CONCEPT
Cognitive Tools
Egan's technical term for the specific mental capacities — narrative, metaphor, binary opposition, the sense of wonder, systematic generalization, reflexive examination — that each kind of understanding develops and deploys.
Cognitive tools are the working parts of each kind of understanding. They are not skills in the conventional sense — not capacities that can be trained through direct instruction — but developmental achievements that emerge through the specific kinds of imaginative engagement each kind of understanding requires. The framework replaces the conventional distinction between content and skill with a more precise account of what education develops: the tools through which the mind engages with the world. Each kind of understanding contributes its own tools, which accumulate into the adult's cognitive repertoire. The educated mind is the mind possessing the fullest toolkit and able to deploy the right tools for the problems at hand.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The concept arose from Egan's reading of Vygotsky's account of mental tools as culturally transmitted cognitive artifacts. Egan extended Vygotsky by specifying which tools develop at which stages, how they relate to imagination rather than abstract reasoning, and why their development requires specific forms of