Cognitive Foundations of Natural History
Towards an Anthropology of Science

Scott Atran (Author)

9780521438711, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 January 1993

376 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 2.4 cm, 0.615 kg

'There can be no doubt that the book establishes new standards of rigour in its area and will be the starting-point for future investigations in years to come.' Andrew Brennan, The Times Higher Education Supplement

What is it about human nature that makes our species capable of thinking scientifically? Inspired by the debate he set up between Noam Chomsky and Jean Piaget, Scott Atran traces the development of Natural History from Aristotle to Darwin, and demonstrates how the science of plants and animals has emerged from common conceptions of folk biology. The author proceeds not only from the more traditional philosophical, historical, or sociological perspectives, but from a point of view which he considers to be more basic and necessary to all of these: that of cognition. He applies a 'cognitive' perspective to an explanation of the successive scientific incarnations, transformations, and mutations of what Hume called 'mankind's original stock of ideas'.

Preface
1. Common sense: its scope and limits
Part I. Folkbiology: 2. Folktaxonomy
3. The semantics of living kinds
Part II. Aristotelian Essentials: 4. Essence and environment
5. Materials of logical division
Part III. From Herbals to Systems: 6. Origins of the species concept
7. The nature of the genus
Part IV. The Scientific Breakaway: 8. The method of families and classes
9. Science, symbolism and common sense
Conclusions
Appendix
Notes
References
Index.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]