Title: An Ecological Approach to Cognitive Science {1}
Headings: An Ecological Approach to Cognitive Science
An Ecological Approach to Cognitive Science
John T. Sanders
Polish Academy of Sciences
The Ecological Approach
Materialism
Why, Then?
The Brain as Controlling the Body
Conclusion: Organisms in Their Environments
References
Footnotes

Content: [9] In any case, "ecological" approaches are like "holistic" approaches in that they urge (at the very minimum) that it is relatively more important to look at entire systems than to take those systems apart and look at the pieces. The difference between "ecological" and "holistic" approaches varies among the thinkers who are inclined to deploy such terms. They can be used in such a way as to be interchangeable. I personally prefer to use the term "ecological" to describe the approach I recommend for two reasons. [10] First, I like it because it seems to me to emphasize the importance of understanding the larger "wholes" that are to be looked at as being dynamic, as changing. [11] Second, I prefer it because the term "holism" seems to suggest that we have to look at some entire picture, while I am quite confident that there are no "entire" pictures worth worrying about. Instead, there are various ways to shed light on particular areas of inquiry, some of which stress trying to understand how things are constructed (i.e., what their parts are) and how they work taken one by one (i.e., how they work internally), and some of which stress how  (perhaps) these very same things may be understood in their interactions in larger systems. [12] These are in no way inconsistent, it might be surprising to notice. They may very well call for precisely the same skills. It's just that, for any one topic (cognition, for example), what I am now going to refer to as the "analytic" approach (meaning not just "careful" but rather "focussing on parts and internal workings") suggests we look in one direction while the "ecological" approach suggests we look in another.