In 1986, David Rumelhart and James McClelland published their two‐volume work, Parallel distributed processing: Explorations in microcognition, Volume 1: Foundations and Volume 2: Psychological and biological models. These volumes soon become classic texts in both connectionism, specifically, and in the cognitive science field more generally. Drawing on oral histories, book reviews, translations, citation records, and close textual analysis, this paper analyzes how and why they attained landmark status. It argues that McClelland and Rumelhart's volumes became classics largely as a result of a confluence of rhetorical factors. Specifically, the PDP Volumes appeared at a kairotic moment in the history of connectionism, publishing dynamics that facilitated their circulation played an important role, and the volumes were ambiguous about the relationship between model and brain in a manner that enabled them to address an expansive audience. In so doing, this paper offers insight into both the history of cognitive science and rhetoric's role in establishing classic texts.

中文翻译：

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取得里程碑式的地位：Rumelhart和McClelland的PDP卷和Connectionist范例。

1986年，David Rumelhart和James McClelland出版了他们的两卷著作《并行分布式处理：微认知探索》，第1卷：基础和第2卷：心理和生物学模型。这些书很快就成为了连接主义的经典著作，尤其是在认知科学领域。利用口述历史，书评，翻译，引文记录和详尽的文本分析，本文分析了他们如何以及为什么获得了里程碑式的地位。它认为，麦克莱兰德和鲁梅尔哈特的著作成为经典，很大程度上是由于修辞因素的融合。具体来说，PDP卷出现在连接主义史上的一个飞速发展的时刻，发布促进其流通的动力学起着重要作用，并且关于模型与大脑之间的关系，其内容模糊不清，从而使他们能够应对广泛的受众。这样做，本文可以洞悉认知科学的历史以及修辞学在建立经典著作中的作用。