6
Views
5
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Biological and Social Constraints on Cognitive Processes: The Need for Dynamical Interactions Between Levels of Inquiry

Pages 133-164 | Published online: 01 Jul 2013

References

  • Putnam , H. , ed. 1979 . “ One of the few places where the social context of cognition is recognized is in H. Putnam's thesis of division of linguistic labor, according to which the ability to connect terms with their proper referent is often only possessed by a few experts in the scientific community (‘The Meaning of “Meaning,”’ ” . In What Computers Can't Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence New York : Harper and Row . The one philosopher who has given serious attention to the embodiment of cognitive systems is H.L. Dreyfus, 2nd ed.Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers of Hilary Putnam Vol. 2 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1975]). Finally, the role of the physical environment in fixing mental contents is proposed by advocates of wide content. According to this view, the meanings of words is not determined solely by internal mental processes, but depends upon the particular external objects with which the person is causally interacting (see T. Burge, ‘Individualism and the Mental,’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4 [1979] 73–121). To use Putnam's example, whether water means H2O or XYZ for a particular person depends upon whether it was in relation to H2O or XYZ that the person learned to use the word water.
  • There is another area of biology which also is given a minimal role in most philosophical analyses of cognition: evolutionary biology. Minimally, evolution by variation and selective retention requires that complex cognitive mechanisms be adaptations of cognitive mechanisms of ancestral species. But due to limited interest in comparative psychology, we have little understanding of the cognitive systems of other currently existing species, and thus little insight into the cognitive abilities of ancestral species.
  • Sternberg , S. 1966 . ‘High-Speed Scanning in Human Memory,’ . Science , 153 See 652–4, for a classical example of the use of this research strategy.
  • Fodor , J. A. 1974 . ‘Special Sciences (Or: Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis),’ . Synthese , 28 : 97 – 115 .
  • 1988 . The Structure of Science New York : Harcourt, Brace . For expositions, see E. Nagel, 1961) and W. Bechtel, Philosophy of Science: An Overview for Cognitive Science (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • 1990 . Cognition , 34 : 203 – 77 . E.g., that in visual processing, information specifying the location of an objection is processed independently of information specifying the identity of the object. See S.A. Kosslyn, R.A. Flynn, J.B. Amsterdam, and G. Wang, ‘Components of High-Level Vision: A Cognitive Neuroscience Analysis and Accounts of Neurological Syndromes,’
  • 1991 . Connectionism and the Mind: An Introduction to Parallel Processing in Networks Oxford : Basil Blackwell . For an introduction to connectionism, see W. Bechtel and A.A. Abrahamsen,; and D.E. Rumelhart, J.L. McClelland, and the PDP Research Group, Parallel Distributed Processing: Explanations in the Micro-structure of Cognition. Volume 1: Foundations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1986).
  • 1988 . Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 11 : 1 – 74 . Not all connectionists find the neural analogy to be compelling. For a dissenting view, see P. Smolensky, ‘On the Proper Treatment of Connectionism,’
  • Rorty , R. 1965 . ‘Mind-Body Identity, Privacy, and Categories,’ . The Review of Metaphysics , 19 : 49 – 67 . 24–54; P.K. Feyerabend, ‘Materialism and the Mind-Body Problem,’ The Review of Metaphysics 17 (1963)
  • Churchland , P. S. 1991 . Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain Edited by: Ramsey , W. , Stich , S. P. and Rumelhart , D. E. 199 – 228 . Cambridge , MA : MIT Press . 1986); P.N. Churchland, A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1989); W. Ramsey, S.P. Stich, and J. Garon, ‘Connectionism, Eliminativism, and the Future of Folk Psychology,’ in Philosophy and Connectionist Theory (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
  • Schaffner , K. 1993 . Discovery and Explanation in Biology and Medicine Chicago : University of Chicago Press .
  • Bechtel , W. and Richardson , R. C. 1993 . Discovering Complexity: Decomposition and Localization as Strategies in Scientific Research Princeton : Princeton University Press .
  • Wimsatt , W. C. 1986 . “ ‘Forms of Aggregativity,’ in ” . In Human Nature and Natural Knowledge Edited by: Donagan , A. , Perovich , A. N. and Wedin , M. V. 259 – 91 . Reidel : Dordrecht .
  • Simon , H. A. 1969 . The Sciences of the Artificial Cambridge , MA : MIT Press .
  • Kauffman , S. A. 1993 . The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution Oxford : Oxford University Press .
  • Bechtel , W. and Richardson , R. C. 1992 . “ ‘Emergent Phenomena and Complex Systems,’ in ” . In Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism Edited by: Beckerman , A. , Flohr , H. and Kin , J. Berlin : Walter de Gruyter . Verlag
  • Some AI researchers view their task as one of developing explanations of human cognitive performance by developing systems that can emulate that performance. Others, however, view their task as engineers would: the goal is not explanation, but the development of a system that behaves in an appropriate manner.
  • Bogen , J. and Woodward , J. 1988 . ‘Saving the Phenomena,’ . Philosophical Review , 97 : 303 – 52 .
  • Gibson , J. J. 1981 . The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception , (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1979). See J. A. Fodor and Z.W. Pylyshyn, ‘How Direct is Visual Perception? Some Reflections on Gibson's “Ecological Approach,’” Cognition 9 136–96 for the classical information processing response.
  • Discovering Complexity Such existence proofs do not require computer simulation. In biochemistry researchers often try to mimic biological reaction in test tubes; Heinrich Wieland, for example, used a palladium model to simulate the behavior of biochemical enzymes and used this to argue on behalf of his claim that a dehydrogenase enzyme was the agent response for biological oxidations. See W. Bechtel and R.C. Richardson, ch. 4.
  • Margulis , L. 1970 . Origin of Eukaryotic Cells New Haven : Yale University Press .
  • In fact, the laboratory itself provides a context, one which constrains the behavior of individuals being investigated in it. The point is that it is a different context from that in which individuals usually behave, and the behavior that is produced there may be an artifact of that environment and not informative about the behavior that would be produced in more usual environments.
  • Lakoff , G. and Johnson , M. 1987 . Metaphors We Live By Chicago : University of Chicago Press . 1980); see also G. Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1987) and M. Johnson, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Brentano , F. 1973 . Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint New York : Humanities Press . A.C. Pancurello, D.B. Terrell, and W.L.L. McAlister, trans. [1874])
  • Bechtel , W. and Abrahamsen , A. A. 1993 . “ ‘Connectionism and the Future of Folk Psychology,’ in ” . In Minds: Natural and Artificial Edited by: Burton , R. Albany , NY : SUNY Press . See
  • Popper , K. R. 1972 . Objective Knowledge Oxford : Oxford University Press .
  • Abrahamsen , A. A. 1987 . ‘Bridging Boundaries Versus Breaking Boundaries: Psycholinguistics in Perspective,’ . Synthese , 72 : 355 – 88 .
  • Deacon , T. Symbolic Origins New York : Norton . forthcoming)
  • Bechtel , W. 1994 . ‘Levels of Description and Explanation in Cognitive Science,’ . Minds and Machines , 4 : 1 – 25 .

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.