Philosophy and science have always striven to make sense of the world, continuously influencing each other in the process. Their interplay paved the way for neurophilosophy, which harnesses neuroscientific insights to address traditionally philosophical questions. Given the rapid neuroscientific and technological advances in recent years, this paper argues that philosophers who wish to tackle intractable philosophical problems and influence public discourse and policies should engage in neuro-techno-philosophy. This novel type of inquiry describes the transdisciplinary endeavor of philosophers, (neuro)scientists, and others (...) to anticipate the societal implications of the impending transformations of subjects and theorizers. While human enhancement is likely to irreversibly change what it means to be human, disruptive technologies might lead to the emergence of artificial intelligent agents and human-machine hybrids. The paper predicts that neuro-techno-philosophy will be indispensable to understanding and engaging with these game-changing innovations and thus play a pivotal role in the future of philosophy. (shrink)

Philosophers look to the realization relation as a way to make sense of the possibility that special science kinds are physical, yet not reducible to kinds in physics. A realized property fails to reduce because it can be realized in multiple ways, thus blocking its identification with lower-level properties. One prominent analysis of realization, subset realization, distinguishes multiple realizers on the basis their “left-over powers,” that is, those that don’t contribute to the individuative powers of the realizer. However, I argue, (...) the subset analysis of realization fails to mark an important distinction between different ways that a property might be realized, and also makes questions about the reducibility of kinds—presumably an empirical issue—tractable from the armchair. I offer as an alternative mechanistic multiple realization, which avoids both these problems. (shrink)

This expository paper presents a general framework for representing levels and inter-level relations. The framework is intended to capture both epistemic and ontological notions of levels and to clarify the sense in which levels of explanation might or might not be related to a levelled ontology. The framework also allows us to study and compare different kinds of inter-level relations, especially supervenience and reduction but also grounding and mereological constitution. This, in turn, enables us to explore questions such as whether (...) supervenience implies explanatory reducibility and whether there can be irreducible higher-level explanations or even “emergent” higher-level properties. The paper finally discusses some further philosophical applications: to the free-will debate, the determinism-indeterminism distinction, indexicality and consciousness, and the relationship between positive and normative facts. (shrink)

According to conceptual reductive accounts, if properties of one domain can be conceptually reduced to properties of another domain, then the former properties are ontologically reduced to the latter properties. I will argue that conceptual reductive accounts face problems: either they do not recognise that many higher-level properties are correlated with multiple physical properties, or they do not clarify how we can discover new truthmakers of sentences about a higher-level property. Still, there is another way to motivate ontological reduction, the (...) truthmaker reductive explanations (TRE). TRE can be given by using resources from John Heil’s truthmaker theory and the a priori entailment view or the a posteriori entailment view. I will argue that we can give these truthmaker reductive explanations if there are various less-than-perfectly similar physical properties that can be the truthmakers of sentences about higher-level properties and the physical similarity between them can explain why an irreducible higher-level property is not needed. (shrink)

The intuitive distinction between natural and unnatural properties (e.g., green vs. grue) informs our theorizing not only in fundamental physics, but also in non-fundamental domains. This paper develops a reductive account of this broad notion of naturalness that covers non-fundamental properties: for a property to be natural, I propose, is for it to figure in a law of nature. After motivating the account, I defend it from a potential circularity charge. I argue that a suitably broad notion of lawhood can (...) be defined independently of naturalness, if we help ourselves to the notion of a fundamental physical property. I end by showing how the notions of naturalness and lawhood that my account delivers help illuminate a number of other important philosophical notions, like causation, reference/meaning, and rational induction. (shrink)

This paper argues that the account of teleology previously proposed by the authors is consistent with the physical determinism that is implicit across many of the sciences. We suggest that much of the current aversion to teleological thinking found in the sciences is rooted in debates that can be traced back to ancient natural science, which pitted mechanistic and deterministic theories against teleological ones. These debates saw a deterministic world as one where freedom and agency is impossible. And, because teleological (...) entities seem to be free to either reach their ends or not, it was assumed that they could not be deterministic. Mayr’s modern account of teleonomy adheres to this basic assumption. Yet, the seeming tension between teleology and determinism is illusory because freedom and agency do not, in fact, conflict with a deterministic world. To show this, we present a taxonomy of different types of freedom that we see as inherent in teleological systems. Then we show that our taxonomy of freedom, which is crucial to understanding teleology, shares many of the features of a philosophical position regarding free will that is known in the contemporary literature as ‘compatibilism’. This position maintains that an agent is free when the sources of its actions are internal, when the agent itself is the deterministic cause of those actions. Our view shows that freedom is not only indispensable to teleology, but also that, contrary to common intuitions, there is no conflict between teleology and causal determinism. (shrink)

According to the Best System Account of lawhood, laws of nature are theorems of the deductive systems that best balance simplicity and strength. In this paper, I advocate a different account of lawhood which is related, in spirit, to the BSA: according to my account, laws are theorems of deductive systems that best balance simplicity, strength, and also calculational tractability. I discuss two problems that the BSA faces, and I show that my account solves them. I also use my account (...) to illuminate the nomological character of special science laws. (shrink)

