Very interesting. I’m an Experimental Psychologist by training, and I found this piece to be extremely well-written and well-researched. However, I’m not sure I can agree with the framing of your hypothesis.
There is a pervasive pattern in cognitive science (AI and cognitive psychology, in particular) of relying on a naïve Cartesian world-view. In other words, Descartes’ formulation of the Cogito, the thinking-self, is the implicit paradigm on which research is conducted.
In this worldview, the “self” is taken to be an irreducible whole – Descartes’ placed his whole metaphysical system on the supposedly firm bedrock of Cogito Ergo Sum (I think, therefore I am). Later thinkers, including Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche, would find many problems in the Cartesian formulation, and Nietzsche in particular would be significantly influential on psychoanalysis.
The research of Bargh and co that you have referenced here amounts to a recovery of psychoanalysis, which is also occurring elsewhere in neuroscience (see the work of Mark Solms) – although within more empirically scientific frameworks. Psychoanalysis, in part, was an exploration of the hidden processes that lie outside consciousness, either because they are components of the self, or because they are rejected from consciousness for whatever reason.
This is the line of reasoning I thought you were going to follow. Your conclusion, however, was different from the one I was expecting. After noting that some parts of cognition are not available to consciousness, you did not argue that these processes are under represented in cognitive science. Instead, you argued that normative cognition (which is generally taken to be available to consciousness) is underrepresented in cognitive science. I think this point is correct, but perhaps not for the reasons you’ve given. I found the idea that descriptive cognition cannot map normative cognition, and vice versa, to be a little confused.
I’m sure you’re aware of the early history of cognitive science, but if anything it was overly focused on normative cognition. Early attempts at AI, such as the work of John McCarthy, saw it attempted using logic as a means of representation. It was only after this failed spectacularly that many engineers were open to the idea that other forms of representation would be required.
The current neglect of normative models is more a function of the historical flow of research than some psychological limitation of researchers. There’s a plausible argument that some cognitive processes have been neglected due to their lack of availability to consciousness, but I’m not sure this can be applied to normative cognition. Rather, the spectacular success of learning techniques, combined with the earlier spectacular failure of reasoning techniques, has led to descriptive cognition being overrated in the research literature.
Very interesting. I’m an Experimental Psychologist by training, and I found this piece to be extremely well-written and well-researched. However, I’m not sure I can agree with the framing of your hypothesis.
There is a pervasive pattern in cognitive science (AI and cognitive psychology, in particular) of relying on a naïve Cartesian world-view. In other words, Descartes’ formulation of the Cogito, the thinking-self, is the implicit paradigm on which research is conducted.
In this worldview, the “self” is taken to be an irreducible whole – Descartes’ placed his whole metaphysical system on the supposedly firm bedrock of Cogito Ergo Sum (I think, therefore I am). Later thinkers, including Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche, would find many problems in the Cartesian formulation, and Nietzsche in particular would be significantly influential on psychoanalysis.
The research of Bargh and co that you have referenced here amounts to a recovery of psychoanalysis, which is also occurring elsewhere in neuroscience (see the work of Mark Solms) – although within more empirically scientific frameworks. Psychoanalysis, in part, was an exploration of the hidden processes that lie outside consciousness, either because they are components of the self, or because they are rejected from consciousness for whatever reason.
This is the line of reasoning I thought you were going to follow. Your conclusion, however, was different from the one I was expecting. After noting that some parts of cognition are not available to consciousness, you did not argue that these processes are under represented in cognitive science. Instead, you argued that normative cognition (which is generally taken to be available to consciousness) is underrepresented in cognitive science. I think this point is correct, but perhaps not for the reasons you’ve given. I found the idea that descriptive cognition cannot map normative cognition, and vice versa, to be a little confused.
I’m sure you’re aware of the early history of cognitive science, but if anything it was overly focused on normative cognition. Early attempts at AI, such as the work of John McCarthy, saw it attempted using logic as a means of representation. It was only after this failed spectacularly that many engineers were open to the idea that other forms of representation would be required.
The current neglect of normative models is more a function of the historical flow of research than some psychological limitation of researchers. There’s a plausible argument that some cognitive processes have been neglected due to their lack of availability to consciousness, but I’m not sure this can be applied to normative cognition. Rather, the spectacular success of learning techniques, combined with the earlier spectacular failure of reasoning techniques, has led to descriptive cognition being overrated in the research literature.