Hownot to demarcate cognitive science and folk psychology: A response to Pickering and Chater

Abstract

Pickering and Chater (P&C) maintain that folk psychology and cognitive science should neither compete nor cooperate. Each is an “independent enterprise,” with a distinct subject matter and characteristic modes of explanation. P&C's case depends upon their characterizations of cognitive science and folk psychology. We question the basis for their characterizations, challenge both the coherence and the individual adequacy of their contrasts between the two, and show that they waver in their views about the scope of each. We conclude that P&C do not so muchdiscover ascreate the gap they find between folk psychology and cognitive science. It is an artifact of their implausible and unmotivated attempt to demarcate the two areas, and of the excessively narrow accounts they give of each.