In exploring the nature of psychological explanation, this book looks at how psychologists theorize about the human ability to calculate, to speak a language and the like. It shows how good theorizing explains or tries to explain such abilities as perception and cognition. It recasts the familiar explanations of "intelligence" and "cognitive capacity" as put forward by philosophers such as Fodor, Dennett, and others in terms of a theory of explanation that makes established doctrine more intelligible to professionals and their (...) students.In particular, the book shows that vestigial adherence to the positivists' D-N model has distorted the view of philosophers of science about what psychologists (and biologists) do and has masked the real nature of explanation. Major sections in the book cover Analysis and Subsumption; Functional Analysis; Understanding Cognitive Capacities; and Historical Reflections.Robert Cummins is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to set forth a sense in which programs can and do explain behavior, and to distinguish from this a number of senses in which they do not. Once we are tolerably clear concerning the sort of explanatory strategy being employed, two rather interesting facts emerge; (1) though it is true that programs are "internally represented," this fact has no explanatory interest beyond the mere fact that the program is executed; (2) programs which are couched (...) in information processing terms may have an explanatory interest for a given range of behavior which is independent of physiological explanations of the same range of behavior. (shrink)

Parallel distributed processing is transforming the field of cognitive science. Microcognition provides a clear, readable guide to this emerging paradigm from a cognitive philosopher's point of view. It explains and explores the biological basis of PDP, its psychological importance, and its philosophical relevance.

Parallel distributed processing is transforming the field of cognitive science. Microcognition provides a clear, readable guide to this emerging paradigm from a cognitive philosopher's point of view. It explains and explores the biological basis of PDP, its psychological importance, and its philosophical relevance.

Tyler Burge presents an original study of the most primitive ways in which individuals represent the physical world. By reflecting on the science of perception and related psychological and biological sciences, he gives an account of constitutive conditions for perceiving the physical world, and thus aims to locate origins of representational mind.

Our prominent definitions of cognition are too vague and lack empirical grounding. They have not kept up with recent developments, and cannot bear the weight placed on them across many different debates. I here articulate and defend a more adequate theory. On this theory, behaviors under the control of cognition tend to display a cluster of characteristic properties, a cluster which tends to be absent from behaviors produced by non-cognitive processes. This cluster is reverse-engineered from the empirical tests that comparative (...) psychologists use to determine whether a behavior was generated by a cognitive or a non-cognitive process. Cognition should be understood as the natural kind of psychological process that non-accidentally exhibits the properties assessed by these tests (as well as others we have not yet discovered). Finally, I review two plausible neural accounts of cognition's underlying mechanisms?one based in localization of function to particular brain regions and another based in the more recent distributed networks approach to neuroscience?which would explain why these properties non-accidentally cluster. While this notion of cognition may be useful for a number of debates, I here focus on its application to a recent crisis over the distinction between cognition and association in comparative psychology. (shrink)

Scientific models invariably involve some degree of idealization, abstraction, or nationalization of their target system. Nonetheless, I argue that there are circumstances under which such false models can offer genuine scientific explanations. After reviewing three different proposals in the literature for how models can explain, I shall introduce a more general account of what I call model explanations, which specify the conditions under which models can be counted as explanatory. I shall illustrate this new framework by applying it to the (...) case of Bohr's model of the atom, and conclude by drawing some distinctions between phenomenological models, explanatory models, and fictional models. (shrink)

There is a growing recognition that fictions have a number of legitimate functions in science, even when it comes to scientific explanation. However, the question then arises, what distinguishes an explanatory fiction from a nonexplanatory one? Here I examine two cases—one in which there is a consensus in the scientific community that the fiction is explanatory and another in which the fiction is not explanatory. I shall show how my account of “model explanations” is able to explain this asymmetry, and (...) argue that realism—of a more subtle form—does have a role in distinguishing explanatory from non- explanatory fictions. (shrink)

In semiclassical mechanics one finds explanations of quantum phenomena that appeal to classical structures. These explanations are prima facie problematic insofar as the classical structures they appeal to do not exist. Here I defend the view that fictional structures can be genuinely explanatory by introducing a model-based account of scientific explanation. Applying this framework to the semiclassical phenomenon of wavefunction scarring, I argue that not only can the fictional classical trajectories explain certain aspects of this quantum phenomenon, but also that (...) an explanation that does not make reference to these classical structures is, in a certain sense, deficient. (shrink)

