Rational reconstruction and immature science

Abstract

Abstract The distinction between mature and immature science is controversial. Laudan (1977) disavows the idea of immature science while Von Eckardt (1993) claims that cognitive science is just that (an immature science) and modifies Laudan's Research Tradition methodology to argue its rational pursuability. She uses the (Kuhnian) idea of a framework of shared characteristics (FSC) to identify the community of cognitive scientists. Diverse community assumptions pertaining specifically to human cognitive capacities (should) consolidate cognitive research efforts into a coherent and rationally pursuable scientific endeavor. Von Eckardt maintains that the substantive assumptions about the computational and representational character of human cognitive capacities are central to the rational reconstruction of immature cognitive science in two ways. Descriptively, these assumptions are evident in the cognitive science community. Normatively, the assumptions satisfy justificatory conditions on the rational pursu...