Recently, Gualtiero Piccinini and Carl Craver have argued that functional analyses in psychology lack explanatory autonomy from explanations in neuroscience. In this thesis I argue against this claim by motivating and defending a pragmatic-epistemic conception of autonomous psychological explanation. I argue that this conception of autonomy need not require that functional analyses be distinct in kind from neural-mechanistic explanations. I use the framework of Bas van Fraassen’s Pragmatic Theory of Explanation to show that explanations in psychology and neuroscience can be (...) seen as seeking understanding of autonomous levels of mechanistic phenomena. (shrink)

Recent work in neurophilosophy has either made reference to the work of John Dewey or independently developed positions similar to it. I review these developments in order first to show that Dewey was indeed doing neurophilosophy well before the Churchlands and others, thereby preceding many other mid-twentieth century European philosophers’ views on cognition to whom many present day philosophers refer (e.g., Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty). I also show that Dewey’s work provides useful tools for evading or overcoming many issues in contemporary neurophilosophy (...) and philosophy of mind. In this introductory review, I distinguish between three waves among neurophilosophers that revolve around the import of evolution and the degree of brain-centrism. Throughout, I emphasize and elaborate upon Dewey’s dynamic view of mind and consciousness. I conclude by introducing the consciousness-as-cooking metaphor as an alternative to both the consciousness-as-digestion and consciousness-as-dancing metaphors. Neurophilosophical pragmatism—or neuropragmatism—recognizes the import of evolutionary and cognitive neurobiology for developing a science of mind and consciousness. However, as the cooking metaphor illustrates, a science of mind and consciousness cannot rely on the brain alone—just as explaining cooking entails more than understanding the gut—and therefore must establish continuity with cultural activities and their respective fields of inquiry. Neuropragmatism advances a new and promising perspective on how to reconcile the scientific and manifest images of humanity as well as how to reconstruct the relationship between science and the humanities. (shrink)

Cognitive science and its philosophy have been far too long consumed with representation. This concern is indicative of a creeping Cartesianism that many scientists and philosophers wish to evade. However, their naturalism is often insufficiently evolutionary to fully appreciate the lessons of pragmatism. If cognitive neuroscience and pragmatism are to be mutually beneficial, the representational-friendly scientists and the anti-representational pragmatists need an alternative to representation that still accounts for what many find so attractive about representation, namely intentionality. I propose that (...) instead of representations we philosophers and scientists begin thinking in terms of cultural affordances. Like Gibsonian affordances, cultural affordances are opportunities for action. However, unlike Gibsonian affordances, which are merely biological and available for immediate action in the immediately present environment, cultural affordances also present opportunities for thinking about the past and acting into the future—tasks typically attributed to representations. (shrink)

John Dewey provided a robust and thorough conception of scientific explanation within his philosophical writing. I provide an exegesis of Dewey's concept of scientific explanation and argue that this concept is important to contemporary philosophy of science for at least two reasons. First, Dewey's conception of scientific explanation avoids the reification of science as an entity separated from practical experience. Second, Dewey supplants the realist-antirealist debate within the philosophical literature concerning explanation, thus moving us beyond the current stalemate within philosophy (...) of science. (shrink)