176,153 research outputs found
Culture and Cognitive Science
Human behavior and thought often exhibit a familiar pattern of within group similarity and between group difference. Many of these patterns are attributed to cultural differences. For much of the history of its investigation into behavior and thought, however, cognitive science has been disproportionately focused on uncovering and explaining the more universal features of human minds—or the universal features of minds in general.
This entry charts out the ways in which this has changed over the past decades. It sketches the motivation behind the cultural turn in cognitive science, and situates some of its central findings with respect to the questions that animate it and the debates that it has inspired. Woven throughout the entry are examples of how the cognitive science of culture, and especially its elevated concern with different forms of diversity and variation, continues to influence and be influenced by philosophers.
One cluster of philosophical work falls within the traditional subject matter of philosophy of science, in this case of the cognitive and social sciences. Philosophers have analyzed and assessed the methods and evidence central to the scientific study of cognition and culture, and have offered conceptual scrutiny, clarification, and synthesis. Research in a second vein sees philosophers themselves contributing more directly to cognitive scientific projects, (co)constructing theories, helping build computational models, even gathering empirical data. A third kind of work is naturalistic philosophy or philosophy of nature, wherein philosophers seek to use results from the cognitive science of culture to inform or transform debates over long-standing philosophical questions, including questions about the nature of philosophy and philosophical methodology itself
Worlds Apart? Reassessing von Uexküll’s Umwelt in Embodied Cognition with Canguilhem, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze
Jakob von Uexküll’s (1864-1944) account of Umwelt has been proposed as a mediating concept to bridge the gap between ecological psychology’s realism about environmental information and enactivism’s emphasis on the organism’s active role in constructing the meaningful world it inhabits. If successful, this move would constitute a significant step towards establishing a single ecological-enactive framework for cognitive science. However, Uexküll’s thought itself contains different perspectives that are in tension with each other, and the concept of Umwelt is developed in representationalist terms that conflict with the commitments of both enactivism and ecological psychology. One central issue shared by all these approaches is the problem of how a living being experiences its environment. In this paper, we will look at Uexküll’s reception in French philosophy and highlight the different ways in which the concept of Umwelt functions in the work of Georges Canguilhem, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Gilles Deleuze. This analysis helps clarify different aspects of Uexküll’s thought and the deeper philosophical implications of importing his concepts into embodied cognitive science. This paper is part of a recent trend in which enactivism engages with continental philosophy in a way that both deepens and transcends the traditional links to phenomenology, including most recently the thought of Georg W. F. Hegel and Gilbert Simondon. However, no more than a brief outline and introduction to the potentials and challenges of this complex conceptual intersection can be given here. Our hope is that it serves to make more explicit the philosophical issues that are at stake for cognitive science in the question of experienced environments, while charting a useful course for future research
Bioethics: Reincarnation of Natural Philosophy in Modern Science
The theory of evolution of complex and comprising of human systems and algorithm for its
constructing are the synthesis of evolutionary epistemology, philosophical anthropology and
concrete scientific empirical basis in modern (transdisciplinary) science. «Trans-disciplinary» in
the context is interpreted as a completely new epistemological situation, which is fraught with the
initiation of a civilizational crisis. Philosophy and ideology of technogenic civilization is based on
the possibility of unambiguous demarcation of public value and descriptive scientific discourses
(1), and the object and subject of the cognitive process (2). Both of these attributes are no longer
valid. For mass, everyday consciousness and institutional philosophical tradition it is intuitively
obvious that having the ability to control the evolutionary process, Homo sapiens came close to the
borders of their own biological and cultural identity. The spontaneous coevolutionary process of
interaction between the «subject» (rational living organisms) and the «object» (material world), is
the teleological trend of the movement towards the complete rationalization of the World as It Is,
its merger with the World of Due. The stratification of the global evolutionary process into selective
and semantic (teleological) coevolutionary and therefore ontologically inseparable components
follows. With the entry of anthropogenic civilization into the stage of the information society, firsty,
the post-academic phase of the historical evolution of scientific rationality began, the attributes of
which are the specific methodology of scientific knowledge, scientific ethos and ontology. Bioethics
as a phenomenon of intellectual culture represents a natural philosophical core of modern post-
academic (human-dimensional) science, in which the ethical neutrality of scientific theory
principle is inapplicable, and elements of public-axiological and scientific-descriptive discourses
are integrated into a single logic construction. As result, hermeneutics precedes epistemology not
only methodologically, but also meaningfully, and natural philosophy is regaining the status of the
backbone of the theory of evolution – in an explicit for
Методология современной науки: проблема формирования междисциплинарного подхода
Философия и методология науки - отрасль академического знания, которая имеет специфические особенности в плане расширения методологических стратегий. Любое междисциплинарное поле изучения объекта предполагает пересечение и интеграцию исследовательских подходов. Основная цель анализа – понимание того, как формируются комплексные методы описания и конструирования предмета исследования. Междисциплинарные исследования предполагают наличие различных интерпретаций. В работе систематизированы основные направления междисциплинарных исследований.Фiлософiя та методологiя науки – отрасль академiчного знання, яка маэ своi особливостi в планi розширення методологiчних стратегiй. Будь – яке мiждисциплiнарне поле вивчення висловлюэ iнтеграцiю рiзних пiдходiв. Основна мета – розумiння того, як формуються комплекснi методи опису та конструюванню предмета дослiджень. В роботi зроблена спроба систематизацii основних напрямкiв мiждисциплiнарностi дослiджень науки.Philosophy and the methodology of science is branch of academic knowledge, which has specific special features in the plan of expansion of methodological strategies. Any interdisciplinary field of the study of assumes intersection and integration of research approaches. Basic purpose is understanding as are formed the complex methods of description and constructing the object of experiments. Interdisciplinary studies assume the presence of different interpretations. In this work the basic directions of interdisciplinary studies are systematized. Scientific knowledge is complex, because the objects are at the intersection of several branches of science. For example: biophysics, biochemistry, bioinformatics, geo-ecology and so on. The interdisciplinary approach is the presence of two or more disciplines for the effective development of the research project. It is necessary to design a platform to address cognitive problems at the interface of scientific competence. The key characteristic of academic research - the creation of an innovative methodology for objective knowledge of reality. Strategic objective - to achieve methodological and conceptual consensus. Interdisciplinary epistemological balance is the integration of quantitative and qualitative parameters of the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. The need to understand how the modern scientific knowledge is made large, as evidenced by the efforts of much philosophy and methodology of science
Models in Scientific Practice
This dissertation presents an account of the practice of modeling in science in which scientists' perceptual and bodily interactions with external representations take center stage. I argue that modeling is primarily a practice of constructing, manipulating, and analyzing external representations in service of cognitive and epistemic aims of research, and show that this account better captures important aspects of the practice of modeling than accounts currently popular in philosophy of science.
