Book Description

This work resulted from a workshop on the implications of the cognitive sciences for the philosophy of science held under the auspices of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science. The workshop's theme was that the cognitive sciences - identified for the purposes of this project with three disciplinary clusters: artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience - have reached sufficient maturity that they are now a valuable resource for philosophers of science who are developing general theories of science as a human activity. The emergence of cognitive science has by no means escaped the notice of philosophers or philosophers of science. Within the philosophy of science one can detect an emerging speciality, the philosophy of cognitive science, which would be parallel to such specialities as the philosophy of physics or the philosophy of biology. But the reverse is also happening. That is, the cognitive sciences are beginning to have a considerable impact on the content and methods of philosophy, particularly the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind, but also on epistemology. The underlying hope is that the cognitive sciences might now come to play the sort of role within the philosophy of science that formal logic played for logical empiricism or that history of science played for the historical school. This development might permit the philosophy of science as a whole finally to move beyond the opposition between "logical" and "historical" approaches that has characterized the field since the 1960s. "Ronald N. Giere is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Minnesota.".