Cognitive science: from computers to anthills as models of human thought

The roots of cognitive science go as far back as those of philosophy. One way of defining cognitive science is to say that it is just naturalised philosophy. Much of contemporary thinking about the mind derives from René Descartes ' distinction between the body and the soul. They were constituted of two different substances and it was only humans that had a soul and were capable of thinking. According to him, other animals were mere automata. Descartes was a rationalist: our minds could gain knowledge about the world by rational thinking. This epistemological position was challenged by the empiricists, notably John Locke and David Hume. They claimed that the only reliable source of knowledge is sensory experience. Such experiences result in ideas, and thinking consists of connecting ideas in various ways. Immanuel Kant strove to synthesize the rationalist and the empiricist positions. Our minds always deal with phenomenal experiences and not with the external world. He introduced a distinction between the thing in itself (das Ding an sich) and the thing perceived by us (das Ding an uns). Kant then formulated a set of categories of thought, without which we cannot organise our phenomenal world. For example, we must interpret what happens in the world i