Philosophical accounts of the practice of modeling classify models according to the categories of abstract and concrete entities developed in metaphysics. I argue that this type of account obscures the practice of modeling. In particular, using the analysis of the Lotka-Volterra model as an example, I argue that understanding mathematical models as abstract entities---non-spatiotemporally located, imperceptible entities---obscures the fact that the analysis of the Lotka-Volterra model relies primarily on visual perception of external representations, especially hand- or computer-generated graphs. Instead, I suggest that we apply the concepts of internal and external representations, developed in cognitive science, to models, including mathematical models.
I then present two case studies that illustrate different aspects of modeling, understood as a practice of constructing, manipulating, and analyzing external representations. First, using Sewall Wright's long-term research on isolation by distance, I articulate the relationship between the uses of a model, the particular aims of research, and the criteria of success relevant to a given use of the model. I argue that uses of the same model can shift over the course of scientists' research in response to shifts in aim and that criteria of success for one use of a model can be different from those for another use of the same model. Second, I argue that in successful scientific research, a scientist uses a model according to the methodological principles of realism and instrumentalism despite the tension that they create among the scientist's uses of the model over time. This thesis is supported by a detailed analysis of successful scientific research done by Seymour Benzer in the 1950s and 60s
The bodily other and everyday experience of the lived urban world
This article explores the relationship between the bodily presence of other humans in the lived urban world and the experience of everyday architecture. We suggest, from the perspectives of phenomenology and architecture, that being in the company of others changes the way the built environment appears to subjects, and that this enables us to perform simple daily tasks while still attending to the built environment. Our analysis shows that in mundane urban settings attending to the environment involves a unique attentional mode, which does not rely on concentrating on, or appreciating the architectural objects, but rather on social attention and on the subject’s kinesthesis in relation to the built environment
Young children's research: children aged 4-8 years finding solutions at home and at school
Children's research capacities have become increasingly recognised by adults, yet children remain excluded from the academy, with reports of their research participation generally located in adults' agenda. Such practice restricts children's freedom to make choices in matters affecting them, underestimates children’s capabilities and denies children particular rights. The present paper reports on one aspect of a small-scale critical ethnographic study adopting a constructivist grounded approach to conceptualise ways in which children's naturalistic behaviours may be perceived as research. The study builds on multi-disciplinary theoretical perspectives, embracing 'new' sociology, psychology, economics, philosophy and early childhood education and care (ECEC). Research questions include: 'What is the nature of ECEC research?' and 'Do children’s enquiries count as research?' Initially, data were collected from the academy: professional researchers (n=14) confirmed 'finding solutions' as a research behaviour and indicated children aged 4-8 years, their practitioners and primary carers as 'theoretical sampling'. Consequently, multi-modal case studies were constructed with children (n=138) and their practitioners (n=17) in three ‘good’ schools, with selected children and their primary carers also participating at home. This paper reports on data emerging from children aged 4-8 years at school (n=17) and at home (n=5). Outcomes indicate that participating children found diverse solutions to diverse problems, some of which they set themselves. Some solutions engaged children in high order thinking, whilst others did not; selecting resources and trialing activities engaged children in 'finding solutions'. Conversely, when children's time, provocations and activities were directed by adults, the quality of their solutions was limited, they focused on pleasing adults and their motivation to propose solutions decreased. In this study, professional researchers recognised 'finding solutions' as research behaviour and children aged 4-8 years naturalistically presented with capacities for finding solutions; however, the children's encounters with adults affected the solutions they found
An Existential Perspective on Addiction Treatment: A Logic-based therapy case study
In this essay I argue that a comprehensive understanding of addiction and its treatment should include an existential perspective. I provide a brief overview of an existential perspective of addiction and recovery, which will contextualize the remainder of the essay. I then present a case study of how the six-step philosophical practice method of Logic-Based Therapy can assist with issues that often arise in addiction treatment framed through an existential perspective
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