Статья из журнала Cognitive science 4 (1980) c.71-115If cognitive science does not exist then it is necessary to invent it. That slogan
accommodates any reasonable attitude about the subject. One attitude-an optimistic
one-is that cognitive science already exists and is alive and flourishing
in academe: we have all in our different ways been doing it for years. The
gentleman in Moliere’s play rejoiced to discover that he had been speaking prose
for forty years without realizing it: perhaps we are merely celebrating a similar
discovery. And, if we just keep going on in the same way, then we are bound to
unravel the workings of the mind. Another attitude-my own-is more pessimistic:
experimental psychology is not going to succeed unaided in elucidating
human mentality; artificial intelligence is not going to succeed unaided in modelling
the mind; nor is any other discipline-linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience,
philosophy-going to have any greater success. If we are ever to understand
cognition, then we need a new science dedicated to that aim and based only
in part on its contributing disciplines. Yet pessimism should not be confused with
cynicism. We should reject the view that cognititie science is merely a clever ruse
dreamed up to gain research funds-that it is nothing more than six disciplines in
search of a grant-giving agency.
