The Thesis of Theory-Laden Observation in the Light of Cognitive Psychology

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze a philosophical question (neutrality vs. theoryladenness of observation) taking into consideration the empirical results of Cognitive Psychology (theories of perception). This is an important debate because the objectivity of science is at stake. In the Philosophy of Science there are two main positions with regard to observation, those of C. Hempel and N. R. Hanson. In the Philosophy of Mind there are also two important contrasting positions, those of J. Fodor and Paul M. Churchland. I will analyze the consequences of recent theories of perception and vision developed within Cognitive Science for classical epistemological theses about observation.

The extended cognition thesis: Its significance for the philosophy of (cognitive) science

“…To frame the contributions in this issue, however, and to prepare the way towards understanding the new light they shed on science, it is helpful to outline some major previous contributions. Naturalistic approaches, over and above being used in general epistemology (e.g., Goldman, 1986;Kitcher, 1992;Kornblith, 2002;Quine, 1969), have included reinterpretations of Kuhn's philosophy of science through cognitivist theories of concepts (Andersen, Barker, & Chen, 2006;Nersessian, 2002a), the meaning of theoretical concepts (e.g., Nersessian, 2008), the generation of new theories against the background of heuristics (Gigerenzer & Sturm, 2007), the thesis of the theory-ladenness of observation in the light of perceptual psychology (e.g., Churchland, 1979;Estany, 2001;Fodor, 1984), computational accounts and simulations of scientific discovery (Langley, Simon, Bradshaw, & Zytkow, 1987), and scientific progress more generally (Kitcher, 1993;Laudan, 1990). Now, many such approaches have used ideas from classical cognitive science.…”

Human Rationality Challenges Universal Logic

“…Attempted resolutions of the general theory-laden problem commonly appeal to cognitive models of the researcher and research community [72], which emphasizes that the researchers exhibit the same phenomena of human rationality as the subjects whose rationality they are studying. Conversely, the subjects act as 'personal scientists' [132,204] in exploring the situations in which they are involved and modeling them within the frameworks of their own previous experience and preconceptions.…”

Aesthetics and Cognitive Science

“…Paul Churchland (1979,1988) has been a persistent critic of both modularity and cognitive impenetrability. Novel arguments for theory-laden perception have been offered (Brewer and Lambert 2001;Estany 2001;McCauley and Henrich 2006). The importance of this debate to cognitive science should be clear: models of perceptual representation must be constrained by the facts about cognitive penetrability.…”