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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: On Going Beyond The Information Given & 'Cognition'
Message-ID: <jqbDDFG7H.5tA@netcom.com>
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References: <400mb0$l5b@mp.cs.niu.edu> <808214828snz@longley.demon.co.uk> <jqbDD7qsx.4u5@netcom.com> <808566049snz@longley.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 23:35:41 GMT
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In article <808566049snz@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley  <David@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <jqbDD7qsx.4u5@netcom.com> jqb@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
>
>> >Let's  have  more  contributions which  might  help  to  progress 
>> >research programmes and less of the fruitless, rhetorical debate.
>> 
>> Hey, you go first.  *Stop* making sweeping generalizations about "cognitive
>> scientists", the value of "the cognitive approach", the value of intensional
>> idioms, what pschologists ought to be doing instead of providing "care and
>> understanding", etc. etc. or stop claiming that all you are interested in is
>> the practicality of some rDBMS.
>> -- 
>
>The  title of this thread alludes to a J S Bruner's work  in  the 
>late 1950s which suggested that what is  characteristics of human 
>cognition is that it goes beyond the information given.

Fine, then you are interested in fruitless rhetorical debate.

The point here is your *equivocation* as what is the issue, what it is you are
concerned with.  When your sweeping philosophical overgeneralizations are
criticized, you say you are just offering a pragmatic program.  When the
value, consequences, appropriateness to this forum, or whathaveyou, of your
program are criticized, you say you are discussing philosophy.  Coming up with
elaborate methods to avoid criticism of your work or your position is not what
philosophy or science are about.

As for "going beyond the information given", perhaps you would like to discuss
the concepts of abduction and induction.
-- 
<J Q B>

