Mind, Body, World- Foundations of Cognitive Science, 2013a

science as it attempts to establish the strong equivalence between a model and a
modelled agent.
The success of classical cognitive science is revealed by its development of
successful, powerful theories and models that have been applied to an incredibly
broad range of phenomena, from language to problem solving to perception. This
chapter has emphasized some of the foundational ideas of classical cognitive science
at the expense of detailing its many empirical successes. Fortunately, a variety
of excellent surveys exist to provide a more balanced account of classical cognitive
science’s practical success (Bechtel, Graham, & Balota, 1998; Bermúdez, 2010;
Boden, 2006; Gleitman & Liberman, 1995; Green, 1996; Kosslyn & Osherson, 1995;
Lepore & Pylyshyn, 1999; Posner, 1991; Smith & Osherson, 1995; Stillings, 1995; Stillings
et al., 1987; Thagard, 1996; Wilson & Keil, 1999).
Nevertheless, classical cognitive science is but one perspective, and it is not
without its criticisms and alternatives. Some cognitive scientists have reacted
against its avoidance of the implementational (because of multiple realization), its
reliance on the structure/process distinction, its hypothesis that cognitive information
processing is analogous to that of a digital computer, its requirement of internal
representations, and its dependence on the sense-think-act cycle. Chapter 4 turns to
the foundations of a different “flavour” of cognitive science that is a reaction against
the classical approach: connectionist cognitive science.
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