COGNITIVE SCIENCE: FROM MULTIDISCIPLINARITY TO INTERDISCIPLINARITY
International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science Engineering and Education January 8, 2018 DOI: 10.5937/ijcrsee1702145b (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 13 |
| Key points | Argues that cognitive science should be described as multidisciplinary rather than genuinely interdisciplinary, citing D. Sperber and J. Miller's view that the separate cognitive sciences work on a common object but communicate only to a small extent. The authors contrast this with P. Thagard's position that cognitive science has reached interdisciplinarity, explained through the metaphor of "trading zones". |
Abstract
Cognitive science is a network of interrelated scientific disciplines engaged in researching human cognition and its brain mechanisms. The birth of cognitive science has been the result of numerous integrated processes. Cognitive science is made up of experimental psychology cognition, philosophy consciousness, neuroscience, cognitive anthropology, linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence. In recent years, a number of other research areas have been added to the body of cognitive science. Among researchers there have been discussions about whether cognitive science is a separate research area or it consists of a series of specialized areas. In fact, the point at issue is whether cognitive science is still a multidisciplinary project or already an interdisciplinary one. P. Thagard believes that cognitive science has reached the level of interdisciplinarity and explains the advances in this area through the metaphor of “trading zones”. The success elements of cognitive science are: fruitful unification of scientific interests of cognitive science founders; organizational structure of the scientific community – universities, where a special interdisciplinary intellectual environment has been created; a large number of joint research projects supported by governments and business; integrated use of scientific methods and fundamental ideas. D. Sperber and J. Miller prefer to talk not about a unified cognitive science but cognitive sciences, i.e., the commonwealth of sciences working together on the study of a single object - human cognition, however, the extent of their interactive communication is still small. Thus, we should speak about multidisciplinarity rather than genuine interdisciplinarity of the joint research of separate sciences.