Producing mind

Those who support a computationalist view of the mind tend to hold that it must apply to all aspects of mentality. This view is called computational universalism. An apparently opposed perception-phenomenal universalism-is that consciousness is at the root of all mental processes. Computationalists tend to cognitivize, or otherwise play down, phenomenal consciousness. The recent book by David Chalmers proposes one way to take both computation and phenomenal consciousness seriously. A different way is explored here, which avoids the commitment to a non-materialist ontology of consciousness in Chalmers' position. This alternative approach rejects universalism of both the computational and the phenomenal kinds. Instead a pluralistic view of mind is proposed. Cognitive and phenomenal aspects of mind are to be taken as equally fundamental and as complementary. Cognitive or productive aspects of mind have their own kind of reality which is independent of consciousness. Semantic content may well result from the combination of cognitive productivity and consciousness. The view proposed offers solutions to old problems affecting computational accounts.