Research On The Models Used In The Division Of Cognitive Labor

How to explain the development of science is one of the central issues in the philosophy of science.On the one hand,the number and precision of problems solved by science has increased in the past several centuries;on the other hand,the scale of science is expanding and scientific collaborations/competitions are becoming more common,while scientists often have to choose between different theories or approaches.Thomas Kuhn was confused with the question of how human science can continue to success in the absence of binding criteria for scientific choice.In response,Philip Kitcher first proposed the concept of the division of cognitive labor in 1990 to describe the scientific structure of a scientific community that divides cognitive labor into different theoretical approaches.He pioneered the use of modeling methods to study the impact of that structure on the cognitive efficiency of the scientific community.Kitcher idea and modeling approach have inspired many researchers to make further study of the division of cognitive labor and develop better models.The fact is that models have always been a central approach in the study of the division of cognitive labor.Therefore,an in-depth examination of the typical models as well as their strengths and weaknesses,will help to improve the understanding of the structure of the science in the course of scientific development.The research work in this paper is divided into three areas:(1)Identifies the source of the Kitcher’s problem of the division of cognitive labor and the uniqueness of his modeling approach,and how subsequent scholars have developed on the modeling approach as well as the problem domain.(2)Take the representative Marginal Contribution/Reward model and the Epistemic Landscape model from the study of the division of cognitive labor as examples,and examine the characteristicsand simulation results of these two models in terms of model type,purpose,type of idealization,model composition,etc.(3)Compare and evaluate the two models based on their representational capacity,robustness,similarity and analytical difficulty,and explore the strengths and weaknesses of the modeling approach in addressing the relationship between the division of cognitive labor and scientific progress.Through the above three aspects of research work,this paper attempts to conclude that:(1)Kitcher opened up the field of research on the division of cognitive labor by transforming the tense between individual and collective rationality from Kuhn’s problem of theoretical choice into the tense between individual and collective cognitive reward of scientists divided in different approaches of research.(2)Both the Marginal Contribution/Reward model and the Epistemic Landscape model discuss "the impact of the division of cognitive labor on the collective cognitive efficiency" and "the impact of individual scientists’ preferences on the division of cognitive labor in the community",but these two models belongs to different types of model.(3)The Epistemic Landscape model outperforms the Marginal Contribution/Reward model in terms of representational capacity,robustness and similarity,but its analysis work is more difficult.(4)In the study of the division of cognitive labor,the advantages of the modeling approach are its ability to describe the complex relationships between multiple variables quantitatively,its ease of operation and its ability to produce universal conclusions,as well as its disadvantages are the intellectual,thematic and complex nature of the models’ conclusions.(5)The modeling approach should be combined with the case study approach to overcome each other’s shortcomings and better characterize the rich and complex social structure of science,helping to further the understanding of how science can develop and progress based on the diversity of individual scientists.