Abstract
A variety of interrelated theoretical problems arising out of the study of cognition are examined in this book. At the heart of many of these problems are recurrent programmatic claims about the appropriateness of conceiving of human ‘cognitive conduct’ in terms of conceptual schemes borrowed from computer science. The ‘computational’ theory of mind and behaviour, and the related notions of persons as ‘information-processing systems’ and ‘sentient automata’, informs a great deal of contemporary research and theory construction in the field. As many commentators have noted,1 the leading alternative to behaviouristic strategies of description and explanation these days is some form of ‘cognitive’ model of conduct, and this is increasingly the case not only within human psychology, but within theoretical linguistics, philosophy of mind and action, microsociology and anthropology. Indeed, since the celebrated Chomsky-Skinner debate of the late nineteen fifties, one can trace a polarisation among theoreticians in the human sciences, if not a full-blown case of a ‘paradigm-shift’.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
H. L. Dreyfus, Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence (Santa Monica, Ca: Rand Corporation, 1965) and
What Computers Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason (New York: Harper & Row, 1972). Seymour Papert’s somewhat frenzied response to Dreyfus’s first book, The Artificial Intelligence of Hubert L. Dreyfus (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. AI Lab., 1968), whilst making some reasonable points (and some unreasonable ones as well) loses itself in its propensity for diatribe. That such polemics are still forthcoming from cognitive scientists confronted with reasoned arguments (which may, of course, turn out to be wrong) is a sad fact about some of the interchanges which have taken place over the years. Chomsky’s replies to some of his critics in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 3, no. 1 (March 1980) struck me as unnecessarily harsh in tone, as did the Lachmans’ review of my own earlier work in Contemporary Psychology (June 1981) in which I was accused of relying upon Wittgenstein’s works as a Rosetta stone for unlocking every problem in psychology. It did not strike the Lachmans as even a remote possibility that what Wittgenstein had to say about various topics I dealt with might merit some careful attention. Sometimes, it seems as though an argument is only an argument when it is advanced by a cognitivist; when advanced by a critic, it becomes merely a ‘polemic’. Perhaps some of us critics have been guilty of all this as well, however, on occasion. Cognitive studies are nothing if not committed, it appears.
Max Black, ‘Comment on Chomsky’s “Explanation in Linguistic Theory”’ in R. Borger and F Cioffi (eds), Explanation in the Behavioural Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970)
W. V. Quine, ‘Methodological Reflections on Linguistic Theory’ in D. Davidson and G. Harman (eds), Semantics of Natural Language (Boston: D. Riedel, Humanities Press, 1972).
Joseph Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation (San Francisco: Freeman, 1976).
Norman Malcolm, ‘The Myth of Cognitive Processes and Structures’ in T. Mischel (ed.), Cognitive Development and Epistemology (New York: Academic Press, 1971).
J. F. M. Hunter, ‘On How We Talk’ in his Essays After Wittgenstein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973).
David E. Cooper, Knowledge of Language (New York: Humanities Press, 1975).
W. F. Brewer, in his paper, ‘The Problem of Meaning and the Interrelations of the Higher Mental Processes’, in Walter B. Weimer and David S. Palermo (eds), Cognition and the Symbolic Processes (New York: Erlbaum/Halsted/John Wiley, 1974) remarks on what he terms ‘the philosophy of language’ (although from his references to Malcolm’s work it is clear he means ‘ordinary-language philosophy’ as a whole) and comments that it ‘still appears to be wandering around in the wastelands of Behaviorism’. (pp. 289–90). He quotes Malcolm (see my ref. 5 above) as saying: ‘Thus, it is the facts, the circumstances surrounding that behavior, that give it the property of expressing recognition (— not an act or process, over and above, or behind, the expression of recognition)’ and construes this as a behaviouristic claim. It seems to me that it is nothing of the sort. Although it denies a constitutive role for ‘mental’ or ‘cognitive’ acts or processes in relation to what ‘recognition’ actually amounts to, it does not reduce recognition to a set of ‘responses’ or mere behavioural events of an organism. Malcolm is saying that contextual particulars constitute behaviours as instances of, inter alia, recognising someone.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1983 Jeff Coulter
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Coulter, J. (1983). Introduction. In: Rethinking Cognitive Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06706-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06706-0_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-06708-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-06706-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)