The previous decade has seen renewed critical interest in the multiple realization argument. These criticisms constitute a "second wave" of challenges to this central argument in late-20th century philosophy of mind. Unlike the first wave, which challenged the premise that multiple realization is inconsistent with reduction or type identity, this second wave challenges the truth of the multiple realization premise itself. Since psychoneural reductionism was prominent among the explicit targets of the multiple realization argument, one might think that this second (...) wave of challenges provides important aid and comfort to reductionists. In this paper, however, I provide reasons for thinking it does not. This is not to the detriment of psychoneural reductionism because, as I also argue here, and unrecognized by the current non-reductive orthodoxy in philosophy of mind, one key argument among the first wave of criticisms of the multiple realization argument has never been adequately rejoined. (shrink)

This article argues that the basic account of mechanism and mechanistic explanation, involving sequential execution of qualitatively characterized operations, is itself insufficient to explain biological phenomena such as the capacity of living organisms to maintain themselves as systems distinct from their environment. This capacity depends on cyclic organization, including positive and negative feedback loops, which can generate complex dynamics. Understanding cyclically organized mechanisms with complex dynamics requires coordinating research directed at decomposing mechanisms into parts and operations with research using computational (...) models to recompose mechanisms and determine their dynamic behavior. This coordinated endeavor yields dynamic mechanistic explanations. (shrink)

The claim of the multiple realizability of mental states by brain states has been a major feature of the dominant philosophy of mind of the late 20th century. The claim is usually motivated by evidence that mental states are multiply realized, both within humans and between humans and other species. We challenge this contention by focusing on how neuroscientists differentiate brain areas. The fact that they rely centrally on psychological measures in mapping the brain and do so in a comparative (...) fashion undercuts the likelihood that, at least within organic life forms, we are likely to find cases of multiply realized psychological functions. (shrink)

Two widely accepted assumptions within cognitive science are that (1) the goal is to understand the mechanisms responsible for cognitive performances and (2) computational modeling is a major tool for understanding these mechanisms. The particular approaches to computational modeling adopted in cognitive science, moreover, have significantly affected the way in which cognitive mechanisms are understood. Unable to employ some of the more common methods for conducting research on mechanisms, cognitive scientists’ guiding ideas about mechanism have developed in conjunction with their (...) styles of modeling. In particular, mental operations often are conceptualized as comparable to the processes employed in classical symbolic AI or neural network models. These models, in turn, have been interpreted by some as themselves intelligent systems since they employ the same type of operations as does the mind. For this paper, what is significant about these approaches to modeling is that they are constructed specifically to account for behavior and are evaluated by how well they do so—not by independent evidence that they describe actual operations in mental mechanisms. (shrink)

An emerging class of theories concerning the functional structure of the brain takes the reuse of neural circuitry for various cognitive purposes to be a central organizational principle. According to these theories, it is quite common for neural circuits established for one purpose to be exapted (exploited, recycled, redeployed) during evolution or normal development, and be put to different uses, often without losing their original functions. Neural reuse theories thus differ from the usual understanding of the role of neural plasticity (...) (which is, after all, a kind of reuse) in brain organization along the following lines: According to neural reuse, circuits can continue to acquire new uses after an initial or original function is established; the acquisition of new uses need not involve unusual circumstances such as injury or loss of established function; and the acquisition of a new use need not involve (much) local change to circuit structure (e.g., it might involve only the establishment of functional connections to new neural partners). Thus, neural reuse theories offer a distinct perspective on several topics of general interest, such as: the evolution and development of the brain, including (for instance) the evolutionary-developmental pathway supporting primate tool use and human language; the degree of modularity in brain organization; the degree of localization of cognitive function; and the cortical parcellation problem and the prospects (and proper methods to employ) for function to structure mapping. The idea also has some practical implications in the areas of rehabilitative medicine and machine interface design. (shrink)

