Can Cognitive Explanations Be Eliminated?

The purpose of article is to analyze the arguments of Bruno Latour and SteveWoolgar aimed at eliminating `superfluous' cognitive explanations from discussionof scientific activity. They proposed to a ten-year moratorium on cognitiveexplanations of scientific activity and promised to reassess explanation interms of cognition after this period of time if some aspects of scientific inquirywould not be accounted by sociological explanations. Intensive laboratory studiesof scientific practice indicated that scientific thinking is not based on mentalprocesses alone but relies on external tools and instruments. On the basis ofthese kinds of observations, they rejected all cognitive explanations of scientificinquiry. By building on sociocultural theories of cognition, the present study makesthe case that the use of conceptual tools significantly transforms cognitive processes.It is concluded that the failure to appreciate cognitive explanations reflects a far toonarrow and non-social concept of cognition: Even after the ten-year moratorium thereappears to be many good reasons to reassess the proposal of eliminating cognitiveexplanations altogether.