Linguistique de l’écrit

Revue internationale en libre accès

Revue | Volume | Article

234571

On (not) defining cognition

Colin Allen

pp. 4233-4249

Résumé

Should cognitive scientists be any more embarrassed about their lack of a discipline-fixing definition of cognition than biologists are about their inability to define “life”? My answer is “no”. Philosophers seeking a unique “mark of the cognitive” or less onerous but nevertheless categorical characterizations of cognition are working at a level of analysis upon which hangs nothing that either cognitive scientists or philosophers of cognitive science should care about. In contrast, I advocate a pluralistic stance towards uses of the term ‘cognition’ that eschews the urge to treat cognition as a metaphysically well-defined “natural” kind.

Détails de la publication

Publié dans:

Buckner Cameron, Fridland Ellen (2017) Cognition. Synthese 194 (11).

Pages: 4233-4249

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-017-1454-4

Citation complète:

Allen Colin, 2017, On (not) defining cognition. Synthese 194 (11), Cognition, 4233-4249. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1454-4.