Поняття «філософія науки» незаперечно увійшло до сучасного філософського дискурсу. У філо- софському та науковому середовищах є різні тлумачення філософії науки. Власне науку тради- ційно вважають суспільною інституцією, створеною з метою здобуття та застосування знань про природні та штучні реалії. Водночас введення поняття «філософія науки» було б три віальним, якби його обсяг зводився до перетину обсягів понять «наука» і «філософія». Пе ре- хід від тлумачення науки загалом до її розуміння як сукупності конкретних наук з особ ливими предметними галузями викликає виокремлення із (...) загальної філософії науки групоцентрованих філософій наук на кшталт філософії біології, філософії психології, філософії технічних наук, філософії медицини, філософії соціальних наук, філософії інформаційних наук, філософії фізи- ки, філософії математики, філософії філософії тощо. У статті виокремлено різновиди сучас- ної філософії математичних та природничих наук. Специфічні ознаки цих наук аналізовано за допомоги графових класифікацій відповідних філософій. Підкреслено важливість для всіх різ- новидів філософії науки використовуваних ними реконструкцій практичних теорій. У першій частині окреслено мету статті й розглянуто предметні та теоретичні класифікації філосо- фій науки, у другій — оцінні, називні, теоретико-реконструктивні та мовно-реконструктив ні, а також зроблено висновки щодо доцільності застосування цих класифікацій до філософій суспільних та гуманітарних наук. В підсумку автори висновують, що, незважаючи на попу- лярність у філософсько-науковому середовищі різкого протиставлення класичної та некласич- ної фізики, для цього немає ґрунтовних об’єктивних підстав. (shrink)

The main idea of this thesis is multi-descriptional physicalism. According to it, only physical entities are elements of our ontology, and there are different ways to describe them. Higher-level vocabularies (e.g., mental, neurological, biological) truly describe reality. Sentences about higher-level entities are made true by physical entities. Every chapter will develop multi-descriptional physicalism or defend it from objections. In chapter 1, I will propose a new conceptual reductive account that conceptually reduces higher-level entities to physical entities. This conceptual reductive account (...) combines resources from Heil’s truthmaker theory and either a priori physicalism or a posteriori physicalism. In chapter 2, I apply this conceptual reductive account to various debates. Physicalism, the multiple-realisability argument, the prototype theory of concepts, and truthmaker explanations will be discussed. In chapter 3, I will argue that a major aim of metaphysics should be to discover which entities are fundamental and explain why they suffice for the existence of derivative entities. In chapter 4, I will propose a new way to explain why sentences apparently about composite objects are true even though there are no composite objects. It combines resources from Cameron’s truthmaker theory and van Inwagen’s paraphrase strategy. In chapter 5, I will argue that the intuition that the mind and the body are very different does not show that the mind is distinct from the body. This intuition can be explained away by mentioning our dispositions to give non-physical explanations when we are ignorant of physical facts. In chapter 6, I will examine two arguments for the existence of a metaphysically independent level, and I will argue that only a modified version of one of them succeeds. I will argue that methodological principles support the view that there is a metaphysically independent level. (shrink)

We start by very briefly describing the measurement problem in quantum mechanics and its solution by the Many Worlds Interpretation. We then describe the preferred basis problem, and the role of decoherence in the MWI. We discuss a number of approaches to the preferred basis problem and argue that contrary to the received wisdom, decoherence by itself does not solve the problem. We address Wallace’s emergentist approach based on what he calls Dennett’s criterion, and we compare the logical structure of (...) Wallace’s argument that the Hilbert space structure and the unitary dynamics should be considered a complete description of the physics of the universe with the logical structure of the EPR argument against the completeness of quantum mechanics. Then, we consider the nature of so-called “high level emergent facts” and Dennett’s criterion in Wallace’s approach and we discuss the implications of its non-reductive nature. Finally, we conclude that the MWI is not a straightforward interpretation of pure quantum mechanics that doesn't add anything to it. Whether or not it is more parsimonious than other quantum mechanical theories depends on the details of the additions. (shrink)

The aim of this expository paper is to give an informal overview of a plausible naturalistic case for free will. I will describe what I take to be the main naturalistically motivated challenges for free will and respond to them by presenting an indispensability argument for free will. The argument supports the reality of free will as an emergent higher-level phenomenon. I will also explain why the resulting picture of free will does not conflict with the possibility that the fundamental (...) laws of nature are deterministic, and I will address some common objections. (shrink)

Standard defenses of ontological individualism are challenged by arguments that exploit the dependence of social facts on material facts—that is, facts that are not about human individuals. In this article, I discuss Brian Epstein’s “materialism” in The Ant Trap: granting Epstein’s strict definition of individualism, I show that his arguments depend crucially on a generous conception of social properties and social facts. Individualists, however, are only committed to the claim that projectible properties are individualistically realized, and materialists have not undermined (...) this claim. (shrink)

