Cognitive Science 22 (3):295-317 (1998)
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Abstract |
Advocates of dynamical systems theory (DST) sometimes employ revolutionary rhetoric. In an attempt to clarify how DST models differ from others in cognitive science, I focus on two issues raised by DST: the role for representations in mental models and the conception of explanation invoked. Two features of representations are their role in standing-in for features external to the system and their format. DST advocates sometimes claim to have repudiated the need for stand-ins in DST models, but I argue that they are mistaken. Nonetheless, DST does offer new ideas as to the format of representations employed in cognitive systems. With respect to explanation, I argue that some DST models are better seen as conforming to the covering-law conception of explanation than to the mechanistic conception of explanation implicit in most cognitive science research. But even here, I argue, DST models are a valuable complement to more mechanistic cognitive explanations
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Keywords | Cognitive Science Dynamic Systems Theory Representation Explanation Psychological Explanation |
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DOI | 10.1207/s15516709cog2203_2 |
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References found in this work BETA
Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism.Ruth Garrett Millikan - 1984 - MIT Press.
Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science.Carl Gustav Hempel - 1965 - New York: The Free Press.
Discovering Complexity: Decomposition and Localization as Strategies in Scientific Research.William Bechtel & Robert C. Richardson - 1993 - Princeton.
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Citations of this work BETA
A Deflationary Account of Mental Representation.Frances Egan - 2020 - In Joulia Smortchkova, Krzysztof Dolega & Tobias Schlicht (eds.), Mental Representations. New York, USA: Oxford University Press.
After the Philosophy of Mind: Replacing Scholasticism with Science.Tony Chemero & Michael Silberstein - 2008 - Philosophy of Science 75 (1):1-27.
Philosophy for the Rest of Cognitive Science.Nigel Stepp, Anthony Chemero & Michael T. Turvey - 2011 - Topics in Cognitive Science 3 (2):425-437.
View all 75 citations / Add more citations
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