What Is The Philosophy of Cognitive Development?
Lecturer: Richard Moore
- What are models of cognitive development?
- Phylogeny, ontogeny and human history.
- Rationalist and empiricist/internalist and externalist approaches to the explanation of cognitive development.
- What can Philosophy contribute to the study of cognitive development?
Slides
Reading: general recommendations
Boyd, R., Richerson, P. J., & Henrich, J. (2011). The cultural niche: Why social learning is essential for human adaptation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(Supplement 2), 10918-10925.
Brooks, R (1999) Cambrian intelligence: The early history of the new AI. MIT Press.
Csibra, G & Gergely, G (2009) Natural pedagogy. TiCS, 13(4), 148-153.
Hare, B & Tomasello, M (2004) Chimpanzees are more skilful in competitive than in cooperative cognitive tasks. Animal Behaviour, 68(3), 571-581.
Heyes, C (2018) Cognitive gadgets: The cultural evolution of thinking. Harvard UP.
Henrich, J (2017) The secret of our success: How culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species, and making us smarter. Princeton UP.
Laland, K et al. (2014) Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? Nature News, 514(7521).
Onishi, K & Baillargeon, R (2005) Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs? Science, 308(5719), 255-258.
Richerson, P & Boyd, R (2008) Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. Chicago UP.
Samuels, R (2004) Innateness in cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(3), 136-141.
Sterelny, K (2007) Dawkins vs. Gould: Survival of the fittest. Icon Books.
Sterelny, K (2012) The evolved apprentice. MIT Press.
Tomasello, M (2008) Origins of human communication. MIT Press.
Tooby, J & Cosmides, L (2005) Conceptual foundations of evolutionary psychology. In Buss (ed.) The handbook of evolutionary psychology. Wiley.
Wimmer, H & Perner, J (1983) Beliefs about beliefs. Cognition, 13(1), 103-128.
The books listed above are all classics. If you read any of them you’ll benefit. Sterelny (2007) is a general introduction to evolutionary theory. The others are all influential and compelling approaches to explaining cognitive development in history/phylogeny. It doesn’t particularly matter which one you read - but the Richerson & Boyd can be quite maths-heavy.