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(2017) Synthese 194 (11).
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.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-017-1454-4
Full citation:
Allen, C. (2017). On (not) defining cognition. Synthese 194 (11), pp. 4233-4249.
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