Abstract

In the dispute between classicists and connectionists, classicists assert that connectionists only claim that cognitive architecture is implemented in a certain kind of network model. They also criticize that the connectionist model cannot deal with many important cognitive competences, since they do not acknowledge the combinatorial structure of mental representations. I will argue that connectionists cannot defend themselves from the second criticism without suffering from the first criticism, and that they cannot defend themselves from the first criticism without suffering from the second criticism. Eliminativists often compare folk psychology to phlogiston theory in discussing the relation between connectionist theory and folk psychology. I will argue that the analogy does not hold.