Philosophy and Cognitive Science: Western & Eastern Studies

291 Pages·2012·5.458 MB·English

by  Lorenzo Magnani (auth.), Lorenzo Magnani, Ping Li (eds.)

Studies in Applied Philosophy,
Epistemology and Rational Ethics 2
Editor-in-Chief
Prof.Dr.LorenzoMagnani
DepartmentofArtsandHumanities
PhilosophySection
UniversityofPavia
PiazzaBotta6
27100Pavia
Italy
E-mail:[email protected]
EditorialBoard
Prof.AtochaAliseda
InstitutodeInvestigacionesFilosoficas,UniversidadNacionalAutónomadeMéxico(UNAM),
CiudadUniversitaria,Coyoacan,04510,Mexico,D.F.
E-mail:atocha@filosoficas.unam.mx
Prof.GiuseppeLongo
LaboratoireetDepartementd’Informatique,CREA,CNRSandEcolePolytechnique,LIENS,
45,RueD’Ulm,75005Paris,France
E-mail:[email protected]
Prof.ChrisSinha
CentreforLanguagesandLiterature,P.O.Box201,22100Lund,Sweden
E-mail:[email protected]
Prof.PaulThagard
DepartmentofPhilosophy,FacultyofArts,WaterlooUniversity,Waterloo,Ontario,
CanadaN2L3G1
E-mail:[email protected]
Prof.JohnWoods
Department of Philosophy, University of BritishColumbia, 1866 Main Mall BUCH E370,
Vancouver,BCCanadaV6T1Z1
E-mail:[email protected]
Forfurthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/10087
Lorenzo Magnani and Ping Li (Eds.)
Philosophy and Cognitive
Science
Western & Eastern Studies
ABC
Editors
Prof.Dr.LorenzoMagnani Prof.PingLi
DepartmentofArtsandHumanities DepartmentofPhilosophy
PhilosophySection SunYat-senUniversity
UniversityofPavia No.135,XinGangXiLu
PiazzaBotta6 Guangzhou510275
27100Pavia P.R.China
Italy E-mail:[email protected]
E-mail:[email protected]
ISSN2192-6255 e-ISSN2192-6263
ISBN978-3-642-29927-8 e-ISBN978-3-642-29928-5
DOI10.1007/978-3-642-29928-5
SpringerHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2012936807
(cid:2)c Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2012
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof
thematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation,
broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherphysicalway,andtransmissionorinformation
storageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology
nowknownorhereafterdeveloped.Exemptedfromthislegalreservationarebriefexcerptsinconnection
with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered
and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of
this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the
Publisher’slocation,initscurrentversion,andpermissionforusemustalwaysbeobtainedfromSpringer.
PermissionsforusemaybeobtainedthroughRightsLinkattheCopyrightClearanceCenter.Violations
areliabletoprosecutionundertherespectiveCopyrightLaw.
Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,servicemarks,etc.inthispublication
doesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfromtherelevant
protectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse.
Whiletheadviceandinformationinthisbookarebelievedtobetrueandaccurateatthedateofpub-
lication,neithertheauthorsnortheeditorsnorthepublishercanacceptanylegalresponsibilityforany
errorsoromissionsthatmaybemade.Thepublishermakesnowarranty,expressorimplied,withrespect
tothematerialcontainedherein.
Printedonacid-freepaper
SpringerispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www.springer.com)
Preface
Today, the relationships between Asia and the Western world make the headlines
onlywhentheyconcerneconomicdeals, folk-ideologicalconfrontations,ordiver-
gentideasonhowtosolveinternationalcrises.Theculturaland,morespecifically,
academicallinksarefrequentlydisregarded.Thisbookaimsatbeingan argument
against such systematic lack of interest for the results of collaborations betweens
Western and Eastern intellectuals and academics: what emerges from the juxta-
position of papers of different geo-cultural origins – but dealing with the same
issues–issometimesanovelapproach,whichtakesadvantageofthemultifaceted
sensibilitiesinheritedbythescholarlylegacieswhocontributedtothedebate.This
volume is a collection of selected papers that were presented at the international
conference Philosophy and Cognitive Science (PCS2011), held at Sun Yat-sen
University,Guangzhou,P.R.ChinainMay2011.
