文档介绍：19 Review of Allen Newell ,
Unified Theories
of Cognition
Allen Newell was anothermember of mitteethat producedthe D~ da-
Ius issueon Artificial Intelligence, and on mitteehe played the role
of both Chief Spokespersonand Enforcerof AI, a role he often played in the
field itself I attendedhis wonderful William Jameslectures at Harvard, which
becamethe book under review, finished shortly beforehis untimely death. I
think Allen enjoyedbeing one of my tutors, and he certainly taught mea great
deal, but we also had sharp disagreementsabout the value of various ideas
and approach es in both AI and philosophy, and I like to think I changedhis
mind about a few things. He had planned to write a reply to this review, but
he had more important things to do in his last days.
The time for unification in cognitive science has arrived , but who
should lead the charge? The immunologist -turned -neuroscientist Gerald
Edelman (1989, 1992) thinks that neuroscientists should lead- or
more precisely that he should (he seemsto have a low opinion of everyone
else in cognitive science). Someone might think that I had made a
symmetrically opposite claim in ConsciousnessExplained ( t,
1991a): philosophers (or more precisely, those that agree with me!) are
in the best position to see how to tie all the loose ends together. But
in fact I acknowledged that uni~ g efforts such as mine are proto-
theories, explorations that are too metaphorical and impressionistic to
serve as the model for a unified theory . Perhaps Newell had me in
mind when he wrote in his introduction (p. 16) that a unified theory
" '
can t be just a pastiche, in which disparate formulations are strung
together with some sort of conceptual bailing wire," but in any case
" "
the shoe more or less fits, with some pinching . Such a pastiche theory
can be a good staging ground , however, and a place to stand while
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Originally appeared in Artificial Intelligence