Communicative Competencies as ‘Internal” Factor in Scientiic Development

Anna Michalska

The paper addresses the problem of the role of communicative competencies in scientiic development. As I shall argue, both the latest indings in neurobiology of cognitive processes and the advancement in cross-disciplinary research, give lie to the notion of there being an unbridgeable gap between science and humanities (broadly construed). Quite opposite is the case: the growth of scientiic knowledge and the development in humanities should be regarded as mutually tangled, and the relationship between them should be fostered. In the irst part of the paper, a conceptual frame will be ofered that best serves the purpose of revealing how strongly communicative competencies bear on cognitive development. he method to be used is a special (i.e., neuroscientiically motivated) form of the so called cognitive-historical approach (as Nancy Nersessian names it), which highlights parallels between the growth of knowledge on both phylogenetic (historical) and ontogenetic levels. My aim is to demonstrate that scientiic development prompts communicative development and hinges upon it at the same time, and thus, philosophical relection on science cannot do without the “humanistic” notion of understanding.

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Keywords: cognitive-historical approach · scientiic development · communicative competencies · neurosciences · problem solving