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Mind and Human Knowledge
a very broad topic..   


More narrowly:        

in cognitive science:             1 mental content/belief
in philosophy of science:      2 scientific theory/explanation

example:                 knowledge of relativity theory                                                      a mental structure
                              knowledge of a medical expert                          both                    a description of the world


There are other forms of knowledge, e.g

                                              3 everyday knowledge ("cat on the mat")
                                              4 skill (knowing how vs. knowing that)
                                                              procedural vs. declarative knowledge

so it is perhaps a question, whether it is meaningful to seek one concept for knowledge/mind/mental representation etc.
 
Notice the following:           

                                         (a) prevailing view of knowledge presupposes connection bw. 1 & 2  
                                                                                            (as revealed in the propositional theory )
                                  (b) alternative picture(s) also connects 3 & 4

which is not to say we look for a definition of knowledge... as we will see, the game is different




The Propositional Theory

or propositional conception, of knowledge
(in a simplified form, by examples )

scientfic theory is essentially text             true/false                            properties of sentences
cf. Vienna Cirlce, IUHPS/DLMPS - confirmation, justification, paradoxes, circularity, etc etc

mental content is linguistic, nouns            meaning is reference          properties of sentences
cf. Chomsky, LoT, connectionism debates (productivity, systematicity etc)

Consequences in AI and classical cognitive theory (theoretical linguistics, logic, semantics etc):
e.g. the relevant unit of analysis is

•                         token-like      (e.g. store, transfer, share! cf. identity!)
•                         passive           (representation, data, etc.)
•                         typed              (categorical)

Now there are several ways of deconstructing this cheerful view...
the simplest goes by showing that

•                 there is no literal meaning (Lakoff),
•                 or no meaning at all (Wittgenstein),    

                                in language so conceived


A most recent challenge comes from the study of writing

•         the notion of propositional mind is based on a temptation from writing
•         writing is spatially extended and persistent end product of a process incolving mental content
•             which does/may not have these properties
•         names Ong, Nyiri, etc
•         type - and categoricity properties of written/printed language
•         truth and falsity (as used in logic & phil.) are properties of written language
•         nominalization a property (since Greek) of written language
•         cultural history of writing (from less typed handcopy to Gutenberg print)

Wittgenstein
        meaning is not private (that is, not inherent)  - methodological anti-individualism
                    (social externalism)

       
        language is not categorical - family resemblance (disj. class def.)
      words etc.: no meaning but use - subordinate to situations
      no exchange of meaning, but sharing of situations
            (of which words etc are just associated parts)
      voice of community, or tradition (cf. we can't be wrong, Davidson)







Ong - Nyiri

        meaning becomes categorical by writing (which first appeared in Plato)
      especially by the introduction of printing and reproducibility (identical words, identical meaning)
      identity does not exist -
            acoustically
            mentally
            in situation
            in action
      truth and falsity (i.e. relationship bw. meaning and ~) not property of thought but of text


Support from evolutionary linguistics/sociolinguistics
        W. Croft, Sándor and Kampis :

•                 continuity from dialect to idiolect (no two speakers are identical)
•                 analogy between species (Darwin) and language, illustration

Support from anti-essentialism in general
(e.g. dissatisfaction with language is as old as philosophy, both East and West)
advantage of writing ? maybe, but that's a different question.


Brief Summary

Mind is not (propositional) language, language is not text, meaning is not categorical,
knowlegde is not categorization! (further link)