). Constraints on Universals. In R. Casati, B. Smith, & G. White (Ed.), Philosophy and the Cognitive Sciences (pp. 357–370). Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky.
Peruzzi, A. (2000). Geometric roots of semantics. In L. Albertazzi (Ed.), Meaning and cognition (pp. 169–201). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1986). Computation and cognition: toward a foundation for cognitive science. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Rizzolatti, G., & Luppino, G. (2001). The cortical motor system. Neuron, 31(6), 889–901.
Rizzolatti, G., Camarda, R., Fogassi, L., Gentilucci, M., Luppino, G., & Matelli, M. (1988). Functional organization of inferior area 6 in the macaque monkey: II. Area F5 and the control of distal movements. Experimental Brain Research, 71(3), 491–507. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00248742.
Rizzolatti, G., Luppino, G., & Matelli, M. (1998). The organization of the cortical motor system: new concepts. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 106(4), 283–296.
Searle, J. R. (1983). Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge Cambridgeshire; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Searle, J. R. (2001). Rationality in action. Cambridge, Mass: Bradford Books.
Sinhababu, N. (2015). Advantages of propositionalism. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96(2), 165–180. https://doi.org/10.1111/papq.12070.
Stanley, J. (2011). Know how. Oxford: OUP Oxford.
Stanley, J., & Williamson, T. (2001). Knowing how. The Journal of Philosophy, 98(8), 411–444. https://doi.org/10.2307/2678403.
Talmy, L. (2005). The fundamental system of spatial schemas in language. In Hampe I (Ed.), From Perception to Meaning: Image Schemas in Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 199–233).
Umiltà, M. A., Escola, L., Intskirveli, I., Grammont, F., Rochat, M., Caruana, F., et al. (2008). When pliers become fingers in the monkey motor system. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(6), 2209–2213. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0705985105.
Wei, G., & Luo, J. (2010). Sport expert’s motor imagery: Functional imaging of professional motor skills and simple motor skills. Brain Research, 1341, 52–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2009.08.014
Williamson, T. (2017). Acting on Knowledge. Oxford University Press.
Zipoli Caiani, S., & Ferretti, G. (2017). Semantic and pragmatic integration in vision for action. Consciousness and Cognition, 48, 40–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2016.10.009
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zipoli Caiani, S. (2020). The Basic Structures of Motor Cognition. In: Peruzzi, A., Zipoli Caiani, S. (eds) Structures Mères: Semantics, Mathematics, and Cognitive Science. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 57. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51821-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51821-9_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-51820-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-51821-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)