According to the so-called Hempel’s Dilemma, the thesis of physicalism is either false or empty. Our intention in this paper is not to propose a solution to the Dilemma, but rather to argue as follows: to the extent that Hempel’s Dilemma applies to physicalism it equally applies to any theory that gives a deep-structure and changeable account of our experience or of high-level theories. In particular, we will show that it also applies to mind-body dualistic theories. The scope of Hempel’s (...) Dilemma turns out to be very wide: it is a special case of a general sceptical argument against changeable deep-structure theories in and outside science. (shrink)

Whole Brain Emulation has been championed as the most promising, well-defined route to achieving both human-level artificial intelligence and superintelligence. It has even been touted as a viable route to achieving immortality through brain uploading. WBE is not a fringe theory: the doctrine of Computationalism in philosophy of mind lends credence to the in-principle feasibility of the idea, and the standing of the Human Connectome Project makes it appear to be feasible in practice. Computationalism is a popular, independently plausible theory, (...) and Connectomics a well-funded empirical research program, so optimism about WBE is understandable. However, this optimism may be misplaced. This article argues that WBE is, at best, no more compelling than any of the other far-flung routes to achieving superintelligence. Similarly skeptical conclusions are found regarding immortality. The essay concludes with some positive considerations in favor of the Biological Theory of consciousness, as well as morals about the limits of Computationalism in both artificial intelligence and the philosophy of mind more generally. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a Bayesian revolution in cognitive science. This should be of interest to metaphysicians of science, whose naturalist project involves working out the metaphysical implications of our leading scientific accounts, and in advancing our understanding of those accounts by drawing on the metaphysical frameworks developed by philosophers. Toward these ends, in this paper I develop a metaphysics of the Bayesian mind. My central claim is that the Bayesian approach supports a novel empirical argument for normativism, the thesis (...) that belief has a normative essence, with the norms in question being those of rationality. The argument I develop draws in part on the causal powers subset account of realization defended by Wilson and Shoemaker, with the link being that Bayesians often appeal to Marr’s framework of levels of analysis, which carries with it multiple realizability claims that can be understood in terms of the subset model. I then use the view developed, with its appeal to normativism and subset realization, to explain how Bayesians can accommodate empirical findings of irrationality that are sometimes thought to pose a problem for their view. (shrink)

In what sense are the special sciences autonomous of fundamental physics? Autonomy is an enduring theme in discussions of the relationship between the special sciences and fundamental physics or, more generally, between higher and lower-level facts. Discussion of ‘autonomy’ often fails to recognise that autonomy admits of degrees; consequently, autonomy is either taken to require full independence, or risk relegation to mere apparent autonomy. In addition, the definition of autonomy used by Fodor, the most famous proponent of the autonomy of (...) the special sciences, has been robustly criticised by Loewer. In this paper I develop a new account of autonomy following Woodward which I dub ‘generalised autonomy’ since it unifies dynamical, causal and nomic autonomy. Autonomy, on this account, can be partial: some lower-level details matter while others do not. To summarise: whilst the detailed lower level is unconditionally relevant, conditionalising on the higher-level facts renders some lower-level details irrelevant. The macrodependencies that the higher-level facts enter into — be they dynamical, causal or nomic — screen off the underlying microdetails. This account helps resolve an explanatory puzzle: if the lower-level facts in some way underpin the higher-level facts, why don’t the lower-level details matter more for the day-to-day practice of the special sciences? The answer will be: the facts uncovered by the special sciences are autonomous in my sense, and so practitioners of these special sciences need not study more fundamental sciences, since these underlying facts are genuinely irrelevant. (shrink)

A central tension shaping metaethical inquiry is that normativity appears to be subjective yet real, where it’s difficult to reconcile these aspects. On the one hand, normativity pertains to our actions and attitudes. On the other, normativity appears to be real in a way that precludes it from being a mere figment of those actions and attitudes. In this paper, I argue that normativity is indeed both subjective and real. I do so by way of treating it as a special (...) sort of artifact, where artifacts are mind-dependent yet nevertheless can carve at the joints of reality. In particular, I argue that the properties of being a reason and being valuable for are grounded in attitudes yet are still absolutely structural. (shrink)

For Humeans, many facts—even ones intuitively “about” particular, localized macroscopic parts of the world—turn out to depend on surprisingly global fundamental bases. We investigate some counterintuitive consequences of this picture. Many counterfactuals whose antecedents describe intuitively localized, non-actual states of affairs nevertheless end up involving wide-ranging implications for the global, embedding Humean mosaic. The case of self-undermining chances is a familiar example of this. We examine that example in detail and argue that popular existing strategies such as “holding the laws (...) fixed as laws” or “holding the laws fixed as true” are of no help. Interestingly, we show how a new proposal that draws on the resources of the Mentaculus can yield the right results—but only on the assumption that the Humean can make cross-world identifications. We go on to argue that the Humean cannot make such identifications. We conclude that the root of this trouble is deeper, and its reach broader, than the familiar cases suggest. We think it is very much an open question whether the Humean has sufficient resources to properly conceptualize macroscopic objects or to analyze these “local” counterfactuals. (shrink)

