Publications of Heintz, C

Presuming placeholders are relevant enables conceptual change. Commentary on Carey's précis of The Origin of Concept

Placeholders enable conceptual change only if presumed to be relevant (e.g., lead to the formation of true beliefs) even though their meaning is not yet fully understood and their cognitive function not yet specified. Humans are predisposed to make such presumptions in a communicative context. Specifying the role of the presumption of relevance in conceptual change would provide a more comprehensive account of Quinian bootstrapping.

Ethnographic cognition and 'Writing Culture'

I suggest that one of the best ways to pursue and go beyond the programme of Writing Culture is to do cognitive anthropology of anthropology. I will situate Writing Culture with regard to this field of research and I will argue that Writing Culture can contribute to the development of the cognitive anthropology of anthropology. This is because it is sensible to start the anthropological study of anthropology with an analysis of the cultural product – in our case, the ethnographic texts. The analyst can then pick up relevant properties of the cultural product and track down what caused them. Among these causes stand the cognitive processes of actual practitioners, namely working ethnographers. I argue that some rhetoric conventions analysed in Writing Cultures are informing the reader about the cognitive genesis of the ethnography. These conventions are relevant to the reader: in particular information about the cognitive genesis of an ethnographic text enables the reader to evaluate its ethnographic account. This gives me the occasion to briefly specify some cognitive processes at work in the production of ethnographies. These include, I argue, a reflexive and critical cognition that is distributed among the community of anthropologists, and – a cognitive process much studied by cognitive psychologists that enables ethnographers to make sense of the behaviour of indigenous people by attributing mental states to them (beliefs, intentions, desires, feelings).

The implication of social cognition for experimental economics

Can human social cognitive processes and social motives be grasped by the methods of experimental economics? Experimental studies of strategic cognition and social preferences contribute to our understanding of the social aspects of economic decisions making. Yet, papers in this issue argue that the social aspects of decision-making introduce several difficulties for interpreting the results of economic experiments. In particular, the laboratory is itself a social context, and in many respects a rather distinctive one, which raises questions of external validity.

Darwinismes contemporains en sciences humaines

Nous présentons les travaux en sciences sociales des derniéres cinquante années qui se sont inspirés des études Darwiniennes sur l’´evolution. Nous distinguons différents types de Darwinisme en sciences sociales selon l’utilisation des notions Darwiniennes : le Darwinisme biologique est utilisé pour rendre compte des comportements humains et le Darwinisme universel est utilis´e pour rendre compte de l’évolution culturel le. Nous concluons sur une description de ce qui nous semble la meilleure exploitation du Darwinisme en sciences sociales – l’épidémiologie culturelle.

Web search engines and distributed assessment systems

I analyse the impact of search engines on our cognitive and epistemic practices. For that purpose, I describe the processes of assessment of documents on the Web as relying on distributed cognition. Search engines together with Web users, are distributed assessment systems whose task is to enable efficient allocation of cognitive resources of those who use search engines. Specifying the cognitive function of search engines within these distributed assessment systems allows interpreting anew the changes that have been caused by search engine technologies. I describe search engines as implementing reputation systems and point out the similarities with other reputation systems. I thus call attention to the continuity in the distributed cognitive processes that determine the allocation of cognitive resources for information gathering from others.

The ecological rationality of strategic cognition

I argue that altruistic behavior and its variation across cultures may be caused by mental cognitive mechanisms that induce cooperative behavior in contract-like situations and adapt that behavior to the kinds of contracts that exist in one’s socio-cultural environment. I thus present a cognitive alternative to Henrich et al.’s motivation-based account. Rather than behaving in ways that reveal preferences, subjects interpret the experiment in ways that cue their social heuristics. In order to distinguish the respective roles of preferences and cognitive processes that determine economic behavior, we need more ethnography of strategies “in the wild.”

Introduction : Why there should be a cognitive anthropology of science

I argue that questions, methods and theories drawn from cognitive anthropology are particularly appropriate for the study of science. I also emphasize the role of cognitive anthropology of science for the integration of cognitive and social studies of science. Finally, I briefly introduce the papers of the volume and attempt to draw the main directions of research.