Abstract

How is a science--especially one not yet mature--properly to be described? This question is considered in Von Eckardt's first chapter and in a lengthy appendix that summarizes, criticizes, and amends philosophies of science offered by logical positivism, Kuhn, and Laudan. The result, which structures the book, is that a developing science can be characterized by a framework of shared commitments of its practitioners. The shared commitments of cognitive scientists, stated at the end of the first chapter and explained thereafter, concern the domain of the investigation, its basic questions, its substantive assumptions, and its methodological assumptions. In most cases, the commitments are descriptive, that is, they are agreed to by all or almost all practitioners of cognitive science. In some cases, a commitment is defended normatively, for instance, as required to render actual practice coherent. A few claims, such as the requirement for constituent structure in representations, are included in the list with a question mark.