Introduction to Philosophy

There are many different kinds of philosophy. For example, there is Indian philosophy (which has its roots in the ancient body of oral tradition known as the Veda), Islamic philosophy, Japanese philosophy and Chinese philosophy. However, none of these have had any real influence on the scientific tradition in which cognitive science has grown up. That scientific tradition is Western science and Western science is inextricably linked with Western philosophy. Wherever in the world today people study cognitive science or AI, they do so in the context of Western science and philosophy. Western philosophy started with the Greeks about two and a half thousand years ago. Traditionally, the first philosopher is said to have been Thales of Miletus who lived in the sixth century BC. There have been many different philosophical schools and movements over the centuries and, currently, there are several different philosophical traditions. I shall focus on two that are particularly relevant to cognitive science and they are analytical philosophy and critical rationalism. Analytical philosophy has been around for about a hundred years. It has its origins in the work of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell and the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. Its greatest exponent was Ludwig Wittgenstein. Critical rationalism is the name given to the philosophy of Karl Popper. He had many students who developed and criticised his ideas and, although they would not call themselves critical rationalists, they have more in common with Popper than with analytical philosophy. These students included Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, William Warren Bartley, III, David Miller, Ian Jarvie and Joseph Agassi. I will say more about these two philosophical movements later, but first I want to try and give you a feel for philosophy. Many people have a very low opinion of philosophy. They think that philosophers occupy themselves with unanswerable pseudo-problems. The sociologist David Bloor writes (Knowledge and Social Imagery (1976), p. 45):