Reference:

Tarja Knuuttila and Timo Honkela. Questioning external and internal representation; the case of scientific models. In Lorenzo Magnani and Riccardo Dossena, editors, Computation, Philosophy, and Cognition, pages 209–226. College Publications, London, UK, 2005.

Abstract:

This article approaches representation in cognitive science from the point of view of external representation. We ask what it means for something to be representation and what sort of relationship there is between representation and knowledge. We study these questions through a discussion of scientific models, taking the self-organizing map as an example. It is our claim that scientific knowledge is much more performative tha the representational understanding of science would lead us to believe. Scientific models are not valued as much for their being true representations of some real target systems as they are for offering us self-contained artificial systems that we can experiment with. This view, in turn, is compatible with the claims attributed to distributed and embodied cognition.

Suggested BibTeX entry:

@incollection{KnuuttilaHonkela05,
    address = {London, UK},
    author = {Tarja Knuuttila and Timo Honkela},
    booktitle = {Computation, Philosophy, and Cognition},
    editor = {Lorenzo Magnani and Riccardo Dossena},
    pages = {209-226},
    publisher = {College Publications},
    title = {Questioning External and Internal Representation; The Case of Scientific Models},
    year = {2005},
}