The Nature of Psychological Explanation by Robert Cummins: A Critical Notice

Abstract

In The Nature of Psychological Explanation (hereafter TNPE), Robert Cummins attempts both to develop a model of explanation in cognitive psychology, and to apply that model to the task of illuminating several of the most conceptually thorny issues surrounding cognitive science: does it mean to attribute unconscious knowledge of rules that govern behavior? does it mean, indeed, for behavior to be rule-governed? Under what conditions is it appropriate to describe a physical state as a representation, or a physical process as the intelligent manipulation of a set of representations? If intentionality is indeed the mark of the mental, does cognitive science hold out the promise of a theory of intentionality, and thereby, a theory of the mind? The book consists of four chapters. In the first two chapters Cummins establishes the general framework for his model of psychological explanation. In Chapter 3 he employs that framework to tackle the general question of whether or not the models of human cognitive abilities developed in cognitive science provide an adequate account of mental life-in particular, of the propositional attitudes. Finally, in Chapter 4, he applies his model of psychological explanation to various historical examples, such as Hull's behaviorism and Freud's theory of repression. The basis of Cummins's account of psychological explanation is his distinction between the strategy of and the strategy of analysis. The strategy of causal subsumption is appropriate for what he calls transition theories, theories that seek to answer questions of the form, Why did S change from state s-i to state s-2? On the other hand, the strategy of analysis is appropriate for what he calls theories, theories that seek to answer questions of the form, What is it for S to have property P? Whereas answers to questions of the first sort involve