Much scholarship in the history of cybernetics has focused on the far-reaching cultural dimensions of the movement. What has garnered less attention are efforts by cyberneticians such as Warren McCulloch and Norbert Wiener to transform scientific practice in an array of disciplines in the biomedical sciences, and the complex ways these efforts were received by members of traditional disciplines. In a quest for scientific unity that had a decidedly imperialistic flavour, cyberneticians sought to apply practices common in the exact sciences – mainly theoretical modeling – to problems in disciplines that were traditionally defined by highly empirical practices, such as neurophysiology and neuroanatomy. Their efforts were met with mixed, often critical responses. This paper attempts to make sense of such dynamics by exploring the notion of a scientific style and its usefulness in accounting for the contrasts in scientific practice in brain research and in cybernetics during the 1940s. Focusing on two key institutional contexts of brain research and the role of the Rockefeller and Macy Foundations in directing brain research and cybernetics, the paper argues that the conflicts between these fields were not simply about experiment vs. theory but turned more closely on the questions that defined each area and the language used to elaborate answers.

Key words: Cybernetics, Macy foundation, Neurophysiology, Rockefeller Foundation, Theoretical modeling, Warren S. McCulloch

A survey of the history of science shows that very similar conceptions have been developed independently in various branches of science. At present, for example, holistic interpretations are prevalent in all fields whereas in the past atomistic explanations were common. Such considerations lead to the postulation of General System Theory which is a logico-mathematical discipline applicable to all sciences concerned with systems. The fact that certain principles have general applicability to systems explains the occurrence of isomorphic laws in different scientific fields. Just as Aristotelian logic was a fundamental organon for the classificatory sciences of antiquity, so may General System Theory define the general principles of dynamic interaction which appears as the central problem of modern science.

In this paper we provide some theoretical guidelines for the characterization of the specificity of biological systems in terms of organization and constraints. In the first place we advocate the view according to which a sound account of biological organization requires an appeal to emergent causation, and we propose a theoreti-cal justification of emergence against existing criticisms by consid-ering it as a causal power stemming from the relational properties of material configurations. Then, by interpreting constraints as a spe-cific form of this emergent causal power, we propose a distinction between the roles played by constraints in physical and biological systems. As a result we provide a possible definition of biological organization as a closed network of co-dependent and internally produced constraints.

Metabolism is a criterion of life. Three senses are distinguished. The weakest allows strong A-Life: virtual creatures having physical existence in computer electronics, but not bodies, are classes as ‘alive’. The second excludes strong A-Life but allows that some non-biochemical A-Life robots could be classed as alive. The third, which stresses the body’s self-production by energy budgeting and self-equilibrating energy exchanges of some (necessary) complexity, excludes both strong A-Life and living non-biochemical robots.

This work represents an attempt to stake out the landscape for dynamicism based on a radical dismissal of the information-processing paradigm that dominates the philosophy of cognitive science. In Section 2, after setting up the basic toolkit of a theory of minimal representationalism, I introduce the central tenets of dynamic systems theory (DST) by discussing recent research in the dynamics of embodiment (Thelen et al. [2001]) in the perseverative-reaching literature. A recent proposal on the dynamics of representation – the dynamic field approach (Spencer and Scho ̈ner [2003]) – according to which the alleged representational gap between DST and representational theories of cognition needs to be bridged in order to explain higher-order cognitive activity will then be reviewed. In Section 3 I shall argue that Spencer and Scho ̈ ner’s attempt to bridge the representational gap may jeopardize the whole (antirepresentationalist) spirit of the DST project. In order to show why, I shall introduce the key concepts of ‘‘reliability of environment’’ and ‘‘primagenesis’’, and argue that DST can account for de-coupled, offline cognitive activity with no need of positing representational resources. Conclusions and directions for future research will follow.

During the last decade, radical constructivism has gained a certain currency in the fields of science and mathematics education. Although cognitive constructivists have occasionally referred to the intuitionist approach to the foundational problems in mathematics, no effort has so far been made to outline what a constructivist’s own approach might be. This paper attempts a start in that direction. Whitehead’s description of three processes involved in criticising mathematical thinking (1925) is used to show discrepancies between a traditional epistemological stance and the constructivist approach to knowing and communication. The bulk of the paper then suggests tentative itineraries for the progression from ele-mentary experiential situations to the abstraction of the concepts of unit, plurality, number, point, line, and plane, whose relation to sensory-motor experience is usually ignored or distorted in mathematics instruction. There follows a discussion of the question of certainty in logical deduction and arithmetic.

Key words: philosophy, mathematics, radical constructivism

Scientific realists have claimed that the posit that our theories are (approximately) true provides the best or the only explanation for their success. In response, I revive two nonrealist explanations. I show that realists, in discarding them, have either misconstrued the phenomena to be explained or mischaracterized the relationship between these explanations and their own I contend nonetheless that these nonrealist competitors, as well as their realist counterparts, should be rejected; for none of them succeed in explaining a significant list of successes. I propose a related nonrealist explanation of success that appears to be the most suitable among those considered.

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn famously advanced the claim that scientists work in a different world after a scientific revolution. Kuhn’s view has been at the center of a philosophical literature that has tried to make sense of his bold claim, by listing Kuhn’s view in good company with other seemingly constructivist proposals. The purpose of this paper is to take some steps towards clarifying what sort of constructivism (if any) is in fact at stake in Kuhn’s view. To this end, I distinguish between two main (albeit not exclusive) notions of mind-dependence: a semantic notion and an ontological one. I point out that Kuhn’s view should be understood as subscribing to a form of semantic mind-dependence, and conclude that semantic mind-dependence does not land us into any worrisome ontological mind-dependence, pace any constructivist reading of Kuhn.

Key words: kuhn, incommensurability, paradigm shift, constructivism, mind-dependence.