Cognitive ontology and the search for neural mechanisms

Three foundational problems

Bibliographic Data

ID10813618
AuthorsJolien C Francken (0000-0001-5141-7672, Radboud University Nijmegen, corresponding author), Marc Slors (0000-0002-4459-2859, Radboud University Nijmegen, corresponding author), Carl F Craver (0000-0002-0289-1957, Washington University in St. Louis)
Year2022
Volume200
Issue5
Publication date2022-09-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSynthese (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0039-7857 • E-ISSN: 1573-0964
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s11229-022-03701-2
OpenAlexW3136399569
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited71

The central task of cognitive neuroscience to map cognitive capacities to neural mechanisms faces three interlocking conceptual problems that together frame the problem of cognitive ontology. First, they must establish which tasks elicit which cognitive capacities, and specifically when different tasks elicit the same capacity. To address this operationalization problem , scientists often assess whether the tasks engage the same neural mechanisms. But to determine whether mechanisms are of the same or different kinds, we need to solve the abstraction problem by determining which mechanistic differences are and are not relevant, and also the boundary problem by distinguishing the mechanism from its background conditions. Solving these problems, in turn, requires understanding how cognitive capacities are elicited in tasks. These three problems, which have been noted and discussed elsewhere in the literature, together form a ‘cycle of kinds’ that frames the central problem-space of cognitive ontology. We describe this cycle to clarify the intellectual challenges facing the cognitive ontologist and to reveal the kind of iterative process by which ontological revision in cognitive neuroscience is likely to unfold

Abstraction · Cognition · Cognitive model · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Epistemology · Mechanism (biology) · Ontology · Operationalization · Process (computing) · Task (project management) · Artificial Intelligence · Biomedical Text Mining and Ontologies · Cognitive Neuroscience · Computer Science · Neuroscience · Psychology

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