William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science is sometimes glossed over as a footnote to Kant. There is however a key feature of Whewell’s account worth noting. This is his appeal to Aristotle’s form/matter hylomorphism as a metaphor to explain how mind and world merge in successful scientific inquiry. Whewell’s hylomorphism suggests a middle way between rationalism and empiricism reminiscent of experience pragmatists like Steven Levine’s view that mind and world are entwined in experience. I argue however that Levine does (...) not adequately explain exactly how mind and world entwine. He could nonetheless do so if he appealed to Whewell’s hylomorphic metaphor. We may prefer a reductive metaphysical explanation, but I suggest that pragmatists only have recourse to metaphor in this case. Both reductive and metaphorical explanations can enjoy great explanatory power if they exhibit a suitable measure of what I will call sematic distance. Semantic distance measures how close or how far apart explanandum and explanans are from each other in meaning. Metaphorical explanation - as evident in Whewell’s hylomorphism and as detailed via the notion of semantic distance - presents a valuable new explanatory tool to those who hold that mind and world are entwined sans recourse to metaphysics. (shrink)

Pluralism is widely appealed to in many areas of philosophy of science, though what is meant by ‘pluralism’ may profoundly vary. Because explanations of behaviour have been a favoured target for pluralistic theses, the sciences of behaviour offer a rich context in which to further investigate pluralism. This is what the topical collection The Biology of Behaviour: Explanatory pluralism across the life sciences is about. In the present introduction, we briefly review major strands of pluralist theses and their motivations. We (...) highlight three distinct types of pluralisms—type pluralism, fragmentation pluralism and insular pluralism—and introduce the articles of the topical collection. (shrink)

The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the proper formulations of physical theories. It is sometimes assumed that the governing view requires a fundamental / intrinsic direction of time: to govern, laws must be dynamical, producing later states of the world from earlier ones, in accord with the fundamental direction of (...) time in the universe. In this paper, we propose a minimal primitivism about laws of nature (MinP) according to which there is no such requirement. On our view, laws govern by constraining the physical possibilities. Our view captures the essence of the governing view without taking on extraneous commitments about the direction of time or dynamic production. Moreover, as a version of primitivism, our view requires no reduction / analysis of laws in terms of universals, powers, or dispositions. Our view accommodates several potential candidates for fundamental laws, including the principle of least action, the Past Hypothesis, the Einstein equation of general relativity, and even controversial examples found in the Wheeler-Feynman theory of electrodynamics and retrocausal theories of quantum mechanics. By understanding governing as constraining, non-Humeans who accept MinP have the same freedom to contemplate a wide variety of candidate fundamental laws as Humeans do. (shrink)

In this article, we describe what cryptocurrency is, how it works, and how it relates to familiar conceptions of and questions about money. We then show how normative questions about monetary policy find new expression in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. These questions can play a role in addressing not just what money is, but what it should be. A guiding theme in our discussion is that progress here requires a mixed approach that integrates philosophical tools with the purely technical results (...) of disciplines like computer science and economics. Note: this article is the first entry within a two-part sequence on the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics of Cryptocurrency. (shrink)

In this article, we identify three key design dimensions along which cryptocurrencies differ -- privacy, censorship-resistance, and consensus procedure. Each raises important normative issues. Our discussion uncovers new ways to approach the question of whether Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies should be used as money, and new avenues for developing a positive answer to that question. A guiding theme is that progress here requires a mixed approach that integrates philosophical tools with the purely technical results of disciplines like computer science and (...) economics. Note: this article is the second entry within a two-part sequence on the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics of Cryptocurrency. (shrink)

Understanding a normative concept like oppression requires attention to not only its harms but also the causes of those harms. In other words, a complete understanding of such a concept requires a proper causal explanation. This causal explanation can also inform and constrain our moral response to such harms. Therefore, the conceptual explanatory framework that we use to inform our moral diagnosis and our moral response become significant. The first goal of this dissertation is to propose complexity theory as the (...) proper framework for not only explaining a social phenomenon like oppression but also understanding the proper sites for social change. The second goal of this dissertation is to answer three interrelated questions about how we should respond, morally, to a chronic and complex social problem like racial or gender inequality: (1) Why do the current interventions to address these problems fail? (2) Do social movements play any unique role in addressing these problems? (3) What is our individual responsibility to participate in social movements? In response, I argue that the explanatory frameworks that we choose to understand the cause(s) of social problems can be the source of the inadequacy of our intervention. I argue that a proper social and moral intervention needs to capture the complex and dynamic nature of the social world. I also show that changing the explanatory framework allows us to see the unique role social movements play in making effective and sustainable social change possible. Finally, I conclude supporting such movements is a moral imperative. (shrink)

