In this richly detailed analysis, Barbara Von Eckardt lays the foundations for understanding what it means to be a cognitive scientist. She characterizes the basic assumptions that define the cognitive science approach and systematically sorts out a host of recent and the controversies surrounding them.
Von Eckardt takes issue with those who argue that there is no agreed-upon research paradigm and agreed-upon set of assumptions or methods in cognitive science, and with those who believe that the field should not be so committed. She argues that there is indeed a framework of shared commitments that includes basic questions guiding research, substantive assumptions constraining how those questions are to be answered, and methodological assumptions about how to find those answers.

This is a great book if you are part of a younger generation that did not grow up professionally while these papers were first being written/discussed. A few selections seem out of place, or perhaps are not quite as foundational as others, but overall it is a collection well worth having. Read from beginning to end you will have a basic handle on a large number of central topics in semantics.

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