Topics in Cognitive Science 1 (2009) 547

Copyright  2009 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.

ISSN: 1756-8757 print / 1756-8765 online
DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2009.01041.x

Introduction: Philosophy in and Philosophy

of Cognitive Science, Part II
Andrew Brook
Department of Philosophy and Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University

In this second installment on the theme, Philosophy in and Philosophy of Cognitive

Science, we have two papers, very different from one another and both very interesting, by
William Bechtel and Pierre Jacob.
In the first installment, the three authors all talked about the role of philosophical work in
cognitive science. In contrast, in this installment, the two papers illustrate two ways in
which this work is done. In the last installment we introduced a distinction between philoso-
phy of cognitive science and philosophy in cognitive science. The former consists of philo-
sophical reflections on cognitive science, whereas the latter consists of philosophical
contributions to cognitive research. Bechtel’s paper is a good example of work of the former
kind, and Jacob’s paper is a good example of work of the latter kind.
Drawing on philosophical work on the nature of explanation in good science, Bechtel
applies control theory, an important episode in the history of biochemistry, and an under-
explored way of thinking about the relationship of mental function to brain function and struc-
ture to the specific situation of cognitive science and argues that we are in need of advances in
all three areas. His paper is indeed the philosophy of science of cognitive science, just as he says.
In contrast, Jacob in his paper does cognitive research. Specifically, his paper is a contri-
bution to the cognitive neuroscience of mirror neurons. Accepting the data produced by
experimental work on these neurons, he argues that the prevalent interpretation of these data
is suspect. He then argues that a better interpretation, a rather surprising one, that the activity
of mirror neurons is the result of concept-application, is available. Looking at Jacob’s paper
as a whole and using the old Reichenbach ⁄ Popper distinction between the context of discov-
ery and the context of justification, between generating hypotheses and testing them, the
paper shows that much good work can be done on testing hypotheses and finding alternative
hypotheses better supported by data without doing new experiments, without generating
new data—and that researchers trained in philosophy can be very good at doing it.
In short, these two papers are excellent illustrations of the two roles for philosophy in
relation to cognitive science that we delineated in the first installment of this theme.
Correspondence should be sent to Andrew Brook, Department of Philosophy, Carleton University,
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K15 5B6. E-mail: abrook@ccs.carleton.ca