Connectionism and Meaning

This book is a theoretical investigation into meaning - computationally driven, philosophically inspired and psychologically motivated. Concepts from formal and psychological semantics, the philosophy of mind and computational theory are examined and combined within the burgeoning new framework of connectionist cognitive science. Unashamedly connectionist in spirit, the book draws upon the novel properties of networks of simple computing elements as its usefulness of admitting representations defined over weights, in addition to representations defined over units, into the cognitive scientists theoretical armatarium. This duality of representational resource in connectionism is a theme pursued throughout the book.