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Bootstrapping Normativity

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Abstract

We compare the role of Cartesian assumptions in the symbol grounding problem and in the Myth of the Given: We argue that the Sellars–McDowell critique of the Myth of the Given and, in particular, its use of the concept of normativity can provide useful resources for responding to the symbol grounding problem. We also describe the concepts of normativity at work in computer science and cognitive science: We argue that normative concepts are pervasive in the sciences and that, in particular, McDowell’s dichotomy between the normative space of reasons and the realm of nature is somewhat problematic.

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Notes

  1. From a referee’s comment on this paper.

  2. Again from the referee’s comment.

  3. It is remarkable how much information which can be recovered from stray currents and other deviant causal channels. For example, it is possible to recover the information displayed on a computer monitor by means of the radio frequency fields that those monitors give off (van Eck 1985; Kuhn 2004); in the other direction, one can reliably and accurately date audio recordings by the slight timing variations induced by variations in mains frequency (Williams 2010).

  4. We need to make the concept of ‘the same as’ more precise. We say that two systems are topologically conjugate if there is a homeomorphism between them which commutes with the dynamics: A system is (weakly) structurally stable if systems sufficiently close to it (in the C  ∞  metric) are topologically conjugate to it.

  5. Arnol’d (1986, pp. 15ff) presents this argument extremely clearly: He attributes it to Poincaré.

  6. Thus, Churchland (1996, 1989) discusses two connectionist descriptions of minds, one low level (what he calls the ‘activation weights’) and one high level (what he calls the ‘partition of the activation space’). The high-level description is clearly intended to be an observable of the system, invariant under small deformations (it captures the input–output behaviour up to ‘similarity’), and consequently, there should be some requirement for structural stability of the underlying low-level configurations, which Churchland does not formulate.

    By contrast, the dynamical systems literature does deal with the issue—see, for example, beim Graben et al. (2009), following Amari (1974), Amari et al. (1977) and Amari and Maginu (1988)—although the mathematical issues are somewhat difficult.

  7. René Thom is famous, or notorious, for claiming that the development of embryos followed constraints on the topological type of organs and tissues which could be deduced merely from the requirement of structural stability (Thom 1994).

  8. van Rijsbergen (2004) and Widdows (2004) both explain this in a closely analogous case: They are concerned not with acquiring concepts but finding those members of a set of individuals which are closest to a given individual or individuals.

  9. We should note that because of this mismatch, our description of biologically acquired concepts is by no means as neat as McDowell’s account of singular demonstratively referring terms, where he talked of concept, object and mode of presentation: But McDowell seems to be quite modest about the scope of this characterisation, saying elsewhere ‘I offer no general picture of self-knowledge here.’ (McDowell 2006, p. 91).

  10. Cf. Michie (1993).

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Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the participants in the workshop ‘Inside and Outside of Computers and Minds’, to the Philosophical Institute, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, and to the EPSRC-funded Bridging the Gaps programme at QMUL, both of whom supported the said workshop.

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  1. Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK

    Graham White

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White, G. Bootstrapping Normativity. Philos. Technol. 24, 35–53 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-010-0005-4

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