Previous volumes prepared the basis for the realization of PCS2011, as a con-
ferenceexplicitlydevotedtotheconjunctionofwesternandeasternstudies.Those
volumesalsooriginatedfrominternationaljointresearchprojects,whichsucceeded
in establishing a first relationship between the two worlds in the area of philoso-
phyand cognitivescience. Model-BasedReasoninginScientificDiscovery, edited
by L. Magnani, N.J. Nersessian, and P. Thagard (Kluwer Academic/Plenum Pub-
lishers, New York,1999),based on the paperspresentedat the first “model-based
reasoning” international conference, held at the University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
in December 1998, has been translated in Chinese, China Science and Technol-
ogy Press, Beijing, 2000. Abduction, Reason, and Science by L. Magnani was
translatedbyDachaoLiandYuanRenandpublishedbyGuangdongPeople’sPub-
lishingHouse,Guangzhou,in2006.Othervolumes,Science,Cognition,andCon-
sciousness, editedbyP. Lietal. (JiangXiPeople’sPress, Nanchang,China,2004,
published in Chinese and English), Philosophical Investigations from a Perspec-
tiveofCognition,editedbyL.MagnaniandP.Li(GuangdongPeople’sPublishing
House, Guangzhou, China, 2006, published in Chinese), Model-Based Reasoning
in Science, Technology, and Medicine, edited by L. Magnani and P. Li (Springer,
Berlin/NewYork,2007),derivedfromthefollowingpreviousconferences:“Model-
BasedReasoninginScienceandMedicine”(MBR06 CHINA,heldatSunYat-sen
VI Preface
University, Guangzhou, China, July 2006), and the first “Philosophy and Cogni-
tive Science” international conference (PCS2004, held at Sun Yat-sen University,
Guangzhou,China,June2004).
The presentationsgiven at the Guangzhouconferenceaddressed variousrecent
topics at the crossroad of philosophy and cognitive science, especially taking ad-
vantageofbothwesternandeasternresearch.Theselectedpaperscontainedinthe
proceedings mainly focus on the following areas: abductive cognition, visualiza-
tion in science, the cognitive structure of scientific theories, the nature and func-
tions of models, scientific representation, mathematical representation in science,
model-basedreasoning,analogicalreasoning,moralcognition,cognitivenichesand
evolution.Threesymposiacharacterizedtheworkshop–SymposiumonScientific
Representation:Theoriesand Models (Chairs:Zhilin Zhangand ZhenmingZhai);
SymposiumonAbductiveCognition(Chair:LorenzoMagnani);andSymposiumon
CultureandCognition(Chairs:RemoJobandJingZhu).Thevariouscontributions
ofthebookarewrittenbyinterdisciplinaryresearcherswhoareactiveintheareaof
philosophyand/orcognitivescience.
The editors wish to express their appreciationto the members of the Scientific
Committeefortheirsuggestionsandassistance:
- Akinori ABE, Innovative Communication Laboratory, NTT Communication
Science Laboratories, Kyoto, JAPAN - Liliana ALBERTAZZI, Faculty of Cogni-
tiveScience&CentreforMindandBrain,UniversityofTrento,Rovereto,ITALY
- Emanuele BARDONE, Department of Philosophy, University of Pavia, Pavia,
ITALY-XiangCHEN,DepartmentofPhilosophy,CaliforniaLutheranUniversity,
ThousandOaks,CA,USA-XiaopingCHEN,InstituteofPhilosophy,SouthChina
Normal University, Guangzhou,CHINA - Ronald N. GIERE, Center for Philoso-
phyofScience,UniversityofMinnesota,USA-MichaelE.GORMAN,Divisionof
SocialandEconomicSciences,NationalScienceFoundation,Arlington,VA,USA
-RemoJOB,FacultyofCognitiveScience,UniversityofTrento,Rovereto,ITALY
-PingLI,DepartmentofPhilosophy,SunYat-senUniversity,Guangzhou,CHINA
-XingminLI,GraduateSchool,ChineseAcademyofSciences,Beijing,CHINA-
LorenzoMAGNANI,DepartmentofPhilosophy,UniversityofPavia,Pavia,ITALY
-WoosukPARK,Humanities&SocialSciences,KAIST,Guseong-dong,Yuseong-
gu Daejeon, SOUTH KOREA - Claudio PIZZI, Department of Philosophy and
Social Sciences, Universityof Siena,Siena, ITALY - Ryan D. TWENEY, Depart-
mentofPsychology,BowlingGreenStateUniversity,BowlingGreen,OH,USA-
YidongWEI, Center for Philosophyof Science & Technology,ShanxiUniversity,
Taiyuan, CHINA - Guolin WU, Center for Philosophy of Science & Technology,
South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, CHINA - Zhenming ZHAI,
Departmentof Philosophy,Sun Yat-sen University,Guangzhou,CHINA - Huaxia
ZHANG,DepartmentofPhilosophy,SunYat-senUniversity,Guangzhou,CHINA-
ZhilinZHANG,SchoolofPhilosophy,FudanUniversity,Shanghai,CHINA-Jing
ZHU,DepartmentofPhilosophy,SunYat-senUniversity,Guangzhou,CHINA.
