On Explanation in the Cognitive Sciences

Competence, Idealization, and the Failure of the Classical Cascade

Bibliographic Data

ID8398585
AuthorsB Franks (0000-0002-6667-6172, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author)
Year1995
Volume46
Issue4
Pages475-502
Publication date1995-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/bjps/46.4.475
OpenAlexW2128389510
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited26

The ‘classical cascade’ of explanation through three ‘levels of description’ is a central methodological underpinning of the cognitive sciences. I argue, however, that it often fails to provide adequate explanations, in particular in conjunction with competence theories. This failure originates in the idealizations in competence descriptions, which either ‘block’ the cascade, or produce a successful cascade which fails to explain cognition.

Cascade · Categorization · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Competence (human resources) · Epistemology · Idealization · Physics · Underpinning · Biomedical Text Mining and Ontologies · Engineering · Neuroscience · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology · Semantic Web and Ontologies · Social Psychology

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