The Problem-Ladenness of Theory
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42113_2024_219_ReferencePDF.pdf
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Author(s)
Levenstein, Daniel
De Santo, Aniello
Heijnen, Saskia
Narayan, Manjari
Oude Maatman, Freek J. W.
Rawski, Jonathan
Wright, Cory
Date Issued
October 16, 2024
Journal
Computational Brain & Behavior
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Citation
Levenstein, D., De Santo, A., Heijnen, S. et al. The Problem-Ladenness of Theory. Comput Brain Behav 7, 548–571 (2024).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
The cognitive sciences are facing questions of how to select from competing theories or develop those that suit their current needs. However, traditional accounts of theoretical virtues have not yet proven informative to theory development in these fields. We advance a pragmatic account by which theoretical virtues are heuristics we use to estimate a theory’s contribution to a field’s body of knowledge and the degree to which it increases that knowledge’s ability to solve problems in the field’s domain or problem space. From this perspective, properties that are traditionally considered epistemic virtues, such as a theory’s fit to data or internal coherence, can be couched in terms of problem space coverage, and additional virtues come to light that reflect a theory’s alignment with problem-having agents and the context in a societally embedded scientific system. This approach helps us understand why the needs of different fields result in different kinds of theories and allows us to formulate the challenges facing cognitive science in terms that we hope will facilitate their resolution through further theoretical development.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42113-024-00219-3
