computational theory of mind

In philosophy, a computational theory of mind names a view that the human mind or the human brain (or both) is an information processing system and that thinking is a form of computing. The theory was proposed in its modern form by Hilary Putnam in 1961, and developed by the MIT philosopher and cognitive scientist Jerry Fodor (who was Putnam's PhD student) in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Despite being vigorously disputed in analytic philosophy in the 1990s (due to work by Putnam himself, John Searle, and others), the view is common in modern cognitive psychology and is presumed by many theorists of evolutionary psychology; in the 2000s and 2010s the view has resurfaced in analytic philosophy (Scheutz 2003, Edelman 2008).