Preface VII
Special thanks also go to Emanuele Bardone and Tommaso Bertolotti for their
contributioninthepreparationofthisvolumeandtoLizhenSun,FangYu,Lingyun
Yang,HuiLi, and ShenghuaWang fortheir workin the localorganizingcommit-
teeoftheGuangzhouconference.TheconferencePCS2011,andthusindirectlythis
book,wasmadepossiblethroughthegenerousfinancialsupportofSunYat-senUni-
versity,ZhanJiangChemicalIndustrialIncorporatedCorporation,theMIUR(Italian
MinistryoftheUniversity),andUniversityofPavia.Theirsupportisgratefullyac-
knowledged.Thepreparationofthevolumewouldnothavebeenpossiblewithout
thecontributionofresourcesandfacilitiesoftheComputationalPhilosophyLabo-
ratoryandoftheDepartmentofPhilosophy,UniversityofPavia.
LorenzoMagnani
UniversityofPavia,Pavia,ItalyandSunYat-senUniversity,Guangzhou,
P.R.China
PingLi
SunYat-senUniversity,Guangzhou,P.R.China
Pavia,Italy/Guangzhou,P.R.China,February2012
Contents
Models, Representation, and Cognition
ScientificModelsAreNotFictions:Model-BasedScienceasEpistemic
Warfare ...................................................... 1
LorenzoMagnani
AnExaminationoftheThesisofModelsasRepresentations........... 39
DachaoLi,PingLi
On Animal Cognition: Before and After the Beast-Machine
Controversy................................................... 53
WoosukPark
FromMindlessModelingtoScientificModels:TheCaseofEmerging
Models ....................................................... 75
TommasoBertolotti
TheGreenhouseMetaphorandtheGreenhouseEffect:ACaseStudy
ofaFlawedAnalogousModel .................................... 105
XiangChen
AStudyofModelandRepresentationBasedonaDuhemianThesis .... 115
ChuangLiu
FromtheReceivedViewtotheModel-TheoreticApproach............ 143
LeileiQi,HuaxiaZhang
Abduction, Reasoning, andCognition
CognitiveChanceDiscovery:FromAbductiontoAffordance.......... 155
AkinoriAbe
X Contents
AProposalonBelief,AbductionandInterpretation.................. 173
ClaudioPizzi
NotbyLuckAlone:TheImportanceofChance-SeekingandSilent
KnowledgeinAbductiveCognition................................ 185
EmanueleBardone
CognitiveAbductionandtheStudyofVisualCulture ................ 205
Mar´ıaG.Navarro,NoemideHaroGarc´ıa
UnderstandingScientificInferenceintheNaturalSciencesBasedon
AbductiveInferenceStrategies ................................... 221
Jun-youngOh
MoralIntuitionsvs.MoralReasoning.APhilosophicalAnalysisofthe
ExplanatoryModelsIntuitionismReliesOn ........................ 239
SaraDellantonio,RemoJob
EvolutionaryTolerance ......................................... 263
Lu´ısMonizPereira
Scientific Models Are Not Fictions
Model-Based Science as EpistemicWarfare
LorenzoMagnani
I seem to discern the firm belief that in [natural] philosophizing
onemustsupportoneselfupontheopinionofsomecelebratedau-
thor,asifourmindsoughttoremaincompletelysterileandbarren
unlessweddedtothereasoningofsomeotherperson. Possiblyhe
[LotharioSarsi]thinksthat[natural]philosophyisabookoffiction
by some writer, like the Iliad or Orlando Furioso, productions in
whichtheleastimportantthingiswhetherwhatiswrittenthereis
true.Well,Sarsi,thatisnothowmattersstand.[Natural]Philosophy
iswritteninthisgrandbook,theuniverse,whichstandscontinually
opentoourgaze.Itiswritteninthelanguageofmathematics,and
itscharactersaretriangles,circles,andothergeometricfigureswith-
outwhichitishumanlyimpossibletounderstandasinglewordof
it;withoutthese,onewandersaboutinadarklabyrinth.
