This paper builds on the observation that sociological, phenomenological and philosophical critiques of cognitivism have had little impact on the research agenda of Cognitive Science. Instead, alternative critical strategies are suggested based upon understanding cognitive science as a knowledge-producing practice, investigating how it constructs its object of interest (individuals regarded as akin to computational devices) and revealing the practical means by which it comes to represent that object theoretically. Drawing on recent work in the sociology of science and critical anthropology, it is argued that many of the practices of cognitive science can be addressed in terms of how time is constructed and manipulated. This perspective leads to discussions of a variety of issues, including the nature of experimental practice, the status of the concept of representation in cognitive theory, the relationship between knowledge and power, and the prospects for alternative `reflexive' knowledge forms.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adam, B. (in press). Time and social theory. Cambridge: Polity.
2.
Agar, M. (1986). Speaking of ethnography. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
3.
Agar, M. , & Hobbs, J. (1985). Growing schemas out of interviews. In J. Dougherty (Ed.), Directions in cognitive anthropology. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
4.
Ashmore, M. (1989). The reflexive thesis: Wrighting (sic) sociology of scientific knowledge. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
5.
Baker, G. , & Hacker, P. (1984). Language, sense and nonsense. Oxford: Blackwell.
6.
Best, J.B. (1986). Cognitive psychology. St Paul, MN: West.
7.
Bloor, D. (1976). Knowledge and social imagery. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
8.
Boden, M. (1985). Piaget. London: Fontana.
9.
Bowers, J.M. (1990). All hail the great abstraction: Star Wars and the politics of cognitive psychology. In I. Parker & J. Shotter (Eds.), Deconstructing social psychology. London: Routledge.
10.
Bowers, J. (in press). Postmodernity and the globalisation of technoscience: The computer, cognitive science and war. In J. Docherty, E. Graham, & M. Malek (Eds.), Postmodernism and the social sciences. London: Macmillan.
11.
Braudel, F. (1975/1985). The perspective of the world: 15th to 18th century. New York: Harper & Row.
12.
Brewer, W. , & Nakamura, G. (1984). The nature and functions of schemas. In R. Wyer and T. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (Volume 2). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
13.
Burge, T. (1986). Individualism and psychology. Philosophical Review, 95, 3-45.
14.
Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action and belief: A new sociology of knowledge? Sociological Review Monograph 32. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
15.
Callon, M. (1987). Society in the making: The study of technology as a tool for sociological analysis. In W. Bijker, T. Hughes, & T. Pinch (Eds.), The social construction of technological systems. Cambridge, MA, & London: MIT Press.
16.
Chomsky, N. (1959). Review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behaviour. Language, 35, 1.
17.
Churchland, P. (1981). Eliminative materialism and propositional attitudes. Journal of Philosophy, 78, 2.
18.
Coltheart, M. , Paterson, K., & Marshall, J. (Eds.). (1981). Deep dyslexia. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
19.
Coulter, J. (1979). The social construction of mind. London: Macmillan.
20.
Coulter, J. (1983). Rethinking cognitive theory. London: Macmillan.
21.
Coulter, J. (1989). Mind in action. London: Macmillan.
22.
D'Andrade, R. (1981). The cultural part of cognition. Cognitive science, 5, 179-195.
23.
Derrida, J. (1973). Speech andphenomena. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
24.
Dreyfus, H. (1965). Alchemy and artificial intelligence. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
25.
Dreyfus, H. (1979). What computers can't do: A critique of artificial reason. New York: Harper & Row.
26.
Dreyfus, H. , & Dreyfus, S. (1987). The mistaken psychological assumptions underlying belief in expert systems. In A. Costall & A. Still (Eds.), Cognitive psychology in question. Brighton: Harvester.
27.
Eiser, J.R. (1980). Cognitive social psychology. London: McGraw-Hill.
28.
Fabian, J. (1983). Time and the other: How anthropology makes its object. New York: Columbia University Press.
29.
Fodor, J. (1980). Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 313-332.
30.
Fodor, J. (1981). Representations. Philosophical essays on the foundations of Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
31.
