Grades of explanation in cognitive science
Synthese 114 (3):463-495 (1998)
| Abstract | I sketch an explanatory framework that fits a variety of contemporary research programs in cognitive science. I then investigate the scope and the implications of this framework. The framework emphasizes (a) the explanatory role played by the semantic content of cognitive representations, and (b) the important mechanistic, non-intentional dimension of cognitive explanations. I show how both of these features are present simultaneously in certain varieties of cognitive explanation. I also consider the explanatory role played by grounded representational content, that is, content evaluated by appeal to its truth, falsity, accuracy, inaccuracy and other relational properties | |||||||||
| Keywords | Cognitive Science Control Explanation Metaphysics Psychology Representation | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,631 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesWilliam Bechtel (2010). How Can Philosophy Be a True Cognitive Science Discipline? Topics in Cognitive Science 2 (3):357-366.
Carlos Zednik (2011). The Nature of Dynamical Explanation. Philosophy of Science 78 (2):238-263.
Jordi Fernández (2003). Explanation by Computer Simulation in Cognitive Science. Minds And Machines 13 (2):269-284.
William S. Robinson (1999). Representation and Cognitive Explanation. In Understanding Representation in the Cognitive Sciences: Does Representation Need Reality, Riegler. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Pub.
Jacqueline Anne Sullivan (2010). A Role for Representation in Cognitive Neurobiology. Philosophy of Science (Supplement) 77 (5):875-887.
William P. Bechtel (1998). Representations and Cognitive Explanations: Assessing the Dynamicist Challenge in Cognitive Science. Cognitive Science 22 (3):295-317.
William Bechtel & Mitchell Herschbach (2010). Philosophy of the Cognitive Sciences. In Fritz Allhoff (ed.), Philosophies of the Sciences. Wiley-Blackwell.
Rick Dale, Eric Dietrich & Anthony Chemero (2009). Explanatory Pluralism in Cognitive Science. Cognitive Science 33 (2):739-742.
Richard Montgomery (1995). Explanation and Evaluation in Cognitive Science. Philosophy of Science 62 (2):261-82.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads35 ( #34,066 of 548,973 )Recent downloads (6 months)5 ( #15,091 of 548,973 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
