Cognitive science – A brief history

“Cognition sets the limits and boundary conditions for the social, cultural and religious activities of humans in thought and action. Thus, cognitive studies and theorizing are crucial contributions to the explanation and understanding of social, cultural and religious activities, for cognition is the �basic stuff’ - individual and universal - upon which humanly constructed worlds become possible as higher-order phenomena.”

- Jeppe S. Jensen

The scientific discipline interested in mental processes, mechanisms of representational minds and information processing is called cognitive science.

The deepest historical roots of the cognitive approach can be found in classical philosophical questions such as the mind-body problem, which dates back to Rene Descartes (1596-1615) and to the rationalism versus empiricism debate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (Wilson 1999, xv-xvi.) The roots of cognitively oriented psychology date back to around 1850, when the first systematically conducted empirical psychological tests took place. The tests of Weber and Fechner, for example, measured the relations between objective changes in physical stimuli, such as brightness or weight, and subjective changes in the internal sensations the stimuli generate. In the first half of the twentieth century cognitively oriented psychology went into decline, overshadowed by behaviourism, only to emerge again in the “cognitive revolution” of the 1950s and 60s. (Holyoak 1999, xli-xliv.)

Cognitive science as we know it today began to form after the Second World War, partially as a counterpart to the prevailing psychological (behaviourist) ideas of the time, and partially as a theoretical approach made possible by the new computational discoveries (Gardner 1987, 11-16). Advances in such diverse areas of science as computer technology and neuroscience made it possible to begin conceptualizing information processing in a totally new way. During the 1960s several disciplines of scientific enquiry started acting on the new ideas concerning the creative mechanisms of the human mind for the categorization and construal of information. It might be said that the concept of the human mind as we now understand it was born following the 1950s. During its first decades the new vision of the mind attracted six main disciplines under the umbrella of �cognitive science’:

psychology, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. (Gardner 1987, 28-38.)

The start of cognitive cultural studies dates back to the 1950s, so it occurs around the same time as the proponents of the new rhetoric formulated their ideas (see Campbell 2001; Gardner 1987. See also chapter 3.1.). In the fields of study called ethology (see Marler 1999, 288-290.) and ethnosemantics, researchers undertook the systematic collection of data concerning the abilities of classifying, categorizing and concept-forming in different cultures. A new vision of a fundamental cognitive similarity between different cultural groups began to emerge. (Gardner 1987, 30.) There was a paradigmatic shift in thought concerning racial or cultural differences

in cognitive abilities between cultural groups. Whereas previously considered fundamentally different and culture-specific, a theory of cognitive human universals now emerged.

Cognitive science has a relatively short history as a discipline, but the accumulation of ideas put to use in its practice has a long past. It can be said that without the agendas of epistemologists throughout the history of the Western philosophical tradition, there would be no such thing as cognitive science (Gardner 1987, 7). The questions that cognitive science deals with are deeply rooted in the philosophical problematic of knowledge and knowing. Cognitive scientists today tackle much the same questions as did the philosophers of ancient Greece: what it means to know something, and having beliefs that are consistent with the states-of-things in reality. Cognitive science seeks to understand the relationships between that which is known and the knowing subject. In a nutshell, it might be said that cognitive science studies the mechanisms by which reality becomes represented in the minds of sentient beings, and the modes and qualities of the processes of representation (see Gardner 1987, 4-5). Maybe the most central development the

“cognitive revolution“ brought was that the theory of the human mind changed from a view where the mind was considered a passive storage of information to a theory where the mind is understood as an active platform of information processing.

Several developments that occurred during the first half of the twentieth century can be seen as contributing to the new emergent vision of the human mind as an active processor of information. Important discoveries were made in the fields of mathematics and computation, neurology, cybernetics and information theory (Gardner 1987, 16-23). Anthropological advances were made in the discipline of ethnosemantics, and, at the other end of the spectrum of the scientific study of knowledge, artificial intelligence took its first steps. Finally, the emergence of the

“Logic Theory Machine”, the computer we nowadays have such an everyday love-hate relationship with, was theoretically established. The theoretical possibility of a machine that could process information in a relatively simple and effective way created a new metaphor for the human mind. It is at this point of culmination that psychologist George A. Miller fixed the date of the official recognition of cognitive science: September 11, 1956. (Gardner 1987, 28-31.)

