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Neuroethology and the Philosophy of Cognitive Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Brian L. Keeley
Brian L. Keeley*
Affiliation:
Pitzer College
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Pitzer College, 1050 North Mills Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711; e-mail: keeley@winearth.wustl.edu.
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Abstract

Neuroethology is a branch of biology that studies the neural basis of naturally occurring animal behavior. This science, particularly a recent program called computational neuroethology, has a similar structure to the interdisciplinary endeavor of cognitive science. I argue that it would be fruitful to conceive of cognitive science as the computational neuroethology of humans. However, there are important differences between the two sciences, including the fact that neuroethology is much more comparative in its perspective. Neuroethology is a biological science and as such, evolution is a central notion. Its target organisms are studied in the context of their evolutionary history. The central goal of this paper is to argue that cognitive science can and ought to be more comparative in its approach to cognitive phenomena in humans. I show how the domain of cognitive phenomena can be divided up into four different classes, individuated by the relative phylogenetic uniqueness of the behavior. I then describe how comparative evidence can enrich our understanding in each of these different arenas.

Type
Philosophy of Biology, Psychology, and Neuroscience
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S404 - S417
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Special thanks to those who commented on earlier drafts: Gary Hatfield, Bill Hirstein, Todd Preuss, and Whit Schonbein. Portions of this paper are taken from the author's 1997 Ph.D. dissertation, written under the supervision of Sandra Mitchell and Patricia Churchland at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). This work was suported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NRSA #1 F31 MH10676-01), the McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the UCSD Department of Philosophy.

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