This thesis explores the use of the concept 'realization' in the philosophy of mind. The primary focus is on the role realization plays in assessing or opposing identity theory. The history of the use of the concept of realization in the philosophy of mind is reviewed, and from that a set of desiderata to be used for assessing accounts of realization is extracted. The desiderata are applied to a sample account of realization proposed by Sydney Shoemaker. (2007) Next the application (...) of 'realization' in contemporary contexts is considered, focusing on the idea that mental kinds are, potentially, multiply realized. Based on interpretations of results from research in the relevant sciences this thesis considers two kinds of strategies used to object to multiple realization, (1) arguments against the concept of multiple realization: the Grain Argument (Bechtel and Mundale 1999), and Shapiro's Dilemma (Shapiro 2000), and (2) defeaters for alleged cases/examples of multiple realization proposed by Lawrence Shapiro and Thomas Polger: unification, individual differences, kind splitting, and abstraction and idealization. (Polger and Shapiro 2016) The thesis argues that, ultimately, these arguments hinge on the claim that there is no empirical evidence of multiply realized mental kinds. In response to this claim, the fourth chapter presents novel examples of multiple realization drawn from research in the cognitive neuroscience of language. There are three aspects from the study of language that are presented as examples of multiple realization: (1) language lateralization, (2) reading acquisition, and (3) second/multi- language learning. The analysis of these case studies applies Shoemaker's account of realization as a framework for describing the empirical data as cases of multiple realization. Objections to, and defeaters for, these cases are considered and rejected. The thesis concludes by raising the possibility that mental kinds are realized by mechanisms. This proposal involves drawing connections between traditional questions/views from the philosophy of mind with a current research program from the philosophy of science; the view is particularly important in the philosophy of neuroscience and the philosophy of biology, known as 'new mechanism'. (shrink)

As a field of scientific expertise, semiotics has the interesting property of being a relevant tool for understanding how scientists represent any domain of research, including the semiotic domain itself. This feature is particularly expressive in the case of biology, as it appears to be the case that a certain range of biological phenomena are of a semiotic character. However, it is not consensual the extent to which semiotics pervades biology. This paper deals with this issue for the particular case (...) of developmental biology, stressing the role of semiotics-as-a-discipline in delimiting the extent of semiotics-as-a-natural-phenomenon and, specifically, in disentangling semiotic mechanisms from semiotic metaphors aimed at clarifying non-semiotic developmental mechanisms. (shrink)

I argue that academic psychology’s quest to achieve scientific respectability by reliance on quantification and objectification is deeply flawed. Specifically, psychological theory typically cannot support prognostication beyond the binary opposition of “effect present/effect absent”. Accordingly, the “numbers” assigned to experimental results amount to little more than affixing names (e.g., more than, less than) to the members of an ordered sequence of outcomes. This, in conjunction with the conceptual under-specification characterizing the targets of experimental inquiry, is, I contend, a primary reason (...) why psychologists find it difficult to discriminate between competing, explanations of the effects of mind on behavior. Absent well-specified theory capable of enabling precise and detailed quantitative prediction, inferring underlying mental mechanisms from experimental outcomes becomes a difficult, if not impossible, task. (shrink)

Emergence is typically discussed in the context of mental properties or the properties of the natural sciences, and accounts of emergence within these contexts tend to look a certain way. The emergent property is taken to emerge instantaneously out of, or to be proximately caused by, complex interaction of colocated entities. Here, however, I focus on the properties instantiated by the elements of certain systems discussed in social ontology, such as being a five-dollar bill or a pawn-movement, and I suggest (...) that these properties emerge in a distinctive way. They emerge in part because of a system that is far beyond and typically before the object that instantiates them. I characterize how emergence occurs in these cases, juxtaposing it with how emergence is typically discussed. I then consider whether their emergence is best framed as weak or strong as these notions are characterized in the literature, and I reveal what debates are central to answering this question. Though I will not resolve these debates, I do show a collection of views that would vindicate these properties as strongly emergent and downwardly causing. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a new conceptualization of the distinction between realism and anti-realism about beliefs that is based on the division between natural and non-natural properties, as defined by Lewis. It will be argued that although the traditional form of anti-realism about beliefs, namely eliminative materialism, has failed (as it led to unacceptable consequences), there is a possibility to reformulate the division in question. The background assumption of the proposal is the framework of deflationism about (...) truth and existence: it will be assumed that beliefs can be said to exist and their attributions can said to be true. The aim is to show that even when we buy into such assumptions we can meaningfully distinguish between the realist and anti-realist approach to belief. According to the proposal, the paradigmatic anti-realist view on beliefs should be seen as a conjunction of three claims: that belief attributions do not track objective similarities, that beliefs are not causally active, and that there is no viable way of naturalizing content. It will be shown that seeing the debate in the proposed way has important advantages as it allows the issue of belief realism to be made non-trivial and tractable, and it introduces theoretical unity into contemporary metaphysics of beliefs. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A number of authors have recently advanced a ‘disjunctivist’ view of the rationalising explanation of action, on which rationalisations of the form ‘S A’d because p’ are explanations of a fundamentally different kind from rationalisations of the form ‘S A’d because she believed that p’. Less attempt has been made to explicitly articulate the case against this view. This paper seeks to remedy that situation. I develop a detailed version of what I take to be the basic argument against (...) disjunctivism, drawing on a framework of explanatory proportionality. The disjunctivist cannot reject this framework, I argue, because they need it to respond to another challenge, from psychological individualism. As I explain, however, the proportionality-based challenge is not in principle insurmountable, and I outline a number of ways in which a case for disjunctivism might be developed in response to it. The paper thus clarifies the dialectic around disjunctivism about the rationalisation of action and, specifically, what advocates of the view must do in order to make a compelling case for it. (shrink)

