This special symposium devoted to epistemology and cognition reflects the rich and fertile state of current research upon problems within this domain.
Ramsey and Stich provide an excellent illustration with their searching analysis of the relations between connectionism and forms of nativism. Ramsey and Stich distinguish three positions -minimal rationalism, antiempiricism, and rationalism -suggesting that connectionism cannot defeat the first, but might defeat the third, where the interesting cases seem to fall in between.
Cole contends that a priori arguments against functionalism, such as those advanced by Putnam, cannot possibly be sound. The relevant empirical evidence, moreover, actually tends to confirm rather than refute functionalism.
Bechtel and Abrahamsen explore the variety of nonpropositional techniques for representing knowledge, suggesting that the emergence of connectionism, in particular, reinforces the potential benefits to be derived from alternative approaches within this sphere. They do not advocate abandoning the normative role that is traditionally fulfilled by the theory of knowledge, but they encourage philosophers to take advantage of the best science of their times.
Thagard explores the complex nature of conceptual change, contending that belief revision cannot be adequately understood without taking into account its consequences for conceptual change, precisely as conceptual change cannot be adequately understood without taking into account its consequences for belief revision. Dunlop examines the version of the Language of Thought hypothesis implied by Schank's theory of conceptual dependency, suggesting that this approach encounters serious difficulty when viewed as an effort to supply "a psychologically valid computer model of human mental processes".
Smokler completes this part of our symposium with his reflections on the extent to which theories of rationality are amenable to empirical test, maintaining that the issues involved here are more complex than is usually supposed.