Part 1 Day1 Article 1
I'm gonna start with something general in the realm of a philosophical editorial rather than an honest to goodness research article because this the broad strokes of philosophical discussion serve as a great introduction to the subject in general. Daniel Dennett's:
”The Part of Cognitive Science That Is Philosophy,” Topics in Cognitive Science 1 (2009), pp. 231-6.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/tops_1015.pdf
This article discusses how Philsophy sort of fleshes out the appropriate grounds for a given science, but once the playing field is established more rigorously no expert scientist will well tolerate some philosopher coming in and dismissing the validity of the field with a bunch of a priori arguments. Dennett shows how the role of philosopher and scientist is very muddy in a young field like cognitive science because they are still settling on which questions are the right ones to ask. Philosophers can only be helpful in their capacity to generate null hypotheses for scientists to test against, or in their ability to flesh out the details of experimental method [in which case they are serving more as conventional researchers than as some new adjunct to the scientist].
Dennett and I agree, on what E O Wilson called consilience: that all the sciences and humanities existed upon a continuous landscape of human accomplishment and understanding. That philosophers can work to fill in the empty spaces at the frontiers is fortunate. Scientists working across disciplines and scientists popularizing to the lay public can also serve to bind the fabrics more tightly.
Dennett also mentions the possibility that there is no such thing as a neural correlate of consciousness in the same way it is possible there is no single obvious "correlate to speciation" in evolutionary theory. If anyone wants to get into THE HARD PROBLEM I'm all for it.
Love
-Matthew
”The Part of Cognitive Science That Is Philosophy,” Topics in Cognitive Science 1 (2009), pp. 231-6.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/tops_1015.pdf
This article discusses how Philsophy sort of fleshes out the appropriate grounds for a given science, but once the playing field is established more rigorously no expert scientist will well tolerate some philosopher coming in and dismissing the validity of the field with a bunch of a priori arguments. Dennett shows how the role of philosopher and scientist is very muddy in a young field like cognitive science because they are still settling on which questions are the right ones to ask. Philosophers can only be helpful in their capacity to generate null hypotheses for scientists to test against, or in their ability to flesh out the details of experimental method [in which case they are serving more as conventional researchers than as some new adjunct to the scientist].
Dennett and I agree, on what E O Wilson called consilience: that all the sciences and humanities existed upon a continuous landscape of human accomplishment and understanding. That philosophers can work to fill in the empty spaces at the frontiers is fortunate. Scientists working across disciplines and scientists popularizing to the lay public can also serve to bind the fabrics more tightly.
Dennett also mentions the possibility that there is no such thing as a neural correlate of consciousness in the same way it is possible there is no single obvious "correlate to speciation" in evolutionary theory. If anyone wants to get into THE HARD PROBLEM I'm all for it.
Love
-Matthew