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On the idea of complexes of theories in the cognitive sciences.

In this article, I develop the idea of theoretical complexes to characterize large-scale theoretical movements in the cognitive sciences, such as classical computational cognitivism, connectionism, embodied cognition, and predictive processing. It is argued that these theoretical movements should be...

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Published in:Synthese Vol. 206; no. 2; pp. 1 - 35
Main Author: Sushchin, Mikhail
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Aug2025
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: On the idea of complexes of theories in the cognitive sciences.
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        au: Sushchin, Mikhail
        affil: https://ror.org/04j4xtm35 The Center of Scientific Information Studies in Science, Education and Technologies, Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovsky Prospekt 51/21, 117418, Moscow, Russia
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        Cognitive sciences
        Philosophy of science
        Pluralism
        Proliferation
        Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology
        Theoretical complexes
        Unified theory of cognition
      ab: In this article, I develop the idea of theoretical complexes to characterize large-scale theoretical movements in the cognitive sciences, such as classical computational cognitivism, connectionism, embodied cognition, and predictive processing. It is argued that these theoretical movements should be construed as groups of closely connected individual theories and models of cognitive processes that share similar general hypotheses about the nature of cognition. General hypotheses form conceptual cores of complexes of cognitive theories, giving them their structure and functional properties. The latter are said to consist primarily of helping practitioners of theoretical complexes further develop their individual accounts of cognitive phenomena. It is claimed that the theoretical diversity fostered in this way has already benefited the cognitive sciences in a number of important ways and has the potential to further advance the field.
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    language: English
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