With In Search of Mechanisms, Carl F. Craver and Lindley Darden offer both a descriptive and an instructional account of how biologists discover mechanisms. Drawing on examples from across the life sciences and through the centuries, Craver and Darden compile an impressive toolbox of strategies that biologists have used and will use again to reveal the mechanisms that produce, underlie, or maintain the phenomena characteristic of living things. They discuss the questions that figure in the search for mechanisms, characterizing the (...) experimental, observational, and conceptual considerations used to answer them, all the while providing examples from the history of biology to highlight the kinds of evidence and reasoning strategies employed to assess mechanisms. At a deeper level, Craver and Darden pose a systematic view of what biology is, of how biology makes progress, of how biological discoveries are and might be made, and of why knowledge of biological mechanisms is important for the future of the human species. (shrink)

Comparisons of rival explanations or theories often involve vague appeals to explanatory power. In this paper, we dissect this metaphor by distinguishing between different dimensions of the goodness of an explanation: non-sensitivity, cognitive salience, precision, factual accuracy and degree of integration. These dimensions are partially independent and often come into conflict. Our main contribution is to go beyond simple stipulation or description by explicating why these factors are taken to be explanatory virtues. We accomplish this by using the contrastive-counterfactual approach (...) to explanation and the view of understanding as an inferential ability. By combining these perspectives, we show how the explanatory power of an explanation in a given dimension can be assessed by showing the range of answers it provides to what-if-things-had-been-different questions and the theoretical and pragmatic importance of these questions. Our account also explains intuitions linking explanation to unification or to exhibition of a mechanism. (shrink)

Woodward's long awaited book is an attempt to construct a comprehensive account of causation explanation that applies to a wide variety of causal and explanatory claims in different areas of science and everyday life. The book engages some of the relevant literature from other disciplines, as Woodward weaves together examples, counterexamples, criticisms, defenses, objections, and replies into a convincing defense of the core of his theory, which is that we can analyze causation by appeal to the notion of manipulation.

Woodward's long awaited book is an attempt to construct a comprehensive account of causation explanation that applies to a wide variety of causal and explanatory claims in different areas of science and everyday life. The book engages some of the relevant literature from other disciplines, as Woodward weaves together examples, counterexamples, criticisms, defences, objections, and replies into a convincing defence of the core of his theory, which is that we can analyse causation by appeal to the notion of manipulation.

The view that special science properties are multiply realizable has been attacked in recent years by Shapiro, Bechtel and Mundale, Polger, and others. Focusing on psychological and neuroscientific properties, I argue that these attacks are unsuccessful. By drawing on interspecies physiological comparisons I show that diverse physical mechanisms can converge on common functional properties at multiple levels. This is illustrated with examples from the psychophysics and neuroscience of early vision. This convergence is compatible with the existence of general constraints on (...) the evolution of cognitive systems, and does not involve any ad hoc typing of coarse-grained higher level properties. The mechanisms that realize these common higher level properties are really distinct by the criteria laid down by critics of multiple readability. Finally, I present an account of how such functional properties might constitute special science kinds by playing a central explanatory role in a range of cognitive models. Behavioral science kinds in particular are the functionally defined constituents picked out by our most successful models of the multilevel systems and mechanisms that explain cognitive capacities. (shrink)

