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This paper describes an interpretive framework for understanding the cognitive or mental processes of inventors, and applies this framework to narrating how Thomas Edison developed the kinetoscope, or motion picture. A review of recent developments in the history of technology and cognitive science suggests the need for better conceptual categories for understanding and comparing how inventors approach problems. We show how Edison created a mental model of the kinetoscope from his existing phonograph, and how his assistant William K. L. Dickson (who is often credited with inventing the kinetoscope) developed his own alternative mental model. We further discuss how Edison utilized building blocks or mechanical representations from previous inventions, and what strategies or heuristics he employed, in particular, we examine how Edison divided the project between himself and Dickson. The overall result of applying our framework to this case is to provide a clearer picture of the roles played by Edison and Dickson in this invention. The paper closes with a discussion on the potential relationship between cognitive and sociological approaches to technological innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper begins with a critique of orthodox renditions of the social unconscious which (a) retain divisions between a personal sphere and a social sphere, and (b) which are said to be in conflict with each other. The ways in which these are instituted in various psychoanalytic and group-analytic theorizations are briefly delineated. Next, the two versions of the social unconscious (an orthodox and a radical) that are found in Foulkes are described. Elias's notion of process reduction is then used to deconstruct the philosophical basis of the orthodox version of the social unconscious. The thoughts of Radical Foulkes are extended by drawing on Elias and Matte-Blanco, bringing the notion of power into the theoretical schema. This is followed by an examinantion of the impact of the notion of power on Foulkes's conception of the communicational field. Finally, the article describes the consequences of the impact of power on the construction of the psyches of individuals as well as interpersonal relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes controversies and misunderstandings about the notion of rationality based on the distinction between a rationality of frame and a rationality of inference. This paper adopts a distinction between two uses of the notion of rationality, the "rationality of frame" and the "rationality of inference." The notion of rationality is obviously very important for social science. This notion, however, is not easy to specify because it is polythetic and has different meanings according to paradigms and contexts in which it is used, but these meanings retain enough in common that a single word, "rationality," can take them all into account. Among theories of rationality in the different paradigms of the human sciences, two kinds can usefully be distinguished, those that study the rationality of choices between conceptual frames and those that study the rationality of these choices between rules of inference. The word "inference," here, is not restricted to logical or statistical operations. The former are theories of "rationality of frame" and the latter theories of "rationality of inference." There follow some examples that specify this distinction. The first is borrowed from economics and the other two from psychology.