Who's in and who's out of the cognitive kinding game? Comments on Muhammad Ali Khalidi's Cognitive ontology: Taxonomic practices in the mind‐brain sciences

Abstract

Muhammad Ali Khalidi contends that because cognitive science casts a wider net than neuroscience in searching for the causes of cognition, it is in the superior position to discover “real” cognitive kinds. I argue that while Khalidi identifies appropriate norms for individuating cognitive kinds, these norms ground his characterization of taxonomic practices in cognitive science, rather than the other way around. If we instead treat Khalidi's norms not as descriptively accurate characterizations of taxonomic practices in cognitive science, but as a set of best practices for kinding cognition, is cognitive science in and neuroscience definitively out of the cognitive kinding game?