BEYOND SITUATED ACTION: A NEO-VYGOTSKIAN THEORY
OF THINKING AND LANGUAGE INTERNALISATION
My DPhil work focused on the internalisation of language, which is a particular way of formulating the notion that language plays a central role - through development - of structuring human minds. It was an attempt to bring the ideas of Lev Vygotsky into a conversation with contemporary cognitive science but more broadly to look at the cognitive role of language in the context of embedded, extended and embodied notions of mind.
Some of this work has since been published in journal articles which I will be updating this webpage to reflect shortly. In the meantime if you interested in this work please get in touch.
The Index of my DPhil follows the abstract:
Abstract
This thesis presents work toward a novel theory of human thinking. I argue that through ontogenesis the origins of cognition in situated-action are scaffolded by language and, in the process, the functional architecture of cognition, through a series of developmental changes, becomes dramatically restructured.
The theory is developed with reference to several existing attempts to come to terms with this process, in cognitive modelling, philosophy and theoretical psycholinguistics. To test and develop these theories a novel approach to cognitive modelling is developed that allows current thinking in this area to be tested with greater clarity than was previously possible.
My approach builds upon the work of Andy Clark, Daniel Dennett, Merlin Donald and, ultimately, Lev Vygotsky, but it goes further in developing a detailed and tangible model of the process by which language (speech) is internalised in order to play a functionally restructuring role in human cognition. I further argue it can be used to help explain how truly human thinking is born.
An extensive historical survey is undertaken of the context in which some of the major previous theories of thinking have been developed and I use this to assess the reasons these models have only entertained a minor role for natural language in cognitive architecture. I also use this historical backdrop to explain why only limited previous work has been done with cognitive models in this area.
The thesis is completed by the use of the new model to tackle some significant problems in recent literature on the scientific understanding of consciousness. I argue this model can also help to explain findings about certain disorders of thought from the psychopathological literature, which are rendered mysterious under other theories.
Index
BEYOND SITUATED ACTION: A NEO-VYGOTSKIAN THEORY OF THINKING
AND LANGUAGE INTERNALISATION......................................................................i
Index................................................................................................................................iv
Index of Figures ...............................................................................................................vii
Chapter 1 - Situated Embodiment and the Cognitive Conception of Language ..................1
1.1 Motivations and Beginnings ...............................................................................1
1.2 Vygotsky’s theory of functional re-organisation..................................................7
1.3 Forward to the other chapters ............................................................................9
1.4 Changing theoretical frameworks and the search for methodology...................16
Chapter 2 - Cognitivism and the premature foreclosing of the question of language and
thought............................................................................................................................18
2.1 Frameworks for understanding the cognitive role of language..........................18
2.1.1 Mind in the world and the embodiment of language.....................................19
2.1.2 Early thinking on Language and Thought.....................................................21
2.1.3 Of modular minds and cognitive dualism - Language of Thought and the
Representational Theory of Mind .............................................................................27
2.1.4 Language as image of thinking......................................................................32
2.1.5 Vygotsky, Fodor and the Limits of Conceptual Development ......................35
2.2 Vygotsky’s theory of thinking...........................................................................44
2.2.1 The Role of Language in Psychological Organisation ...................................49
2.2.2 Vygotsky’s theory of the development of speech for thought .......................50
2.2.3 The theory of thinking in context .................................................................55
Chapter 3 - Internalisation as Installation and Auto-Stimulation.......................................59
3.1 Dennett’s guide to auto-stimulation..................................................................59
3.1.1 Reverse Engineering as a strategy in cognitive science..................................60
3.1.2 Proto-Language as ecological niche ..............................................................64
3.1.3 Developing questions (and intermediate forms of verbal auto-stimulation)...68
3.1.4 Language, consciousness and the installation of Turing Machines ................72
3.1.5 The unstable metaphor of installation...........................................................72
3.1.6 Language as cognitive tool............................................................................75
3.1.7 Resolving the cognitive conception of language............................................77
3.1.8 The legacy of Consciousness Explained........................................................81
Chapter 4 - Adaptationism and the role of language in modular minds.............................82
4.1 Syntax and integration in modular minds..........................................................82
4.1.1 Mappings across the mind and human uniqueness........................................84
4.1.2 Syntax as mechanism for mind .....................................................................85
4.1.3 Hyper-Realism about the vehicles of thought ...............................................87
4.1.4 How thought gains conceptual structure.......................................................91
4.1.5 The residual problem of compositionality.....................................................95
4.1.6 The compositionality of thought in massively modular minds ......................96
4.1.7 Re-assembling Humpty-Dumpty ..................................................................98
4.2 Crisis - The traditional view under pressure and the adaptationist challenge .....99
4.2.1 The Adaptationist challenge to modular minds...........................................100
4.2.2 Mapping across modules in brain and world...............................................102
4.2.3 Situated embodiment and the cognitive role of language ............................105
