Science and the Mind

Abstract

One of the most compelling images of modern science is its apparent ability to unearth the ‘real properties of matter’ from below the chaos encountered in the ‘world of ordinary experiences’. The image supports a common conception of science that science is a harbinger of truth : the realist position. In contrast, there is a minority view in the philosophy of science which says that scientific theories necessarily fail to describe the world. In this context, how do we characterize the purported scientific nature of the contemporary discipline of cognitive science , that includes biolinguistics as a science of language? Given the immense complexity and evolutionary spread of cognitive phenomena, it is unlikely that a genuinely universal scientific theory will be reached in this domain unless some severe constraints are imposed on cognitive theory. In search of possible constraints, the realist aspect of modern science is studied. How does advanced science abstract away from the complexity of experience? Immanuel Kant’s theory of schemata is studied in some detail to show that even if Kant’s innovative suggestions may explain the nature of minimalist art, they fail to account for the minimalism achieved in physics. The realist claims of physics are firmly grounded via mathematical forms that capture simple, periodic regularities of nature. Therefore, if the science of the mind hopes to reach universal generalizations, its empirical domain must be so restricted as to meet the conditions of the Galilean style . The study of language possibly meets those conditions.

Science is a very strange activity. It only works for simple problems. Even in the hard sciences, when you move beyond the simplest structures, it becomes very descriptive.

Noam Chomsky

This is a revised version of an earlier paper published as Mukherji (2009).