title: Cognition and causality, fiction and explanation.
abstract: The debate about the causal efficacy of cognition involves two overlapping but different issues: (1) whether explanatory fictions improve upon the power and utility of nonfictional explanations of behavior, and (2) whether any explanation, either purely empirical or purely inferential, can describe proximal causality in behavioral functioning. The resolution of the first issue depends on the purpose to which the explanation is to be put. The resolution of the second issue depends on the larger paradigmatic context in which causality is understood. In modern biosystemic models of behavior, linear causality is important only as a special case of the multidirectional and reciprocal causality which characterizes complex self-regulating systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln 68588-0308, USA.
authors.forename: W D
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Spaulding
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D011340:Problem Solving; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D013850:Thinking