Can contemporary cognitive science coherently accommodate itself?
It should seem obvious that any purportedly comprehensive account of human cognition should be able to coherently accommodate itself—qua an instance of human cognition—where that means accommodating not just the specific tenets that distinguish it from competing accounts, but also the fundamental pr...
| Published in: | Synthese Vol. 204; no. 2; pp. 1 - 11 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Aug2024
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=178577517&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 178577517 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Aug2024 vid: 204 iid: 2 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 178577517 10.1007/s11229-024-04704-x ppf: 1 ppct: 10 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 720KB tig: atl: Can contemporary cognitive science coherently accommodate itself? aug: au: Baz, Avner affil: https://ror.org/05wvpxv85 Department of Philosophy, Tufts University, 02155, Medford, MA, USA sug: keyword: Andy Clark Cognitive science Constructivism Enactivism Naturalism Physicalism Predictive processing Self-accommodation ab: It should seem obvious that any purportedly comprehensive account of human cognition should be able to coherently accommodate itself—qua an instance of human cognition—where that means accommodating not just the specific tenets that distinguish it from competing accounts, but also the fundamental presuppositions that constitute the framework within which it has been developed and argued for. That seemingly obvious requirement of self-accommodation becomes problematic, I argue, when the cognitive scientist is committed, as most contemporary cognitive scientists are, to a broadly naturalist-physicalist perspective, or framework, and at the same time is moved by empirical findings and theoretical considerations to recognize our active and ineliminable contribution, not only to the sense the world makes to us cognitively, but already to the sense it makes to us at the level of (‘pre-objective’) perception. For the sake of clarity of exposition, this paper presses that difficulty of contemporary cognitive science by looking closely at how it manifests itself in Andy Clark’s Surfing Uncertainty (Clark Surfing uncertainty, Oxford University Press, 2016); but the difficulty is principled and general. To avoid it, without denying the active role we play in the constitution of the world as pre-objectively perceived and as cognitively, objectively represented, contemporary cognitive scientists would need, at the very least, to acknowledge that their commitment to the naturalist-physicalist framework may not itself be justified from within that framework. Having taken that step, they might as well take another, and recognize that a truly satisfying understanding of human perception and cognition can only be attained from a perspective that, though fully attentive to empirical findings, transcends the naturalist-physicalist framework and affords a critical examination of it. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2024. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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