Meeting 1

Date: 14.12.2016

Participants: Nora, Amnon, Alon, Yinon, Avi, Jonathan, Aviv, Noam, Galit, Ori

Presenter: Ori - On mental representations and this chevruta.

Summary:

Participants introduced themselves, their research, and their interest in this group.

Ori presented an introduction of mental representations and his research interests regarding them.  We discussed the representationalist/eliminativist debate and mentioned the option of a pragmatic approach to representations.

The main takeaway from our discussion of representations was probably the simple understanding that the notion of representation in the cognitive sciences is both extremely important and very much unclear.

We set the general aim of the chevruta to better understand the role of mental representation in cognitive research.

We agreed to try and achieve that by looking at one theory at a time, which should help in grounding and focusing the discussion.  Thus the next meetings will include a presentation of a specific research/theory/model which will then be followed by a discussion over the role of representations with regards to that specific research.

The next meeting will be held on 4.1.2017.  Alon will present his research.

PowerPoint presentation attached.