Two Dogmas of Neo-Empiricism
نویسنده
چکیده
This article critically examines the contemporary resurgence of empiricism (or “neo-empiricism”) in philosophy, psychology, neuropsychology, and artificial intelligence. This resurgence is an important and positive development. It is the first time that this centuries-old empiricist approach to cognition is precisely formulated in the context of cognitive science and neuroscience. Moreover, neo-empiricists have made several findings that challenge amodal theories of concepts and higher cognition. It is argued, however, that the theoretical foundations of and the empirical evidence for neo-empiricism are not as strong as is usually claimed by its proponents. The empirical evidence for and against neo-empiricism is discussed in detail. In this article, I critically examine the contemporary resurgence of empiricism (or “neo-empiricism”) in philosophy, psychology, neuropsychology, and artificial intelligence. This resurgence is an important and positive development. It is the first time that this centuries-old empiricist approach to cognition is precisely formulated in the context of cognitive science and neuroscience. Moreover, neo-empiricists have made several findings that challenge amodal theories of concepts and higher cognition. I argue however that the theoretical foundations of and the empirical evidence for neo-empiricism are not as strong as is usually claimed by its proponents (see also Machery,“Concept Empiricism”). In the first section, I describe the two central dogmas of neo-empiricism. In the second section, I discuss two theoretical issues. In the last section, I consider some empirical evidence for and against neo-empiricism.
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