AGAINST METHODOLOGICAL SOLIPSISM - THE ECOLOGICAL APPROACH

This paper argues that an ecological approach to psychology of the sor t advanced by J. J. Gibson provides a coherent and powerful alternativ e to the computational, information-processing, paradigm. The paper ar gues for two principles. Firstly, one cannot begin to understand what internal information processing an organism must accomplish until one understands what information is available to the organism in its envir onment. Secondly, an organism can process information by acting on or manipulating physical structures in its environment. An attempt is mad e to show how these principles can be extended to cognition as a whole . It is suggested that these principles may have a foundation in evolu tionary biology.