According to Oude Maatman (2020), our recent suggestion (Borsboom et al., 2019) that symptom networks are irreducible because they rely on folk psychological descriptions, threatens to undermine the main achievements of the network approach. In this article, we take up Oude Maatman’s challenge and develop an argument showing in what sense folk psychological concepts describe features of reality, and what it means to say that folk psychology is a causal language.

A raft of new philosophical problems concerning truth have recently been discovered by several theorists. These problems concern the question of how ascriptions of truth are to be grounded. Most previous commentators have taken the problems to shed light on the theory of ground. In this paper, I argue that they also shed light on the theory of truth. In particular, I argue that the notion of ground can be deployed to clearly articulate one strand of deflationary thinking about truth, (...) according to which truth is “metaphysically lightweight.” I offer a ground-theoretic explication of the lightness of truth and show how it yields a novel solution to the problems concerning how truth is grounded. So, the theory of truth and the theory of ground interact fruitfully: we can apply the notion of ground to offer a clear explication of the deflationist claim that truth is “metaphysically lightweight” that both captures the motivations for that claim and solves the problems. (shrink)

We explore the contribution made by oscillatory, synchronous neural activity to representation in the brain. We closely examine six prominent examples of brain function in which neural oscillations play a central role, and identify two levels of involvement that these oscillations take in the emergence of representations: enabling (when oscillations help to establish a communication channel between sender and receiver, or are causally involved in triggering a representation) and properly representational (when oscillations are a constitutive part of the representation). We (...) show that even an idealized informational sender–receiver account of representation makes the representational status of oscillations a non-trivial matter, which depends on rather minute empirical details. (shrink)

Comparatively easy questions we might ask about creativity are distinguished from the hard question of explaining transformative creativity. Many have focused on the easy questions, offering no reason to think that the imagining relied upon in creative cognition cannot be reduced to more basic folk psychological states. The relevance of associative thought processes to songwriting is then explored as a means for understanding the nature of transformative creativity. Productive artificial neural networks—known as generative antagonistic networks (GANs)—are a recent example of (...) how a system’s ability to generate novel products can both be finely tuned by prior experience and grounded in strategies that cannot be articulated by the system itself. Further, the kinds of processes exploited by GANs need not be seen as incorporating something akin to sui generis imaginative states. The chapter concludes with reflection on the added relevance of personal character to explanations of creativity. [This is Chapter 12 of the book Explaining Imagination.]. (shrink)

This essay explores the connection between theories of the self and theories of self-knowledge, arguing (a) that empirical results strongly support a certain negative thesis about the self, a thesis about what the self isn’t, and (b) that a more promising account of the self makes available unorthodox – but likely apt – ways of characterizing self-knowledge. Regarding (a), I argue that the human self does not appear at a personal level the autonomous (or quasi-autonomous) status of which might provide (...) a natural home for a self that can be investigated reliably from the first-person perspective, independent of the empirical sciences. Regarding (b), I contend that the most promising alternative view of the self is revisionary: the self is to be identified with the cognitive system as a whole, the relatively integrated collection of mechanisms that produces intelligent behavior (Rupert 2009, 2010, 2019). The cognitive system teems with reliable, though not necessarily perfect, indicators (cf. Dretske 1988) of its own properties or of the properties of its proper parts, many of which are available for detection by, or the control of, further processes, such as motor control. I argue that indicating states should be treated as potential vehicles of self-knowledge, regardless of whether they are truth-evaluable states, such as beliefs. The investigation of self and self-knowledge frames discussion of a final topic, of some gravity: the way in which self-knowledge might contribute to self-improvement. In this regard, I emphasize the efficacy of certain forms of alignment between, on the one hand, elements of the cognitive system corresponding to a more commonsense-based conception of the self and, on the other hand, processes associated with what is frequently referred to as ‘implicit’ cognitive processing (Evans and Frankish 2009). (shrink)

