Por um pluralismo de estratégias nas ciências cognitivas

Abstract

Cognitive Sciences, as an interdisciplinary area, began to develop in themid-1950s   from   a   common   conception   of   the   mind,   which   is   called cognitivist. These researchers conceived the mind as having a representa-tional   nature,   which   operated   through   symbolic   computations.   In   recentdecades, however, this conception has lost exclusivity, so that today thereare a multiplicity of approaches and theories about the mind. In this spec-trum of positions, there are from traditional approaches, which conceive themind as representational, to quite radical approaches, which deny any repre-sentational nature to the mind. After introducing this theme, we presentWilliam Ramsey’s criticisms of the representation as a criterion of cognitivedemarcation or, in other words, of the representation as a definer of cogni-tive sciences. We will develop an interpretive hypothesis for Ramsey’s criti-cisms by mobilizing Hugh Lacey’s concept of research strategy. We willpresent Lacey’s distinction between adopting a strategy and accepting a the-ory, discussing the supposed evaluative independence between strategy andtheory. We will conclude with a defense of pluralism of strategies in cogni-tive sciences. Unlike conceptions that seek to prematurely reduce cognitivesciences to a single strategy, this pluralism balances efficiency with othervalues considered important, such as empirical comprehensiveness and neu-trality in the sense of inclusiveness and equity of values. In the present mo-ment   of   cognitive   sciences,   pluralism   of   strategies   consists   in   the   mostpromising path.