psychology_Sons_(2003)

110 Cognition and Learning

became the study of learning, inquiring into how people and
animals—another effect of evolution—acquire adaptive be-
liefs and behaviors.
I divide my history of cognition and learning into three
eras. The first is the Philosophical Era, from Classical Greece
up to the impact of evolution. The second is the Early Scien-
tific Era, from the impact of evolution through behaviorism.
The third is the Modern Scientific Era, when the psychologi-
cal study of learning and cognition resumed its alliance with
philosophy in the new interdisciplinary endeavor of cognitive
science.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL PERIOD

During the Premodern period, inquiries into cognition focused
on philosophical rather than psychological issues. The chief
concerns of those who studied cognition were determining
how to separate truth from falsity and building systems of
epistemology that would provide sure and solid foundations
for other human activities from science to politics.

The Premodern Period: Cognition
before the Scientific Revolution

Thinking about cognition began with the ancient Greeks. As
Greek thought took flight beyond the bounds of religion,
philosophers began to speculate about the nature of the phys-
ical world. Political disputes within thepoleisand encounters
with non-western societies provoked debates about the best
human way of life. These social, ethical, and protoscientific
inquiries in turn raised questions about the scope and limits of
human knowledge, and how one could decide between rival
theories of the world, morality, and the best social order. The
epistemological questions the ancient philosophers posed are
perennial, and they proposed the first—though highly specu-
lative—accounts of how cognition works psychologically.

The Classical World before Plato

By distinguishing between Appearance and Reality, the
Greeks of the fifth century B.C.E. inaugurated philosophical
and psychological inquiries into cognition. Various pre-
Socratic philosophers argued that the way the world seems to
us—Appearance—is, or may be, different from the way the
world is in Reality. Parmenides argued that there is a fixed
reality (Being) enduring behind the changing appearances of
the world of experience. Against Parmenides, Heraclitus
argued that Reality is even more fluid than our experience

suggests. This pre-Socratic distinction between Appearance

and Reality was metaphysical and ontological, not psycho-

logical. Parmenides and Heraclitus argued about the nature of

a “realer,” “truer” world existing in some sense apart from

the one we live in. However, drawing the distinction shocked

Greeks into the realization that our knowledge of the world—

whether of the world we live in or of the transcendental one

beyond it—might be flawed, and Greek thinkers added epis-

temology to their work, beginning to examine the processes

of cognition (Irwin, 1989).

One of the most durable philosophical and psychological

theories of cognition, the representational theory,was first

advanced by the Greek philosopher-psychologists Alcmaeon

and Empedocles. They said that objects emit little copies of

themselves that get into our bloodstreams and travel to our

hearts, where they result in perception of the object. The fa-

mous atomist Democritus picked up this theory, saying that

the little copies were special sorts of atoms called eidola.

Philosophically, the key feature of representational theories

of cognition is the claim that we do not know the external

world directly, but only indirectly, via the copies of the object

that we internalize. Representational theories of cognition in-

vite investigation of the psychological mechanisms by which

representations are created, processed, and stored. The repre-

sentational theory of cognition is the foundation stone of

Simon and Newell’s symbol-system architecture of cognition

(see following).

Once one admits the distinction between Appearance and

Reality, the question of whether humans can know Reality—

Truth—arises. Epistemologies can be then divided into two

camps: those who hold that we are confined to dealing with

shifting appearances, and those who hold that we can achieve

genuine knowledge. (See Figure 6.1.) I will call the first

group the Relativists: For them, truth is ever changing be-

cause appearances are ever changing. I will call the second

group the Party of Truth: They propose that humans can in

Path

Metaphysics

RATIONALISM

(typically linked to

IDEALISM)

EMPIRICISM

Alcmaeon

Empedocles

Locke

Positivism

Sophists

Hume

Pragmatism

Hegel

Nietzsche

Party of

RELATIVISM

Party of

TRUTH

Socrates

Plato

Stoics

Descartes

Kant

Figure 6.1 Four Epistemologies.