Hostname: page-component-6898cfcb55-th4rj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-11T05:44:10.981Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Can Scientific Development and Children's Cognitive Development Be the Same Process?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Stephen M. Downes
Stephen M. Downes*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Utah
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper I assess Gopnik and Meltzoff's developmental psychology of science as a contribution to the understanding of scientific development. I focus on two specific aspects of Gopnik and Meltzoff's approach: the relation between their views and recapitulationist views of ontogeny and phylogeny in biology, and their overall conception of cognition as a set of veridical processes. First, I discuss several issues that arise from their appeal to evolutionary biology, focusing specifically on the role of distinctions between ontogeny and phylogeny when appealing to biology for theoretical support. Second, I argue that to presuppose that cognition is veridical or “truth-tropic” can compromise attempts to understand scientific cognition both throughout history and in the present. Finally, I briefly sketch an evolutionary approach to understanding scientific development that contrasts with Gopnik and Meltzoff's.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , December 1999, pp. 565 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

†

Send requests for reprints to the author, University of Utah, Department of Philosophy, 260 Central Campus Drive, Rm. 341, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-9156.

‡

I am grateful for comments on earlier drafts of this paper by Mike Bishop, Loretta Torrago, David Hull, Alison Gopnik, Christine Grammes, Ram Neta, and anonymous referees. My thinking was also helped by the discussion at a mini-conference at Rutgers organized by Steve Stich. The research was funded by the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah.

References

Bishop, Michael A. and Downes, Stephen M., “Gopnik on Children and Science”, (Ms.).Google Scholar
Campbell, D. T. (1982), “Evolutionary Epistemology”, in Plotkin, Henry C. (ed.), Learning, Development and Culture. New York: Wiley and Sons, 73–107.Google Scholar
Carruthers, Peter and Smith, Peter K. (eds.) (1996), Theories of Theories of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Churchland, P. M. (1988), “Folk Psychology and the Explanation of Human Behavior”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 62 (suppl.): 209–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, A. (1996). “Science as Child's Play: Tales from the Crib”, Philosophy of Science 63: 534–537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Futuyma, Douglas (1986), Evolutionary Biology, 2nd ed. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates Inc.Google ScholarPubMed
Gerhart, John and Kirschner, Marc (1997), Cells. Embryos and Evolution. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Giere, Ronald (1988), Explaining Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (1996), Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gopnik, A. (1996a), “The Scientist as Child”, Philosophy of Science 63: 485–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gopnik, A. (1996b), “A Reply to Ccommentators”, Philosophy of Science 63: 552–561.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gopnik, A. (1996c). “Theories and Modules: Creation Myths, Developmental Realities and Neurath's Boat”, in Carruthers and Smith 1996, 169–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gopnik, Alison and Meltzoff, A. (1997), Words, Thoughts and Theories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen J. (1977), Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hull, David L. (1988), Science as a Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip (1993), The Advancement of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Solomon, Miriam (1992), “Scientific Rationality and Human Reasoning”, Philosophy of Science 59: 439–454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solomon, Miriam. (1996), “Commentary on Alison Gopnik's ‘The Scientist as Child’ “, Philosophy of Science 63: 547–551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, Edward (1996), Without Good Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Stich, Stephen P. (1983), From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stich, Stephen P. (1990), The Fragmentation of Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stich, Stephen P. and Nichols, Shaun (1998), “Theory Theory to the Max”, Mind & Language 13: 421–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thagard, Paul (1988), Computational Philosophy of Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toulmin, S. (1981) “Evolution, Adaptation, and Human Understanding”, in Brewer, M. B. and Collins, B. E. (eds.), Scientific Inquiry and the Social Sciences: A Volume in Honor of Donald T. Campbell. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 18–36.Google Scholar