Introduction, a Radically Naturalist Solution to the Problem of Scientific Representation

Cognitive Penetration and Cognitive Realism

“…Firstly, it draws on some advancements in cognitive neuroscience to argue that strong cognitive penetrability/theory-ladenness is not a prevalent phenomenon. Secondly, the paper argues that weak cognitive penetrability/theory-ladenness is compatible with modest forms of cognitive realism, as being pioneered by Giere (1988, 1992) and restored by myself recently (Beni 2019 a ). The paper also examines its suggestions against a naturalist reading of Kuhn's insights into theory-ladenness.…”

“…If that is true, the existence of naturalist elements in Kuhn's work indicates that his work is not totally incompatible with a moderate form of (cognitive) realism. In time, this psychologically informed account of a theories-world relationship evolves into a version of scientific realism that builds upon scientific grounds (from cognitive science and psychology) to substantiate insights into the relationship between theories and the objective structure of the world (Giere 1988; Beni 2019 a ).…”

“…Parts of Churchland's insights have been recently adopted into a form of the cognitive realist theory of scientific representation (Beni 2019 a ), which aims to account for scientific representation in terms of the (individual or collective) cognitive engagement of scientists with their environment, where the cognitive engagement is characterised in terms of minimisation of prediction error under FEP. It is worth mentioning that aside from the reliance on Churchland's work, a project that I have developed a while ago, namely cognitive structural realism (CSR), 5 is also heavily influenced by Giere's (1988, 1992, 1994) pioneering work on cognitive models of science (for discussion see Beni 2019 a : 27–8; 41–2; 101–2 among other places). Giere takes a cognitive – rather than an exclusively formal or methodological – approach to the nature of scientific theories, assuming that “the cognitive sciences have reached a sufficient state of maturity that they can now provide a valuable resource for philosophy of science” (Giere 1992: XV).…”

The Neorealism and Neoliberalism Behind International Relations During Covid‐19

“…States may have similar needs, but they differ with respect to their capabilities-and this difference dictates variations in power between states (Copeland 2000;Mearsheimer 2007). Cooperation between states is influenced by the structural distribution of their capabilities which is underpinned by their fear of relative gains or interdependence (Beni 2019).…”

Computational Modelling: a Language Game of Situated Cultural Practices

“…Through various arguments, it is proposed that the thinking of a system can be ontologically defined by a simplified model of a part of it: (1) structural correspondence of truth, wherein the assertions made about the model can also be applied to the target system; (2) scientific evidence of a mind-independent existence world supports realism, as does the success of science, which provides compelling evidence for the existence of objective reality. Lastly, (3) predictive power is supposed as an indicator of a model's efficacy, as it suggests that the target system is committed to the properties outlined in the model (Leplin, 1984;Smart, 2014;Beni, 2019;Williams, 2019). Specifically, Rescorla and other proponents of realism about computational modelling argue that if a Bayesian model of predictive coding can explain and predict certain neural patterns, then it must imply that neural dynamics are computations of Bayesian rules over representational semantic properties.…”