Cognitive activities without cognition? ethnomethodological investigations of selected ‘cognitive’ topics

Discourse Studies 8 (1):95-104 (2006)
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Abstract

Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis investigate many of the activities that are featured in the cognitive sciences. These include memory, learning, perception, and calculative activities. However, for ethno/ca such activities are not necessarily ‘cognitive’, and their investigation as activities does not necessarily require observation or speculation about what goes on within the mind or brain. This article briefly discusses three examples of nominal ‘cognitive’ activities: looking-for/seeing; failing to recall; and counting things and people. The discussion suggests how these examples can be understood and elucidated in a way that has little to do with any existing program in cognitive science. The modest aim of the article is not to persuade readers that ethno/ca can contribute to cognitive studies. Instead, I argue that ethno/ca offers a path not taken in cognitive science: a viable research program for investigating nominally ‘cognitive’ themes without trading in mentalistic notions of cognition.

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Michael Lynch
University of Connecticut

References found in this work

Philosophical Investigations.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1953 - New York, NY, USA: Wiley-Blackwell. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe.
The Concept of Mind.Gilbert Ryle - 1949 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 141:125-126.
The Concept of Mind.Gilbert Ryle - 1949 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1 (4):328-332.

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