Individuating Cognitive Characters: Lessons from Praying Mantises and Plants.

This article advances the development of a phylogeny-based psychology in which cognitive ability types are individuated as characters in the evolutionary biological sense. I explain the character concept and its utility in addressing (or dissolving) conceptual problems arising from discoveries of co...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Philosophy of Science Vol. 91; no. 4; pp. 930 - 950
Autor principal: Figdor, Carrie
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Cambridge University Press Oct2024
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:This article advances the development of a phylogeny-based psychology in which cognitive ability types are individuated as characters in the evolutionary biological sense. I explain the character concept and its utility in addressing (or dissolving) conceptual problems arising from discoveries of cognitive abilities across a wide range of species. I use the examples of stereopsis in the praying mantis, internal cell-to-cell signaling in plants, and episodic memory in scrub jays to show how anthropocentric cognitive ability types can be reformulated into cognitive characters, thereby promoting the integration of psychology with other sciences of evolved traits.