Brain Wars and “Integrative Cognitive Science”

Dear all,

I’m working on a new project called “Brain Wars” http://websites.umass.edu/brain-wars/. This is my working title for a book directed at the general public about the debates over “Associative” vs. “Algebraic” models of cognition, and related battles. I’ll likely be starting with Minsky vs. Rosenblatt, a precursor to the battles that occurred after the publication of Rumelhart and McClelland 1986. I’m also planning to advance the thesis that these paradigm wars have largely subsided in the 21st century, with most people assuming some sort of hybrid theory or approach (though I’m of course aware that there is still ink being spilled over these and other issues); I’m labeling this “Integrative Cognitive Science”. I’ve set up a website at the above link to store references, citations, and archival material. There’s not much there yet, though there are audio recordings of Smolensky’s 1988 debates with Fodor and Pylyshyn (under “Debates”), and I’ve also got a link to a video of Adrian Staub and me speaking in Paris at a roundtable on “Empirical Foundations of Linguistics” (under “Peace in Our Time? Integrative Cognitive Science”). Incidentally, Adrian’s talk has a nice bit of publicity for CogSci at UMass, mentioning the long history of productive collaboration between Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology. I would very much welcome your thoughts or contributions.

Best,

Joe (Pater).

pater@linguist.umass.edu