Be that an accurate date for the discipline’s conception or not, today cognitive science can be seen as having been formed out of the six main disciplines mentioned above. The basic agenda connecting these disciplines was formulated in the State of the Art Report commissioned by the Sloan Foundation in 1978:

What has brought the field into existence is a common research objective:

to discover the representational and computational capabilities of the mind and their structural and functional representation in the brain. (SOAP 1978, quoted in Gardner 1987, 36.)

The selection of the disciplines could also have been different. As Gardner remarks, anthropology and neuroscience are “borderline” disciplines that might have been excluded from the endeavour altogether. On the other hand, disciplines such as sociology or economics might have been added into the fold. (Gardner 1987, 7.) Because of the wide spectrum of the six disciplines included in cognitive science, the research made in its name can vary tremendously. Rather than approach the

field in a way as to give a comprehensive picture of any and all research possible within its fold, it is reasonable to focus on a few key features that the cognitive point of view encompasses. The first of these “symptoms of cognitivism” is the concept of

�representation’. �Representation’ can be seen as a level of analysis posited between neurological functions of the brain and the cultural and social influences of external reality, as a level where the mechanisms of information processing and external phenomena become knowledge. The cognitive scientist rests his discipline on the assumption that it is informative to describe human cognitive activity in terms of

�symbols’, �schemas’, �ideas’ or other forms of mental representation. (Gardner 1987, 38-39, 383-384.)

Secondly, from a cognitive point of view, active organisms are primarily considered to be “information-processing systems”. In this account the computer can be seen as a more or less effective metaphor for the mind; computers are also used in some forms of cognitive study to simulate cognitive activity. (Gardner 1987, 40-41.) The issue of the metaphorical value of “human cognition as a supercomputer” remains under debate, as we cannot yet be sure of how similar the processes are. The human mind clearly uses some kinds of rules to sort out and process relevant information, but not enough is known yet to be precise about how these “rules” function and are formed in the first place. The different views of mental architecture are discussed in more detail further on.

However, there are views according to which the human mind is never a blank slate, having innate, hard-wired capabilities and dispositions that can be seen as

“computer-like” in a more or less metaphorical sense.⁵⁸ The “computer-likeness” of the brain is, at its strongest, in theory commonly known as the “computational theory of mind”. (see Horst 1999, 170-171.) The essential claim of the theory is that human minds, at an appropriate level of abstraction, are computers. In cognitive science, the label “computational” is usually associated with specific classes of cognitive or information-processing architectures (see van Gelder 1995). The computational model is by far not the only systems theory within cognitive science:

This classic symbolic architecture is defended, for example by Fodor and Pylyshyn (1988), because of its claimed superiority in dealing with the systematicity, productivity, and compositionality of high-level thought. Its very specificity, however, especially in contrast with the wide variety of architectures increasingly deployed in computational practice, seems responsible for a variety of self-described “non-” or even “anti-” computational movements that have sprung up in cognitive science over the last two decades: ´connectionist or neurally inspired architectures… shifts in emphasis from computational models to cognitive neuroscience; embodied and situated architectures that exploit various forms of environmental context dependence… so-called complex adaptive systems and models of artificial life, motivated in part by such biological phenomena as random mutation and evolutionary selection;

interactive or even merely reactive robotics… (Smith 1999, 154.)

No matter the specific theory, it is safe to generalize that all cognitive theories depend on an idea that all intentional beings have some information-processing cognitive

58 For a concise history of the theory of the computer-likeness of thought see Mayer 1992.

systems, and that the understanding of these systems is necessary to understand the beings. This is true most of all in the case of humans, because of our extremely complex cognitive architecture. Especially from the point of view of anthropology and probably of some schools of psychology, it may seem that cognitive science has a problematic de-emphasis on questions of affect, context, culture and history. (see Sjöblom 2001, Shore 1999, Lightfoot 1999.) While partially true, this de-emphasis is largely provisional and mostly the result of the field’s young age. When initiating a new field of study one has to learn to walk before one can fly; one has to do one’s homework carefully and aim at finding elementary facts that can be empirically proved and tested. To work out the basics of mental machinery in this manner one needs minds; this pretty much rules out history. The mechanisms of affect and emotions, while most certainly the bread and butter of cognitive study, are probably the most complex and overarching processes in human cognition – not a good starting-point.⁵⁹

The apparent de-emphasis of context and culture is due much to the division of cognitive studies. To study culture one must be a scholar dedicated to cultural studies. To do this from a cognitive point of view one has to take a step beyond the traditionally understood theories and methodologies utilized in the humanities.

