Bridging the Gap

Bridging the Gap. Where Cognitive Science meets Literary Criticism

This issue of the Stanford Humanities Review (Vol. 4, No. 1, Special Supplement, Spring 1994) hosted a discussion between Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon and scholars from an array of humanities disciplines on the possibility of cross-fertilization between Computer Science and Literary Criticism. I put together this volume alongside Güven Güzeldere when we were both philosophy graduate students at Stanford and internal fellows at the Humanities Center.

The original online publication is no longer available. I am hosting this archived version to preserve access to a debate that is perhaps worth reviewing nowadays, when the seemingly unstoppable advance of AI in most fields is seen by many as the death toll of the humanities. Even though the theoretical principles underwriting Herbert Simon’s target article are very different from today’s Large Language Models, the overall shape of the confrontation he initiated seems as pressing now as it was a few decades ago.

Bridging the Gap included contributions from the following authors:

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Contents:

  • Herbert Simon, Target article: “Literary Criticism: A Cognitive Approach”
  • Frederick Adams, “Simon Says”
  • Varol Akman, “Ripping the Text Apart at Different Seams”
  • Kathleen Biddick, “Imperial Machines/Jubilee Machines”
  • Fred Bookstein and James Winn, “Rhetoric of Evidence Among Cognitive Scientists and Critics”
  • Jaap van Brakel, “The Meanings of Meaning”
  • Don Byrd, “Simon’s Literary Criticism: A Response”
  • Bliss Carnochan, “Response to Simon”
  • Gregory Currie, “Cognitive Development and Literary Meaning”
  • Hubert Dreyfus, “Simon’s Simple Solutions”
  • John Dupré and Regenia Gagnier, “Not in Our Brains”
  • Richard Eldridge, “What is Called Thinking”
  • Robert P. Harrison, “Response to Herbert Simon”
  • Katherine Hayles, “The Embodiment of Meaning”
  • Norman Holland, “Comment”
  • Paul Johnston, “A Response”
  • Suvir Kaul, “A Polemical Response”
  • Reinhard Keil-Slawik, “Cognitive Imperialism”
  • Kevin Korb, “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”
  • Maurizio Matteuzzi, “Some Remarks”
  • David Miall, “Commentary”
  • Paul Miers, “A Response”
  • Janet Murray, “Response”
  • Adriano Palma, “Commentary”
  • Mukesh Patel, “Commentary”
  • Jean Petitot, “Commentary”
  • Brian Rotman, “Response”
  • Ronald Schleifer, “Response”
  • Brian Smith, “Inside Out”
  • Mark Turner, “Comment”
  • Stefano Velotti, “Response”
  • Richard Vinograd, “Is There a Mind in the Text?”
  • Helga Wild, “Arti(fact) and Arti(fiction)”
  • Sylvia Wynter, “But What Does ‘Wonder’ Do? Meanings, Canons Too?”


  • Herbert Simon, “reply to commentaries”