Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Talk of levels is everywhere in cognitive science. Whether it isin terms of adjudicating longstanding debates or motivatingfoundational concepts, one cannot go far without hearingabout the need to talk at different ‘levels’. Yet in spite of itswidespread application and use, the concept of levels hasreceived little sustained attention within cognitive science.This paper provides an analysis of the various ways the notionof levels has been deployed within cognitive science. Thepaper begins by introducing and motivating discussion viafour representative accounts of levels. It then turns to outliningand relating the four accounts using two dimensions ofcomparison. The result is the creation of a conceptualframework that maps the logical space of levels talk, whichoffers an important step toward making sense of levels talkwithin cognitive science