Connectionism and functionalism: the importance of being a subsymbolist

Abstract In recent years the development of connectionist theories and of various subsymbolic approaches to the study of the mind, and the renewed interest in the relations between the study of the mind and the neuroscience have had significant repercussions on the philosophical foundations of artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and on important questions of the philosophy of mind. Various approaches to the problem of mental representations have been formulated, in some sense alternative to classic approaches of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. We suggest that the problem of modelling the reference of mental symbols from a cognitive point of view requires the abandonment of a purely symbolic approach, and the adoption of a subsymbolic level of representation. Some philosophical consequences of a subsymbolic level of this kind are discussed. After distinguishing between the problem of reference and that of intentionality (which cannot be solved positing a subsymbolic level of repre...