Xiang Chen - The Impact of Interests on Conceptual Changes: A Frame Analysis

Problem solving is always interest-driven, beginning with a selection of a goal and then an assessment to see what must be changed to achieve the goal. Since scientific research is typically a problem-solving activity, science is interest-driven. Interests of individual scientists and those of scientific communities define what scientific research ought to achieve and how science should evolve.
Traditional accounts from philosophy of science and decision-making theory limit the impact of interests to the process of decision-making. Recent cognitive studies on classification in folk-biology however suggest that people’s interests can directly influence their conceptualization and classification.
Two cognitive models, both of which are built on frame representations of concepts, can illustrate how interests affect the processes of conceptualization and classification. According to the interest-modified model developed by Smith, interests affect conceptualization and classification by altering the frames of superordinate concepts, specifically, through modifying the weights of their attributes. According to the interest-constructed model proposed by Barsalou, interests affect conceptualization and classification by imposing optimization and constraints to change the frame structures of superordinate concepts.
These two cognitive models shed light to the optical revolution, that is, the replacement of the particle theory by the wave theory of light at the beginning of the 19th century. During the revolution, the explanatory superiority of the wave theory became evident only after Herschel and Lloyd, both supporters of the wave tradition, significantly altered the classification system of optical phenomena. However, their adjustments of the classification system were not arbitrary, nor driven purely by social or political motives. The interest-modified model explains how the interest of revitaliz-ing the wave tradition in Britain changed Herschel’s classification, and the interest-constructed model explains how the interest of highlighting the wave theory’s successes affected Lloyd’s taxonomy.
Cognitive and historical analyses show that some traditional accounts on the role of interests from philosophy of science, such as the one advocated by the strong program, are fundamentally wrong. They make several fatal mistakes. First, they fail to offer a comprehensive analysis of the role of interests in science, an analysis that must go beyond the context of decision-making. Furthermore, they fail to consider the constraints on interests imposed by the way things are in the world. Finally, they fail to recognize the importance of the cognitive perspective in the analysis of interests. Contrary to these traditional accounts, I argue that the role of interests in science is not decisive because the world continues to constrain the impact of interests, and that cognitive analysis must play a central role in any account for the functions of interests in science.