Contentful Skills: Procedural Memory and the Representational Challenge to Non-Representational Cognition

The next (hybrid) meeting of the seminar “Philosophy of Cognitive Science” will take place on March 20th at 10:30 AM (Warsaw time, CET), the seminar will take place in Staszic Place (IFiS, PAN), room: 161, and at GoogleMeet.  Our guests will be Marcin Miłkowski (IPS, PAS) and Krystyna Bielecka (University of Białystok). We will discuss a draft titled Contentful Skills: Procedural Memory and the Representational Challenge to Non-Representational Cognition.

Abstract: This paper argues that procedural memory is inherently contentful, challenging the prevailing view in radical embodied cognition that skilled actions are non-representational. Drawing on philosophical accounts of intentionality, we demonstrate that procedural memory involves representational content with a world-to-mind direction of fit, manifesting in satisfaction conditions that guide skilled action. We present four interconnected arguments for this position: (1) conceptually, procedural memory necessarily involves satisfaction conditions that determine successful execution; (2) empirically, the content of procedural memory plays an explanatory role in research on apraxia and other motor deficits; (3) functionally, this content is crucial in skill learning and error correction processes; and (4) cognitively, the demonstrated interface between verbal instruction and procedural memory indicates semantic compatibility that presupposes shared satisfaction conditions. Patient H.M.’s case and recent neuropsychological evidence illustrate how procedural memory encapsulates representational content that guides action without conscious awareness. Our analysis reveals that embodied skills and practices are fundamentally governed by representational states with specific satisfaction conditions, contradicting radical anti-representationalism. Since all skill learning requires procedural memory, and procedural memory is contentful, non-representational theories of embodied cognition must be severely constrained. This integration of representational content with embodied skill offers a more unified theoretical framework for understanding intentional action that bridges the gap between representational and non-representational approaches to cognition.   

For Google Meet access (which may be low quality), please email przemyslaw.nowakowski@ifispan.edu.pl.

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