The Cognitive Basis of Science

A volume of interdisciplinary essays addressing the question: what makes science possible?

Peter Carruthers (Edited by), Stephen Stich (Edited by), Michael Siegal (Edited by)

9780521812290, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 May 2002

422 pages, 19 b/w illus. 2 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.79 kg

The Cognitive Basis of Science concerns the question 'What makes science possible?' Specifically, what features of the human mind and of human culture and cognitive development permit and facilitate the conduct of science? The essays in this volume address these questions, which are inherently interdisciplinary, requiring co-operation between philosophers, psychologists, and others in the social and cognitive sciences. They concern the cognitive, social, and motivational underpinnings of scientific reasoning in children and lay persons as well as in professional scientists. The editors' introduction lays out the background to the debates, and the volume includes a consolidated bibliography that will be a valuable reference resource for all those interested in this area. The volume will be of great importance to all researchers and students interested in the philosophy or psychology of scientific reasoning, as well as those, more generally, who are interested in the nature of the human mind.

1. Introduction: what makes science possible? Peter Carruthers, Stephen Stich and Michael Siegal
Part I. Science and Innateness: 2. Human evolution and the cognitive basis of science Steven Mithen
3. Modular and cultural factors in biological understanding: an experimental approach to the cognitive basis of science Scott Atran
4. The roots of scientific reasoning: infancy, modularity, and the art of tracking Peter Carruthers
Part II. Science and Cognition: 5. Science without grammar: scientific reasoning in severe a-grammatic aphasia Rosemary Varley
6. Causal maps and Bayes nets: a cognitive and computational account of theory-formation Alison Gopnik and Clark Glymour
7. The cognitive basis of model based reasoning in science Nancy Nersessian
8. Understanding the role of cognition in science: the Science as Category framework Kevin Dunbar
9. Theorizing is important, and collateral information constrains how well it is done Barbara Koslowski and Stephanie Thompson
10. The influence of prior belief on scientific thinking Jonathan St B. T. Evans
11. Thinking about causality: pragmatic, social and scientific rationality Denis Hilton
Part III. Science and Motivation: 12. The passionate scientist: emotion in scientific cognition Paul Thagard
13. Emotions and epistemic evaluations Christopher Hookway
14. Social psychology and the theory of science Philip Kitcher
Part IV. Science and the Social: 15. Scientific cognition as distributed cognition Ronald Giere
16. The science of childhood Michael Siegal
17. What do children learn from testimony? Paul Harris
18. The baby in the lab-coat: why child development is an inadequate model for understanding the development of science Luc Faucher, Ron Mallon, Daniel Nazer, Shaun Nichols, Aaron Ruby, Stephen Stich and Jonathan Weinberg.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of science [PDA], Psychological theory & schools of thought [JMA], Philosophy [HP]