In this provocative study, Robert Cummins takes on philosophers, both old and new, who pursue the question of mental representation as an abstraction, apart from the constraints of any particular theory or framework. Cummins looks at existing and traditional accounts - by Locke, Fodor, Dretske, Millikan, and others of the nature of mental representation, and evaluates those accounts within the context of orthodox computational theories of cognition. He proposes that popular accounts of mental representation are inconsistent with the empirical assumptions of those models. In the final chapter he considers how mental representation might look in a connectionist context.

"Cummins has written an immensely useful book. Although this is an area with a complex and confusing literature, Cummins manages to keep things short, simple and clear... Those who want to become informed about aboutness will not do better than start here."
-- David Papineau, Times Higher Education Supplement

Robert Cummins is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona and the author of The Nature of Philosophical Explanation.