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Is Psychology a Cognitive Science?
Author(s) -
RUST JOHN
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00202.x
Subject(s) - functionalism (philosophy of mind) , reductionism , philosophy of psychology , epistemology , positivism , cognition , behaviorism , theoretical psychology , logical positivism , psychology , eliminative materialism , cognitive science , philosophy , neuroscience
Since the 1970s there has been a significant paradigm shift in psychology away from behaviourism and towards cognitive psychology. Indeed a recent survey discovered that by 1983 more than half American psychologists were describing their approaches as cognitive. However, while behaviourism has had an identifiable philosophical ‘line’ in positivism, reductionism and the hypothetico‐deductive model, such a framework has been noticeably lacking from cognitive psychology. A view of cognitive psychology based on functionalism and ideas from systems analysis is put forward.