Andrew Richmond

Andrew Richmond received his PhD from Columbia University, where he worked on computation and representation in cognitive science. His current projects investigate the various modes of explanation in cognitive science, especially neuroscience. He tries to blend philosophical, scientific, and historical approaches to these issues. And his work on those issues leads him to a more general argument for methodological nominalism in the philosophy of cognitive science: the idea that, in trying to understand scientific practice, it is rarely useful to think about the properties that technical concepts (representation, function, etc.) might refer to; instead, we should investigate the concepts themselves and their role in science’s explanatory economy — what they help scientists to do, and how.​ He also has projects on addiction science and the philosophy of mind more broadly.