While assuming new ideas may be slow, the disciplines of anthropology and the scientific study of religion are catching up, and as they are, the de-emphasis on context and culture is slowly starting to correct itself. (see Gardner 1987, 41-42.) One of the main reasons for combining rhetoric and cognitive science in this work is to test whether the cognitive approach can be given more contact-surface with cultural material by this combination.

The third fundamental assumption prevalent in the cognitive approach is the belief in the explanatory force of interdisciplinary studies. Interactions between scholars from different fields with their own specialized knowledge who are interested in the same matters can be tremendously enlightening. Furthermore, it is easy to see that among all possible fields of scientific study and interest the human mind clearly exceeds the boundaries. It seems nonsensical to claim that we could learn everything there is to know about the human mind through neurology or anthropology alone. (Gardner 1987, 42.) As stated before, cognitive science is not monolithic, but capable of integrating and extending other points of view.

The interdisciplinary nature of cognitive science supports the idea of a �cognitive rhetoric’, as rhetorical studies are also interdisciplinary.

Finally, as mentioned, the questions eminent in any study done from the cognitive point of view are rooted in the classical philosophical problems of epistemology (Goldman 1999, 280-282). The natural world, the human mind and cultural reality are all connected and intertwined in the processes of cognitive activity. Material reality sets the stage and the basic rules for the mind, and the mind categorizes and processes information, sometimes bending the rules. Cultural reality is the external expression of cognitive activity that remains interactive with the mental processes, further moulding and embellishing them. Cognitive science aims to find out the rules and modes governing these interactions, to find out what it is to know and to act as a knowing subject.

The part of cognitive science most relevant to this work is cognitive anthropology.

It can be said that the cognitive revolution was more indirect in its effect on

59 Emotions and the cognitive theories concerning emotion are discussed further in the chapter

�Pathos’.

anthropology than on psychology and linguistics. This was because before the cognitive revolution anthropology had been less behaviouristic in its orientation than psychology and linguistics, and so the revolutionaries had less to change.

However, the changes within anthropology were by no means less pervasive, and the whole agenda of anthropological study was changed with the arrival of the cognitive paradigm. In fact, by the time the cognitive revolution hit psychology, anthropology had already begun to move towards more ideational, mental, and cognitive concerns – the study of ideas, beliefs, values, and cosmologies. (D’Andrade 1995, 12; also see Ketola 1998.)

Cognitive anthropology started by studying the task originally given to ethnosemantics: mapping out the categorizing taxonomies within different cultures. To quote an example from D’Andrade (1995), it is a common belief in many Western cultures that certain things are the way they are because of some essence. Thus, tigers are said to have a certain essence which makes them tigers, which is not the same thing as the various features tigers have, like stripes, tails, whiskers, claws, etc. One can bleach the stripes, clip the tail, whiskers and claws, yet the creature still has the essential property of being a tiger. Slightly differing doctrines of essence have been propounded at different times by Aristotle, Aquinas, and various Scholastics. (D’Andrade 1995, 176.) Cognitive anthropology can be defined as a subfield of cultural anthropology, whose principal aim is to understand and describe how people in societies conceive and experience their world (Casson 1999, 120.) A principal assumption is that any given culture creates taxonomies and categorizations, and that studying these can give researchers insights into the workings of human cognition.

The principles of cognitive categorization are astutely presented by Scott Atran (1990):

Humans, let us suppose, are endowed with highly articulated cognitive faculties for ”fast-mapping” the world they evolved in, and for which their minds were selected. The ”automatic” taxonomic ordering of phenomenal species, like the spontaneous relational ordering of colors, would then be a likely product of one such faculty. (Atran 1990, 65.)

