What is cognition? Contemporary orthodoxy maintains that it is computation: the mind is a special kind of computer, and cognitive processes are the internal manipulation of symbolic representations. This broad idea has dominated the philosophy and the rhetoric of cognitive science-and even, to a large extent, its practice-ever since the field emerged from the post-war cybernetic melee. It has provided the general framework for much of the most well-developed and insightful research into the nature of mental operation. Yet, over the last decade or more, the computational vision has lost much of its lustre. Although work within it continues apace, a wide variety of difficulties and limitations have become increasingly apparent, and researchers throughout cognitive science have been casting around for other ways to understand cognitive processes. As a result, under the broad umbrella of cognitive science, there are now many research programs which, one way or another, stand opposed to the traditional computational approach; these include connectionism, neurocomputational approaches, ecological osechologe, situated robotics, and ardficial life.