Dissertation Research: Thinking About Thinking in Cold War America

本论文项目涉及认知革命，二战后行为主义霸权在心理学中的衰落，以及人类思维和计算机系统的隐喻联系的出现。它将从几个方面将实验心理学中关于思想和心灵的明确讨论的重新出现置于背景中。首先，它将密切关注哈佛大学的认知研究中心，这是第一个有组织的认知科学机构。该项目将考察该中心的跨学科研究兴趣是如何产生并依赖于其折衷的社会环境的。它还将考虑该中心的跨学科结构如何与哈佛大学更广泛的学术政治形势相互作用。其次，它将研究更广泛的社会和文化环境如何促进和借鉴新出现的认知理论。这个项目将理性的心理学研究与关于理性与美国民主的等价性的广泛政治话语联系起来。它将通过展示政府机构和私人基金会如何证明他们对认知心理学的支持是合理的，就像他们证明支持其他冷战项目（如国际发展）是合理的一样。在这个项目的资助下，哈佛大学档案馆的一些藏品将被参考。这些收藏将包括中心的组织文件，大学管理人员的论文，以及与中心有关的教师。此外，以下档案将被审查：瑞士日内瓦让·皮亚杰档案馆的文件，福特基金会和纽约市卡内基公司的资助文件，耶鲁大学人类关系研究所的组织文件，彼得·道的个人文件，以及洛克菲勒档案中心社会科学研究委员会的文件。

This dissertation project is concerned with the cognitive revolution, the post WWII decline of behaviorist hegemony in psychology and the emergence of the metaphoric linkage of human thought and computer systems. It will contextualize the re-emergence of explicit discussion of thought and mind in experimental psychology in several ways. First, it will focus closely on Harvard's Center for Cognitive Studies, the first organized institutional setting for cognitive science. The project will examine the ways in which the Center's interdisciplinary research interests produced and relied on its eclectic social environment. It will also consider how the Center's interdisciplinary structure interacted with the broader academic political situation at Harvard. Second, it will examine how the broader social and cultural milieu contributed to and drew from the newly emergent cognitive theories. This project will connect psychological research on rationality with the widespread political discourse on the equivalence of rationality and American democracy. It will do so by showing how government agencies and private foundations justified their support for cognitive psychology in the same way that they justified support for other cold war programs such as international development. With funding from this project, several collections in the Harvard University Archives will be consulted. These collections will include the Center's organizational files, the papers of university administrators, and faculty associated with the Center. In addition, the following archive holdings will be examined: the papers at the Jean Piaget Archive in Geneva, Switzerland, the grant files of the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation in New York City, the organization files of Yale's Institute of Human Relations, the personal papers of Peter Dow, and the papers of the Social Science Research Council at the Rockefeller Archive Center.