Creating scientific concepts / Nancy Nersessian.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nersessian, Nancy J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Creative ability in science.

Model-based reasoning.

Discoveries in science.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 251 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, [2008]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

An account that analyzes the dynamic reasoning processes implicated in a fundamental problem of creativity in science: how does genuine novelty emerge from existing representations?How do novel scientific concepts arise? In Creating Scientific Concepts, Nancy Nersessian seeks to answer this central but virtually unasked question in the problem of conceptual change. She argues that the popular image of novel concepts and profound insight bursting forth in a blinding flash of inspiration is mistaken. Instead, novel concepts are shown to arise out of the interplay of three factors: an attempt to solve specific problems; the use of conceptual, analytical, and material resources provided by the cognitive-social-cultural context of the problem; and dynamic processes of reasoning that extend ordinary cognition.Focusing on the third factor, Nersessian draws on cognitive science research and historical accounts of scientific practices to show how scientific and ordinary cognition lie on a continuum, and how problem-solving practices in one illuminate practices in the other. Her investigations of scientific practices show conceptual change as deriving from the use of analogies, imagistic representations, and thought experiments, integrated with experimental investigations and mathematical analyses. She presents a view of constructed models as hybrid objects, serving as intermediaries between targets and analogical sources in bootstrapping processes. Extending these results, she argues that these complex cognitive operations and structures are not mere aids to discovery, but that together they constitute a powerful form of reasoning--model-based reasoning--that generates novelty. This new approach to mental modeling and analogy, together with Nersessian's cognitive-historical approach, make Creating Scientific Concepts equally valuable to cognitive science and philosophy of science.

Contents:

1 Creativity in Conceptual Change: A Cognitive-Historical Approach 1

1.1 Recasting the Problem of Conceptual Change 2

1.2 The Cognitive-Historical Method 6

1.3 Reasoning 10

1.4 Model-based Reasoning Exemplars 13

2 Model-based Reasoning Practices: Historical Exemplar 19

2.1 Maxwell's Problem Situation 21

2.2 Maxwell's Modeling Processes 29

2.3 Discussion: Maxwell's Model-based Reasoning Practices 48

3 Model-based Reasoning Practices: Protocol Study Exemplar 61

3.1 Protocol Records and Analysis 62

3.2 Exemplar 2: S2 and the Concept of Spring 65

3.3 S2's Problem Situation 67

3.4 S2's Modeling Processes 67

3.5 Discussion: S2's Model-based Reasoning Practices 85

4 The Cognitive Basis of Model-based Reasoning Practices: Mental Modeling 91

4.1 The Mental Models Framework 92

4.2 General Format and Processing Issues 95

4.3 Mental Modeling in Logical Reasoning 101

4.4 "Craikian" Mental Modeling: Simulative Reasoning 105

4.5 Mental Modeling and Scientific Model-based Reasoning Practices 127

5 Representation and Reasoning: Analogy, Imagery, Though Experiment 131

5.1 Model Construction and Analogy 135

5.2 Imagistic Representation 158

5.3 Representation Simulation and Thought Experimenting 172

5.4 Model-based Reasoning 180

6 Creativity in Conceptual Change 183

6.1 Model-based Reasoning: The Argument Thus Far 184

6.2 Conceptual Innovation 186

6.3 Conclusion: Model-based Reasoning in Conceptual Innovation 200

6.4 Reflexive Reflections: Wider Implications 201.

Notes:

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

9780262280549

026228054X

9781435665651

1435665651

OCLC:

251620972

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.