l Michael Oliver- Graduate Student in Cognitive Science- The Johns Hopkins University
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Michael A. Oliver

Second Year Grad Student
Department of Cognitive Science
The Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
Office: 234B Krieger Hall
Email: oliver [at] cogsci dot jhu dot edu
Advisor: Paul Smolesnky

Research Interests

I received my undergraduate degree in Philosophy from California State University, Fresno with a minor in Cognitive Science. My research interests include philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and connectionism. I'm particularly interested in endeavors that further the unification of cognitive science. My current research involves the extension of the Sellarsian account of mind to cognitive science, especially as it can be related to connectionism. While Sellars made no effort to draw out these implications on his own, I believe there are number of interesting insights that can lead to a symbiotic relationship between these accounts. I am also very interested in the arguments made by Fodor & Pylyshyn(1988) against connectionism. I have been working of developing how each of the issues raised can be resolved within a principled connectionist framework. The framework I have been working with is the Integrated Connectionist/Symbolic Architecture proposed by Smolensky and Legendre(2006). Among the many concerns raised by Fodor and Pylyshyn, I am most interested in systematicity and compositionality.

Education

  • B.A. Philosophy, 2007. Minor in Cognitive Science. California State University, Fresno.
  • Ph.D. Cognitive Science. 2007-Current. Johns Hopkins University. IN PROGRESS

    • Course Work

  • Syntax I. Legendre, Fall 2007.
  • Formal Methods in Cognitive Science: Neural Networks. Smolensky, Fall 2007.
  • Research in Cognitive Science: The Systematicity Arguments. Smolensky. Fall 2007.
  • Research in Cognitive Science: The Harmonic Mind. Smolensky. Fall 2007.

  • Phonology I. Wilson. Spring 2008.
  • Psycholinguistics. Badecker. Spring 2008.
  • Research in Cognitive Science: ICS and Compositionality. Smolensky. Spring 2008.
  • Research Seminar: Axiomatic Linguistics. Smolensky and Frank. Spring 2008.

  • Semantics I. Rawlins. Fall 2008.
  • Formal Methods in Cognitive Science: Language. Rawlins. Fall 2008.
  • Research in Cognitive Science: ICS. Smolensky. Fall 2008.

    • Teaching Assistantship

  • Foundations of Cognitive Science. Smolensky. Spring 2008. (Syllabus)
  • Structure of English. Burzio. Fall 2008. (Syllabus)

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