In this dissertation, I address the question of how to construct scientific theories of emotions that are both conceptually sound and empirically fruitful. To do this, I offer an analysis of the main challenges scientific theories of emotions face, and I propose a meta-theoretical framework to construct scientific concepts of emotions as explications of folk emotion concepts. Part I discusses the main challenges theories of emotions in psychology and neuroscience encounter. The first states that a proper scientific theory of emotions (...) must explain all and only the phenomena under the vernacular term ‘emotion’ with a common set of conceptual resources and under an overarching generic concept of emotion. The second demands that each emotion category corresponds to well-coordinated sets of neural, physiological, and behavioral patterns of responses. I argue that none of the best contemporary theories of emotions in psychology and neuroscience overcomes these challenges. As a result, a new theory of emotions is required. In Part II, I develop the meta-theoretical framework to construct a theory of emotions that overcomes the challenges above. First, I propose a pluralistic account of scientific kinds based on different patterns of projection that various disciplines may take to justify inductive inferences. These are essentialist, historical, and social patterns. Each of these patterns provides a framework to construct different types of scientific concepts. I argue that among the frameworks for scientific kinds available, the one that is best suited to explicate emotion concepts is a functional framework. Consequently, I conclude by recommending scientists pursue functionalist theories of emotions over essentialist, historical, or social theories. (shrink)

Unity of science was once a very popular idea among both philosophers and scientists. But it has fallen out of fashion, largely because of its association with reductionism and the challenge from multiple realisation. Pluralism and the disunity of science are the new norm, and higher-level natural kinds and special science laws are considered to have an important role in scientific practice. What kind of reductionism does multiple realisability challenge? What does it take to reduce one phenomenon to another? How (...) do we determine which kinds are natural? What is the ontological basis of unity? In this Element, Tuomas Tahko examines these questions from a contemporary perspective, after a historical overview. The upshot is that there is still value in the idea of a unity of science. We can combine a modest sense of unity with pluralism and give an ontological analysis of unity in terms of natural kind monism. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Multiple realisation prompts the question: how is it that multiple systems all exhibit the same phenomena despite their different underlying properties? In this paper I develop a framework for addressing that question and argue that multiple realisation can be reductively explained. I illustrate this position by applying the framework to a simple example – the multiple realisation of electrical conductivity. I defend my account by addressing potential objections:contra Polger and Shapiro, Batterman, and Sober, I claim that multiple realisation is commonplace, (...) that it can be reductively explained, but that it requires asui generisreductive explanatory strategy. (shrink)

In contemporary human brain mapping, it is commonly assumed that the “mind is what the brain does”. Based on that assumption, task-based imaging studies of the last three decades measured differences in brain activity that are thought to reflect the exercise of human mental capacities (e.g., perception, attention, memory). With the advancement of resting state studies, tractography and graph theory in the last decade, however, it became possible to study human brain connectivity without relying on cognitive tasks or constructs. It (...) therefore is currently an open question whether the assumption that “the mind is what the brain does” is an indispensable working hypothesis in human brain mapping. This paper argues that the hypothesis is, in fact, dispensable. If it is dropped, researchers can “meet the brain on its own terms” by searching for new, more adequate concepts to describe human brain organization. Neuroscientists can establish such concepts by conducting exploratory experiments that do not test particular cognitive hypotheses. The paper provides a systematic account of exploratory neuroscientific research that would allow researchers to form new concepts and formulate general principles of brain connectivity, and to combine connectivity studies with manipulation methods to identify neural entities in the brain. These research strategies would be most fruitful if applied to the mesoscopic scale of neuronal assemblies, since the organizational principles at this scale are currently largely unknown. This could help researchers to link microscopic and macroscopic evidence to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the human brain. The paper concludes by comparing this account of exploratory neuroscientific experiments to recent proposals for large-scale, discovery-based studies of human brain connectivity. (shrink)

Three metascientific concepts that have been object of philosophical analysis are the concepts oflaw, model and theory. The aim ofthis article is to present the explication of these concepts, and of their relationships, made within the framework of Sneedean or Metatheoretical Structuralism (Balzer et al. 1987), and of their application to a case from the realm of biology: Population Dynamics. The analysis carried out will make it possible to support, contrary to what some philosophers of science in general and of (...) biology in particular hold, the following claims: a) there are "laws" in biological sciences, b) many of the heterogeneous and different "models" of biology can be accommodated under some "theory", and c) this is exactly what confers great unifying power to biological theories. (shrink)

Conceivability arguments constitute a serious threat against reductive physicalism. Recently, a number of authors have proven and characterized a devastating logical truth centered on these arguments: namely, that their soundness entails the inconceivability of reductive physicalism. In this paper, I demonstrate that this is only a logical truth when reductive physicalism is interpreted in its stronger, intrinsic sense, as opposed to its weaker—yet considerably more popular—extrinsic sense. The basic idea generalizes: perhaps surprisingly, stronger forms of reduction are uniquely resistant to (...) the conceivability arguments opposing them. So far as the modal epistemology of reduction is concerned, therefore, it pays to go intrinsic. (shrink)

This article examines the multiple realizability thesis within a causal framework. The beginnings of this framework are found in Elliott Sober’s “Multiple Realizability Argument against Reduction,”...