Mechanistic explanation has an impressive track record of advancing our understanding of complex, hierarchically organized physical systems, particularly biological and neural systems. But not every complex system can be understood mechanistically. Psychological capacities are often understood by providing cognitive models of the systems that underlie them. I argue that these models, while superficially similar to mechanistic models, in fact have a substantially more complex relation to the real underlying system. They are typically constructed using a range of techniques for abstracting (...) the functional properties of the system, which may not coincide with its mechanistic organization. I describe these techniques and show that despite being non-mechanistic, these cognitive models can satisfy the normative constraints on good explanations. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline two strands of evidence for the conclusion that the dynamical approach to cognitive science both seeks and provides covering law explanations. Two of the most successful dynamical models—Kelso’s model of rhythmic finger movement and Thelen et al.’s model of infant perseverative reaching—can be seen to provide explanations which conform to the famous explanatory scheme first put forward by Hempel and Oppenheim. In addition, many prominent advocates of the dynamical approach also express the provision of this (...) kind of explanation as a goal of dynamical cognitive science. I conclude by briefly outlining two consequences. First, dynamical cognitive science’s explanatory style may strengthen its links to the so-called “situated” approach to cognition, but, secondly, it may also undermine the widespread intuition that dynamics is related to emergentism in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This book addresses themes in the newly emerging discipline of philosophy of chemistry, in particular issues in connection with discussions in general philosophy of science on natural kinds, reduction and ceteris paribus laws. The philosophical issue addressed in all chapters is the relation between, on the one hand, the manifest image (the daily practice or common-sense-life-form) and on the other the scientific image, both of which claim to be the final arbiter of "everything." With respect to chemistry, the question raised (...) is this: Where does this branch of science fit in, with the manifest or scientific image? Most philosophers and chemists probably would reply unhesitatingly, the scientific image. The aim of this book is to raise doubts about that self-evidence. It is argued that chemistry is primarily the science of manifest substances, whereas “micro” or “submicro” scientific talk—though important, useful, and insightful—does not change what matters, namely the properties of manifest substances. These manifest substances, their properties and uses cannot be reduced to talk of molecules or solutions of the Schrödinger equation. If “submicroscopic” quantum mechanics were to be wrong, it would not affect all (or any) “microlevel” chemical knowledge of molecules. If molecular chemistry were to be wrong, it wouldn't disqualify knowledge of, say, water—not at the “macrolevel” (e.g. its viscosity at 50 °C), nor at the pre- or protoscientific manifest level (e.g. ice is frozen water). (shrink)

Cognitive science has always included multiple methodologies and theoretical commitments. The philosophy of cognitive science should embrace, or at least acknowledge, this diversity. Bechtel’s (2009a) proposed philosophy of cognitive science, however, applies only to representationalist and mechanist cognitive science, ignoring the substantial minority of dynamically oriented cognitive scientists. As an example of nonrepresentational, dynamical cognitive science, we describe strong anticipation as a model for circadian systems (Stepp & Turvey, 2009). We then propose a philosophy of science appropriate to nonrepresentational, dynamical (...) cognitive science. (shrink)

“What is an emotion?” William James asked that question in the title of an essay he wrote in 1884, and his answer was that an emotion is a sensation brought about by bodily disturbance. Writing as a psychologist, he was concerned to help turn his discipline into a science. But as a philosopher writing about religious faith, by contrast, James argued that emotions must be understood in terms of such large and fuzzy issues as “the meaning of life.” The philosophy (...) of emotions and emotions research has since gone off in two quite different directions, one a broad-based perennial philosophical concern with the proper place of the emotions in ethics and living well, the other an increasingly sophisticated pursuit of the latest ammunition and theoretical weaponry in the biological and neurological sciences. (shrink)

Several articles have recently appeared arguing that there really are no viable alternatives to mechanistic explanation in the biological sciences (Kaplan and Bechtel; Kaplan and Craver). We argue that mechanistic explanation is defined by localization and decomposition. We argue further that systems neuroscience contains explanations that violate both localization and decomposition. We conclude that the mechanistic model of explanation needs to either stretch to now include explanations wherein localization or decomposition fail or acknowledge that there are counterexamples to mechanistic explanation (...) in the biological sciences. (shrink)

This paper advocates explicitness about the type of entity to be considered as content- bearing in connectionist systems; it makes a positive proposal about how vehicles of content should be individuated; and it deploys that proposal to argue in favour of representation in connectionist systems. The proposal is that the vehicles of content in some connectionist systems are clusters in the state space of a hidden layer. Attributing content to such vehicles is required to vindicate the standard explanation for some (...) classificatory networks’ ability to generalise to novel samples their correct classification of the samples on which they were trained. (shrink)

In this article I assess Alisa Bokulich’s idea that explanatory model fictions can be genuinely explanatory. I draw attention to a tension in her account between the claim that model fictions are explanatorily autonomous, and the demand that model fictions be justified in order for them to be genuinely explanatory. I also explore the consequences that arise from Bokulich’s use of Woodward’s account of counterfactual explanation and her abandonment of Woodward’s notion of an intervention. As it stands, Bokulich’s account must (...) be deemed unworkable. (shrink)

