Home – Home – Jornals – Philosophy of Sciences 2016 number 2

The paper deals with the problem of cross-disciplinary cooperation between philosophy and cognitive psychology. The experimental cognitive approach is demonstrated via examples of cognitive investigations of mental disorders (autism). It is shown that this approach aims to find correlations between symptoms of a mental disorder, but not to systemiting them into a pattern with some primary disorder as a base. Cognitive approach is also criticized from the point of inaccuracy of the terms used, and of lack of conclusions' persuasion. Thus, the tasks of philosophical approach are: a) heuristic formulation of a hypothesis for further investigations; b) understanding (in Jaspers' terms) of the data received, arranging them into a reasonable system; c) formulating of the question of a primary deficiency; d) making the terms more precise and a criticizing «from outside» the cognitive approach in the cases of the sampling used, the accuracy of conclusions, etc., e) using the data for the development of general philosophical conceptualizations of human reasoning. The models of mentality with the central management and those without it are also analyzed in the paper, using the data about autistic disorder. The author concludes that the efficient cross-disciplinary cooperation between philosophy and cognitive psychology is possible and productive.