Carole J Lee
Examines philosophical questions raised in and by cognitive sciences, including the nature of explanation, the role of models in explanation, and debates about reductionism versus pluralism in the face of diverse research paradigms.
On the surface, philosophers and cognitive scientists both seek to understand and identify the role of concepts in cognition, the rationality and irrationality of human judgment, and the relationship between deliberative versus heuristic processes. However, a closer examination of the methods and practices within the cognitive sciences reveal that the purposes to which cognitive scientists adopt these notions diverge from the concerns motivating traditional philosophical inquiry. This seminar will expose these tensions in the context of contemporary cognitive scientific research on concepts, the rationality and irrationality of human judgment, and dual process models of cognition.
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