Eliminativists sometimes invoke evolutionary debunking arguments against ordinary object beliefs, either to help them establish object skepticism or to soften the appeal of commonsense ontology. I argue that object debunkers face a self-defeat problem: their conclusion undermines the scientific support for one of their premises, because evolutionary biology depends on our object beliefs. Using work on reductionism and multiple realizability from the philosophy of science, I argue that it will not suffice for an eliminativist debunker to simply appeal to some (...) object-free surrogate theory of evolution that results from converting any scientific proposition about some object K into a proposition about simples arranged K-wise. In the process, I examine some hazards peculiar to eliminative reductions of scientific theories, and propose a trilemma for eliminativists who attempt to recoup generality for ontologically sparse reducing theories by appealing to pluralities of simples arranged K-wise. The paper is intended to define and develop the object debunker’s self-defeat problem for further study, and to clarify some of the ways sparse and abundant ontologies interact with scientific theory. (shrink)

This paper introduces the philosophy of Grace Andrus de Laguna in order to renew interest in it. I show that, in the 1910s and 1920s, she develops ideas and arguments that are also found playing key roles in the development of analytic philosophy decades later. Further, I describe her sympathetic, but acute, criticism of pragmatism and Heideggerian ontology, and situate her work in the tradition of American, speculative philosophy. Before 1920, we will see, de Laguna appeals to multiple realizability to (...) undermine reductionism in science, to support perspectival, scientific realism and, with help from a private language argument, to favour the view that mental states are classified by behavioural, teleological roles over what came to be called ‘type physicalism’. Her view of speech, mostly developed in the 1920s, tells us that its primary role is coordinating group behaviour rather than expressing thoughts. Belief is understood in terms of its causal role, including its causal relations to other kinds of mental states, when coordinating group behaviour. Thought is similarly understood. In developing her theory of mind, de Laguna rejects the pragmatist claims that belief can be reduced to dispositions to behaviour and that thought’s function is to address specific, rather than general, problems. She also favours meaning holism and rejects the analytic–synthetic distinction. In later work, de Laguna argues that individuals’ activity of self-maintenance brings universals, conceived of as irreducible potentialities, into being and makes them increasingly determinate. Further, she identifies the existence of all individuals with forms of self-maintenance and takes the existence of people to include maintenance of the cultural world. Such a unified treatment of existence, she holds, permits making its evolution intelligible. Heidegger’s view of being is rejected for not permitting this. All de Laguna’s work, we will see, fits a vision of philosophy as the systematic, imaginative and naturalistic examination of being as well as a source of criticism of science. (shrink)

​Imagination will remain a mystery—we will not be able to explain imagination—until we can break it into parts we already understand. Explaining Imagination is a guidebook for doing just that, where the parts are other ordinary mental states like beliefs, desires, judgments, and decisions. In different combinations and contexts, these states constitute cases of imagining. This reductive approach to imagination is at direct odds with the current orthodoxy, according to which imagination is a sui generis mental state or process—one with (...) its own inscrutable principles of operation. Explaining Imagination upends that view, showing how, on closer inspection, the imaginings at work in hypothetical reasoning, pretense, the enjoyment of fiction, and creativity are reducible to other familiar mental states—judgments, beliefs, desires, and decisions among them. Crisscrossing contemporary philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and aesthetics, Explaining Imagination argues that a clearer understanding of imagination is already well within reach. (shrink)

In the article I discuss functionalist interpretations of Husserlian phenomenology. The first one was coined in the discussion between Hubert Dreyfus and Ronald McIntyre. They argue that Husserl’s phenomenology shares similarities with computational functionalism, and the key similarity is between the concept of noema and the concept of mental representation. I show the weaknesses of that reading and argue that there is another available functionalist reading of Husserlian phenomenology. I propose to shift perspective and approach the relation between phenomenology and (...) functionalism from a methodological perspective, specifically taking into account the functionalist explanatory strategy called functional analysis. I discuss the notion of function in Husserl’s works and Husserl’s idea of functional phenomenology. The key argument I develop is that in functional phenomenology we can find an explanatory strategy which is analogous to the strategy of functional decomposition used in functional analysis. I conclude that the proposed functionalist reading of phenomenology opens a new approach to the integration of phenomenology with cognitive sciences. (shrink)

In natural kind debates, Boyd's famous Homeostatic Property Cluster theory (HPC) is often misconstrued in two ways: Not only is it thought to make for a normative standard for natural kinds, but also to require the homeostatic mechanisms underlying nomological property clusters to be uniform. My argument for the illegitimacy of both overgeneralizations, both on systematic as well as exegetical grounds, is based on the misconstrued view's failure to account for functional kinds in science. I illustrate the combination of these (...) two misconstruals with recent entries into the natural kind debate about emotions. Finally, I examine and reject Stich's "Kornblith-Devitt method" as a potential justification of these misconstruals. (shrink)