Cognitive Theory at the Crossroads

Head Fitting, Head Splitting, orSomewhere in Between

Bibliographic Data

ID20293252
AuthorsRichardS Prawat (corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume42
Issue2
Pages59-77
Publication date1999-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHuman Development (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-716X • E-ISSN: 1423-0054
PublisherS. Karger AG (PUBLISHER • CH)
DOI10.1159/000022611
OpenAlexW2083238743
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited17

Modernist, head-fitting views of cognition and postmodernist, language oriented views are both problematic, I argue. The former because they are associated with a dualist epistemology (i.e., a spectator theory of knowledge), the latter because they fail to adequately grapple with key issues like the individual’s role in promoting language change, the relation between language and reality, and the connection between local and societal level language practice. Fortunately, there is an alternative which represents a kind of epistemological ‘in-between’ perspective. In this approach, developed by Dewey and Vygotsky in the last years of his life, meaning-making is cast as a complex semiotic process that is simultaneously social, embodied, and transactional in nature

Cognition · Cognitive science · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Head (geology) · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Metaphysics · Perspective (graphical) · Philosophy of language · Relation (database) · Semiotics · Sociology · Transactional leadership · Computer Science · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Pragmatism in Philosophy and Education · Psychology · Social Psychology

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