Connectionism and the Problem of Systematicity: Why Smolensky’s Solution doesn’t Work

Abstract

In two recent papers, Paul Smolensky 1987 , 1988b responds to a challenge Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn ( Fodor and Pylyshyn, 1988 ) have posed for connectionist theories of cognition: to explain the existence of systematic relations among cognitive capacities without assuming that cognitive processes are causally sensitive to the constituent structure of mental representations. This challenge implies a dilemma: if connectionism can’t account for systematicity, it thereby fails to provide an adequate basis for a theory of cognition; but if its account of systematicity requires mental processes that are sensitive to the constituent structure of mental representations, then the theory of cognition it offers will be, at best, an implementation architecture for a “classical” (language of thought) model. Smolensky thinks connectionists can steer between the horns of this dilemma if they avail themselves of certain kinds of distributed mental representation. In what follows, we will examine this proposal.