Nomic Concepts, Frames, and Conceptual Change

1. Thomas Kuhn and Cognitive Science 1.1. Kuhn and Cognitive Science in the Past. Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was published at the beginning of what has come to be known as "the cognitive revolution." With hindsight one can construct significant parallels between the problems of knowledge, perception, and learning with which Kuhn and cognitive scientists were grappling and between the accounts developed by each. However, by and large Kuhn never utilized the research in cognitive science-especially in cognitive psychology-that we believe would have furthered his own paradigm. This is puzzling since he did not have the traditional philosophical aversion to "psychologizing" and in fact drew on insights from psychology to support the most radical claims in Structure, such as the "Gestalt switch" nature of conceptual change. Indeed, the research program outlined there seems intrinsically historical, philosophical, and psychological and Kuhn's work has had considerable influence on research in cognitive science. We believe the development of the field of cognitive science over the past three decades has led to understandings of human representation, reasoning, and learning that lend support to many of Kuhn's intuitions about scientific practice and provide means for attacking many of the