Chapter 5 - Situated Cognition, Embodiment and Language internalisation....................108
5.1 Mental architectures in the world: situated and embodied...............................108
5.1.1 Embodiment, symbols and language...........................................................114
5.1.2 Situated action as antithesis and the roots of synthesis................................115
5.1.3 Beyond the situation...................................................................................119
5.2 Pattern Completion, Language and Cognition. ...............................................120
5.2.1 The role of artefacts and the extended mind...............................................123
5.2.2 External cognition and the role of language................................................125
5.2.3 Beyond the skin internal to the agent..........................................................126
5.2.4 How words do their work...........................................................................128
5.2.5 Language and off-loading ...........................................................................130
5.2.6 Internalisation and Clark’s dilemma............................................................131
5.2.7 An artefact, but how intimate and how internal?.........................................134
5.2.8 Giving an account of inner speech..............................................................135
5.2.9 On locating the mind along the interior / exterior dimension.....................136
5.3 Reorganising minds with signs........................................................................139
5.3.1 Memory re-organisation and internalism revisited.......................................142
5.3.2 Too material, too phenomenal....................................................................148
Chapter 6 - The linguaform mind and the problem of simulation...................................151
6.1 Traditional cognitive modelling, language and thought...................................151
6.2 Newfai’s unasked questions............................................................................154
6.3 Simulating the evolution of language ..............................................................158
6.3.1 A-Life and models of communication ........................................................161
6.3.2 Computational Evolutionary Linguistics.....................................................167
6.3.3 Symbolic simulations..................................................................................173
6.4 Adaptive Language Games.............................................................................174
6.4.1 Protocols for Grounding Language ............................................................175
6.4.2 Resources for investigating language and thought? .....................................178
Chapter 7 - Semiotic symbols and the missing theory of thinking...................................181
7.1 Two kinds of symbol systems.........................................................................181
7.1.1 Computational symbols: Newel and Simon’s Physical Symbol System
Hypothesis .............................................................................................................183
7.1.2 Semiotic Symbol Systems ...........................................................................186
7.1.3 Symbolic theft and extended cognition.......................................................192
7.2 Semiotic symbols and cognitive architecture...................................................195
7.2.1 Language games and the computational interpretation of semiotic systems 196
7.2.2 Can semiotic symbols play cognitive roles?.................................................200
7.2.3 The missing theory of thinking...................................................................204
7.2.4 Which Cognitive Properties can Semiotic Symbol Systems Support?..........205
7.3 The premature death of the symbol................................................................207
Chapter 8 - Internalisation and the restructuring of mind ...............................................210
8.1.1 The purpose of this chapter........................................................................210
8.1.2 Cognitive models of active perception........................................................214
8.2 A study of internalisation in action .................................................................218
8.2.1 The agent situated in its world....................................................................218
8.2.2 The basic task.............................................................................................223
8.2.3 The network architecture............................................................................225
8.2.4 Three types of agent-architectures..............................................................226
8.2.5 Results........................................................................................................230
8.2.6 The role of re-entrance and autostimulation – words that mediate activity..233
8.2.7 Semiotics and potential intelligence ............................................................238
8.3 Internalisation and agent restructuring............................................................239
8.3.1 Vygotsky’s theory of internalisation as self-regulation.................................239
8.3.2 Restructuring cognitive architecture through symbol internalisation...........243
8.3.3 Internalisation and the stream of thought...................................................253
Chapter 9 - The material world and the origin of human thought...................................259
9.1 The character of the ready-made world ..........................................................259
9.2 Extended Cognition and internalisation..........................................................260
9.3 Why words are special....................................................................................264
9.4 The cognitive role of words and a theory of thinking .....................................268
Chapter 10 - Internalisation, decentring and the constitution of an internal realm ..........273
10.1 Naturalist ways of approaching inner speech..................................................273
10.2 Consciousness, language and interpretation....................................................278
10.3 Computational models of inner speech...........................................................281
10.4 How well does Steels’ model succeed in helping give an account of inner speech? 284
10.5 Internalisation and the constitution of mind...................................................286
10.6 A hypothesis about human consciousness and self-construction ....................290
10.7 Summary of conclusions and consequences for future research on the
internalisation of language..........................................................................................291
Bibliography...................................................................................................................294