Fodor, J. (1987). Psychosemantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
32.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A.M. Sheridan, Trans.). Harmondsworth: Penguin.
33.
Foucault, M. (1979). History of sexuality. Volume 1: An introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
34.
Foucault, M. (1980). Powerlknowledge. Brighton: Harvester.
35.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
36.
Gergen, K. (1978). Experimentation in social psychology: A reappraisal. European Journal of Social Psychology, 8, 507-527.
37.
Harré, R. (1979). Social being. Oxford: Blackwell.
38.
Harré, R. (1983). Personal being. Oxford: Blackwell.
39.
Harré, R. , & Secord, P. (1972). The explanation of social behaviour. Oxford: Blackwell.
40.
Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
41.
Hofstadter, D. (1979). Godel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid. New York: Basic Books.
42.
Latour, B. (1986). The powers of association. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action and belief: A new sociology of knowledge? Sociological Review Monograph 32. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
43.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
44.
Latour, B. (1988a). The politics of explanation: An alternative. In S. Woolgar (Ed.), Knowledge and reflexivity: New frontiers in the sociology of knowledge. London: Sage.
45.
Latour, B. (1988b). The Prince for machines as well as for machinations. In B. Elliott (Ed.), Technology and social process. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
46.
Latour, B. , & Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory life: The social construction of scientific facts. London: Sage.
47.
Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
48.
Law, J. (1986a). On power and its tactics: A view from the sociology of science. Sociological Review, 34, 1-38.
49.
Law, J. (1986b). On the methods of long-distance control: Vessels, navigation and the Portuguese route to India. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action and belief: A new sociology of knowledge? Sociological Review Monograph 32. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
50.
Law, J. (1987). Technology and heterogeneous engineering. The case of Portuguese expansion. In W. Bijker, T. Hughes, & T. Pinch (Eds.), The social construction of technological systems. Cambridge, MA, & London: MIT Press.
51.
Lynch, M. (1985). Art and artifact in laboratory science: A study of shop work and shop talk in a research laboratory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
52.
McGrath, J. (Ed.). (1988). The social psychology of time. London: Sage.
53.
Mulkay, M. (1984). The scientist talks back: A one-act play, with a moral, about replication in science and reflexivity in sociology. Social Studies of Science, 14, 265-282.
54.
Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
55.
Orne, M. (1969). Demand characteristics and the concept of quasi-controls. In R. Rosenthal & R. Rosnow (Eds.). Artifact in behavioral research. New York: Academic.
56.
Ornstein, G. (1972). The psychology of time. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
57.
Piaget, J. (1952). The child's conception of number. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
58.
Potter, J. , & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and behaviour. London: Sage.
59.
Quine, W. (1960). Word and object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
60.
Rose, N. (1985). The psychological complex. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
61.
Rose, N. (1990). Governing the soul: The shaping of the private self. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
62.
Rosenthal, R. (1967). Interpersonal expectations. In R. Rosenthal & R. Rosnow (Eds.), Artifact in behavioral research. New York: Academic.
63.
Sacks, H. , Schegloff, E., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696-735.
64.
Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone age economics. London: Tavistock.
65.
Schutz, A. (1962). The problem of social reality: Collected papers I (M. Natanson, Ed.). Nijhoff: The Hague.
66.
Suchman, L. (1987). Plans and situated actions: The problem of human-machine communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
67.
Voloshinov, V.N. (1973). Marxism and the philosophy of language. New York: Seminar Press. (Originally published 1929.)
68.
Winograd, T. , & Flores, F. (1986). Understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
69.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.
70.
Woolgar, S. (1985). Why not a sociology of machines? The case of sociology and artificial intelligence. Sociology, 19, 557-572.
71.
Woolgar, S. (1987). Reconstructing man and machines: A note on sociological critiques of cognitivism. In W. Bijker, T. Hughes, & T. Pinch (Eds.), The social construction of technological systems. Cambridge, MA, & London: MIT Press.
72.
Woolgar, S. (1988a). Science: The very idea. Chichester: Ellis Horwood.
73.
Woolgar, S. (Ed.). (1988b). Knowledge and reflexivity: New frontiers in the sociology of knowledge. London: Sage.
