Introduction: General Aspects of the Concept of Representation

If one has to judge the importance of a subject from the frequency of use of certain words in the literature, the concept of representation seems to have a special position in disciplines belonging to cognitive science. Indeed, the word "representation" is certainly one of the most used. Unfortunately, however, it is also one of the least clearly defined, perhaps because it comes from common sense, and almost everyone believes to know what it means. No single definition at present seems to capture all aspects considered relevant by someone. The aim of this special issue is to consider the present status of this concept, in a multidisciplinary perspective, and to discuss some of its most controversial aspects. It includes revised versions of papers that were presented at the special Workshop of the ESSCS (Representation, a multidisciplinary perspective - Camogli, Italy, 12-14 April 1994), but there are other contributions as well. The aim of this introduction is to describe some of the problems in general, and how they are tackled in the papers.