Cognitive Science
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2016
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315410098
Abstract
The relationship between the social sciences and the cognitive sciences is underdeveloped and complicated, for reasons we will explain in this chapter, and the philosophical discussion of this relationship has the same properties. Many reasons for the lack of development relate to a traditional philosophical issue: explanation. The explanatory structure of cognitive science reasoning and argumentation is unusual and difcult to t into the traditional model of scientic explanation, though they do relate, in an odd way, to the traditional “reasons” explanations discussed in the philosophy of social science, through the notion of “folk psychology.” The cognitive science explanations themselves, as they relate to traditional “social science” topics, involve additional problems. They depend on a strategy of reducing complexity by beginning with those aspects of mind that can be most readily simplied, such as perception and body movements. Therefore, traditional social science topics, such as social interaction, which cannot be readily simplied, are something of an afterthought.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Cognitive Science, in L. McIntyre & A. Rosenberg (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Social Science, Routledge, p. 340-350
Scholar Commons Citation
Eck, David and Turner, Stephen, "Cognitive Science" (2016). Philosophy Faculty Publications. 81.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/phi_facpub/81
