Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

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234571

On (not) defining cognition

Colin Allen

pp. 4233-4249

Abstract

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

Published in:

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

Pages: 4233-4249

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-017-1454-4

Full citation:

Allen Colin (2017) „On (not) defining cognition“. Synthese 194 (11), 4233–4249.