GalileoGalilei,TheAssayer
Abstract.Inthecurrentepistemologicaldebatescientificmodelsarenotonlycon-
sideredasusefuldevicesforexplainingfactsordiscoveringnewentities,laws,and
theories, but also rubricated under various new labels: from the classical ones, as
abstractentitiesandidealizations,tothemorerecent,asfictions,surrogates,credi-
bleworlds,missingsystems,make-believe,parables,functional,epistemicactions,
revealingcapacities. The paper discusses these approachesshowing some of their
epistemological inadequacies, also taking advantage of recent results in cognitive
science.Themainaimistoreviseandcriticizefictionalism,alsoreframingthere-
ceived idea of abstractness and ideality of models with the help of recent results
comingfromtheareaofdistributedcognition(commoncoding)andabductivecog-
nition (manipulative). The article also illustrates how scientific modeling activity
can be better described taking advantage of the concept of “epistemic warfare”,
whichseesscientificenterpriseasacomplicatedstruggleforrationalknowledgein
whichitiscrucialtodistinguishepistemic(forexamplescientificmodels)fromnon
epistemic(forexamplefictions,falsities,propaganda)weapons.FinallyIwillillus-
trate thatitis misleadingto analyzemodelsin science byadoptinga confounding
LorenzoMagnani
DepartmentofArtsandHumanities,PhilosophySectionandComputational
PhilosophyLaboratory,UniversityofPavia,Pavia,Italy
and
DepartmentofPhilosophy,SunYat-senUniversity,Guangzhou,P.R.China
e-mail:[email protected]
L.MagnaniandP.Li(Eds.):PhilosophyandCognitiveScience,SAPERE2,pp.1–38.
springerlink.com (cid:2)c Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2012
2 L.Magnani
mixtureofstaticanddynamicaspectsofthescientificenterprise.Scientificmodels
in a static perspective (for example when inserted in a textbook) certainly appear
fictionaltotheepistemologist,buttheirfictionalcharacterdisappearsincaseady-
namicperspectiveisadopted.Areferencetotheoriginativeroleofthoughtexper-
imentin Galileo’s discoveriesand to usefulnessof Feyerabend’scounterinduction
incriticizingtheroleofresemblanceinmodel-basedcognitionisalsoprovided,to
furthercorroboratethethesisindicatedbythearticletitle.
1 Introduction
Currentepistemologicalanalysisof the role modelsin science is often philosoph-
ically unproblematic and misleading. Scientific models are now not only con-
sidered as useful ways for explaining facts or discovering new entities, laws,
and theories, but are also rubricated under various new labels: from the clas-
sical ones, abstract entities [Giere, 1988; Giere, 2009; Giere, 2007] and ide-
alizations [Portides, 2007; Weisberg, 2007; Mizrahi, 2011], to the more re-
cent, fictions [Fine, 2009; Woods, 2010; Woods and Rosales, 2010b; Con-
tessa, 2010; Frigg, 2010a; Frigg, 2010b; Frigg, 2010c; Godfrey-Smith, 2006;
Godfrey-Smith, 2009; Woods and Rosales, 2010a; Sua´rez, 2009a; Sua´rez, 2010],
surrogates [Contessa, 2007], credible worlds [Sugden, 2000; Sugden, 2009;
Kuorikoski and Lehtinen, 2009], missing systems [Ma¨ki, 2009; Thomson-Jones,
2010],asmake-believe[Frigg,2010a;Frigg,2010b;Frigg,2010c;Toon,2010],para-
bles [Cartwright, 2009b], as functional [Chakravartty, 2010], as epistemic actions
[Magnani,2004a;Magnani,2004b],asrevealingcapacities[Cartwright,2009a].This
proliferationofexplanatorymetaphorsisamazing,ifweconsiderthehugequantity
ofknowledgeonscientificmodelsthathadalreadybeenproducedbothinepistemol-
ogyandincognitivescience.Someoftheauthorsmentionedabovearealsoengaged
inacontroversyaboutthelegitimacyespeciallyofspeakingoffictionsinthecaseof
scientificmodels.
Eveniftheabovestudiesrelatedtofictionalismhaveincreasedknowledgeabout
someaspectsoftheroleofmodelsinscience,Iamconvincedthatsometimesthey
havealsogeneratedsomephilosophicalconfusionanditseemstomecorrect(fol-
lowingthesuggestionembeddedinthetitleofarecentpaper)“tokeepquietonthe
ontologyofmodels”[French,2010],andalsotoadoptamoreskepticaltheoretical
attitude.Ithinkthat,forexample,modelscanbeconsideredfictionsorsurrogates,
butthisjustcoincideswithacommonsenseview,whichappearstobephilosophi-
callyemptyor,atleast,delusory.Modelsareusedinavarietyofwaysinscientific
practice,theycanalsoworkasmediatorsbetweentheoryandexperiment[Portides,
2007],aspedagogicaldevices,fortestinghypotheses,orforexplanatoryfunctions
[Bokulich,2011],buttheselastrolesofmodelsinsciencearerelativelywell-known
andweaklydisputedintheepistemologicalliterature.InthispaperIwillconcentrate
onscientificmodelsincreativeabductivecognitiveprocesses,whichIstillconsider
thecentralproblemofcurrentepistemologicalresearch[Hintikka,1998].