Humans appear to be inherently disposed to classify living kinds (for example) according to presumptions about their underlying physical natures. Cross-cultural evidence indicates that people everywhere spontaneously organize living kinds into rigidly ranked taxonomic types despite wide morphological variation among those presumed to exemplify the nature of their type. (Atran 1990, 70-71.) It will be later argued that the universal cognitive mechanisms of categorization are one element of the persuasiveness of certain rhetorical strategies. According to Brown (1999) human universals include:

…those features of culture, society, language, behavior, and psyche for which there are no known exceptions to their existence in all ethnographically or historically recorded human societies. Among the many examples are such disparate phenomena as tools, myths and legends, sex roles, social groups,

aggression, gestures, grammar, phonemes, emotions, and psychological defense mechanisms.⁶⁰

The existence of human universals has been noted from the points of view of many different disciplines. Ethology approaches human universals as species-typical behaviour, while sociobiology explains such universals as kin altruism (Marler 1999, 288-290, Dunbar 1999, 783-784). Evolutionary psychology as well as different cognitive theories such as modularity theory have given explanations where the mental architecture of humans is seen as the fundamental factor behind human universals. (Cosmides and Tooby 1999, 295-298; Brown 1999, 383.)

Some researchers of human cognition have also been interested in rhetoric.

These include, for example, G. H. Elder (1999), who has created a basically neuroscientific model of rhetorical persuasion. In his book Elder outlines a complex system of neurological functions which is triggered by persuasive discourse, as well as systems that govern decision-making, motivation and schematic activation.

Elder’s theory, while innovative, is focused on significantly more micro-level phenomena than the theory presented here.

What has become known as �cognitive rhetoric’ stems from the tradition of cognitive linguistics. Indeed, Hamilton and Schneider (2002) go as far as to say that

“going cognitive” has become a trend in literary studies and that the term �cognitive’

can in this context be seen as synonymous with �cognitive rhetoric’. (ibid., 1.) Freeman (2002) defines cognitive linguistics in the following manner⁶¹:

…cognitive linguistics is concerned with the conceptual workings of the embodied mind, all aspects of human experience and behavior, whether from the perspective of the writer, from the perspective of the reader, or from the perspective of the text itself, are relevant and are integrated into a cognitive understanding of the literary experience. In addition, cognitive linguistics further contributes to literary studies by revealing the extent to which the imaginative powers that both create and comprehend literary works reflect the general workings of the human mind. (Freeman 2002, 1.)

One of the most prominent figures in the cognitive revolution of rhetoric has been Mark Turner, who developed an approach that combines linguistics, literary criticism, and cognitive science. Turner (1989; 1991) along with Lakoff and Johnson (1980) claim that metaphor, metonymy, irony, and other tropes are not linguistic distortions of literal, mental thought, but constitute basic schemes⁶² by which people conceptualize their experience and the external world (Gibbs 1999, 315). In Lakoff and Turner’s terms: “metaphor allows us to understand our selves and our

60 A well researched anthropological theory of human universals might have great significance for the rhetorical theory of universal audience.

61 On cognitive linguistics see van Hoek 1999, 134-135; Fauconnier 1985; Lakoff & Johnson 1980.

62 According to “schema theories” knowledge is packed into units. These units are the schemata.

Embedded in these packets of knowledge is information about how this knowledge is to be used. A schema is a data structure for representing the generic concepts stored in memory. There are schemata representing our knowledge about all concepts: objects, social situations, events, sequences of events, actions and sequences of actions. (Rumelhart 1994, 163.)

world in ways that no other modes of thought can.” (Lakoff and Turner 1989, xi). In Turner’s words:

Language and literature are suffused by the full human world of the everyday.

That is their basis. This full human world, the world that comprehends language and literature, exists for us independently of any academic theory.

Whether the academic theory is invented or not, whether it attains an ascendency or vanishes, the full human world, its language and literature, abide, exactly because our grasp of this world and our operation within it

Whether the academic theory is invented or not, whether it attains an ascendency or vanishes, the full human world, its language and literature, abide, exactly because our grasp of this world and our operation within it