A common approach to explaining the perception of form is through the use of static features. The weakness of this approach points naturally to dynamic definitions of form. Considering dynamical form, however, leads inevitably to the need to explain how events are perceived as time-extended—a problem with primacy over that even of qualia. Optic flow models, energy models, models reliant on a rigidity constraint are examined. The reliance of these models on the instantaneous specification of form at an instant, t, (...) or across a series of such instants forces the consideration of the primary memory supporting both the perception of time-extended events and the time-extension of consciousness. This cannot be reduced to an integration over space and time. The difficulty of defining the basis for this memory is highlighted in considerations of dynamic form in relation to scales of time. Ultimately, the possibility is raised that psychology must follow physics in a more profound approach to time and motion. (shrink)

We sketch a framework for building a unified science of cognition. This unification is achieved by showing how functional analyses of cognitive capacities can be integrated with the multilevel mechanistic explanations of neural systems. The core idea is that functional analyses are sketches of mechanisms , in which some structural aspects of a mechanistic explanation are omitted. Once the missing aspects are filled in, a functional analysis turns into a full-blown mechanistic explanation. By this process, functional analyses are seamlessly integrated (...) with multilevel mechanistic explanations. (shrink)

According to microessentialism, it is necessary to resort to microstructure in order to adequately characterise chemical substances such as water. But the thesis has never been properly supported by argument. Kripke and Putnam, who originally proposed the thesis, suggest that a so-called stereotypical characterisation is not possible, whereas one in terms of microstructure is. However, the sketchy outlines given of stereotypical descriptions hardly support the impossibility claim. On the other hand, what naturally stands in contrast to microscopic description is description (...) in macroscopic terms, and macroscopic characterisations of water are certainly possible. This suffices to counter the claim that microdescriptions are necessary. Whether it counters the impossibility claim depends on whether all macroscopic descriptions are stereotypical (stereotypical descriptions presumably being macroscopic). In so far as systematic import of “stereotypical” can be determined, it would seem not. But some macroscopic characterisations have definite affinity with everyday knowledge, which presumably stands in conflict with the spirit of the impossibility claim. Since what is characterised are properties expressed by predicates like “is water”, the necessity of identity has no bearing here, and matters of interpretation pose problems for claims to the effect that science fixes the extension of “water” as ordinarily understood. (shrink)

In cognitive psychology, concepts are those data structures that are stored in long-term memory and are used by default in human beings.

Proponents of mechanistic explanation all acknowledge the importance of organization. But they have also tended to emphasize specificity with respect to parts and operations in mechanisms. We argue that in understanding one important mode of organization—patterns of causal connectivity—a successful explanatory strategy abstracts from the specifics of the mechanism and invokes tools such as those of graph theory to explain how mechanisms with a particular mode of connectivity will behave. We discuss the connection between organization, abstraction, and mechanistic explanation and (...) illustrate our claims by looking at an example from recent research on so-called network motifs. (shrink)

We argue that dynamical and mathematical models in systems and cognitive neuro- science explain (rather than redescribe) a phenomenon only if there is a plausible mapping between elements in the model and elements in the mechanism for the phe- nomenon. We demonstrate how this model-to-mechanism-mapping constraint, when satisfied, endows a model with explanatory force with respect to the phenomenon to be explained. Several paradigmatic models including the Haken-Kelso-Bunz model of bimanual coordination and the difference-of-Gaussians model of visual receptive fields are (...) explored. (shrink)

Abstract While agreeing that dynamical models play a major role in cognitive science, we reject Stepp, Chemero, and Turvey's contention that they constitute an alternative to mechanistic explanations. We review several problems dynamical models face as putative explanations when they are not grounded in mechanisms. Further, we argue that the opposition of dynamical models and mechanisms is a false one and that those dynamical models that characterize the operations of mechanisms overcome these problems. By briefly considering examples involving the generation (...) of action potentials and circadian rhythms, we show how decomposing a mechanism and modeling its dynamics are complementary endeavors. (shrink)