The Cognitive Paradigm: Cognitive Science, A Newly Explored Approach To The Study Of Cognition Applied In An Analysis Of Science And Scientific Knowledge (sociology Of The Sciences - Monographs)

The growing importance of the sciences in industrialised societies has been acknowledged by the increasing number of studies concerned with their development, change and control. In the past 20 or so years there has been a considerable growth in teaching and research programmes dealing with science and technology policy, science and society, sociology and history of science and similar areas which has resulted in much new material about the production and validation of scientific knowledge. In addition to the quanti­ tative growth of this literature, there has also been a substantial shift in the problems addressed and approaches adopted. In particular, the substantive content of scientific knowledge has become the focus of many historical and sociological studies which seek to understand how knowledges develop and change in different social circumstances. Instead of taking the privileged epistemological status of scientific knowledge for granted, recent approaches have emphasised the socially contingent nature of knowledge production and validation and the pluralistic nature of the sciences. Parallel to these develop­ ments, there has been a shift in the treatment of science by the state, business and public pressure groups. Increasingly they have sought to control the direction of research, and thus the content of knowledge, directly rather than simply applying existing knowledge. Science has become amenable to social control and influence. Its sacred status has declined and it is increasingly viewed as a socially constituted phenomenon which can be studied in a similar manner to other cultural products. Front Matter....Pages i-xx Front Matter....Pages 1-1 The Development of the Cognitive View....Pages 3-18 World Views and Models....Pages 19-37 Positivism as a Monadic View....Pages 38-49 Logical Positivism: A Structural View....Pages 50-62 Contexts of Science: Sciences of Science....Pages 63-81 The Cognitive View on Science: Paradigms....Pages 82-107 Front Matter....Pages 109-109 Bibliometrics and the Structure of Science....Pages 111-131 Informal Groups and the Origin of Networks....Pages 132-147 The Life Cycle of Scientific Specialties....Pages 148-170 Front Matter....Pages 171-171 Paradigms and the Psychology of Attention and Perception....Pages 173-201 Puzzle-solving and Reorganization of World Views....Pages 202-226 Conservation and the Dynamics of Conceptual Systems....Pages 227-251 Epilogue....Pages 252-259 Back Matter....Pages 260-314 Cognitive science deals with the study of knowledge: i.e. what knowledge is and how it can be represented, how it can be handled by transforming it from one form to another.