The book "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience" is an engaging criticism of cognitive neuroscience from the perspective of a Wittgensteinian philosophy of ordinary language. The authors' main claim is that assertions like "the brain sees" and "the left hemisphere thinks" are integral to cognitive neuroscience but that they are meaningless because they commit the mereological fallacy—ascribing to parts of humans, properties that make sense to predicate only of whole humans. The authors claim that this fallacy is at the heart of Cartesian (...) dualism, implying that current cognitive neuroscientists are Cartesian dualists. Against this claim, we argue that the fallacy cannot be committed within Cartesian dualism either, for this doctrine does not allow for an intelligible way of asserting that a soul is part of a human being. Also, the authors' Aristotelian essentialistic outlook is at odds with their Wittgensteinian stance, and we were unconvinced by their case against explanatory reductionism. Finally, although their Wittgensteinian stance is congenial with radical behaviorism, their separation between philosophy and science seems less so because it is based on a view of philosophy as a priori. The authors' emphasis on the a priori, however, does not necessarily commit them to rationalism if it is restricted to conceptual or analytical truths. (shrink)

In several recent publications in the philosophy of chemistry we have made use of a repertoire of analytical concepts to guide our investigations. Perhaps studies of other sophisticated knowledge garnering practices could benefit from adopting this analytical scheme if we want to understand their merits and drawbacks. Our suggestions for shaping methodologies for philosophical studies in particular fields of interest includes both the natural sciences, legal systems in action, economies and their management, warfare, preparing the dishes of a cuisine, and (...) so on. Adopting our proposals would encourage philosophers to examine our world seen as fields of material and cultural/social entities affording opportunities for action. At a certain level of analysis, the products of such action, appear to be perfectly identical entities, fungibles. There are no fungibles in nature. They must therefore be thought of as constituents of iconic models. Our scheme for critically examining the practices of investigators is meant to ensure the intelligibility both of the relevant discourse and the trustworthiness of the practices of the discipline in question. The Third Wittgenstein's ‘hinges’ that function as necessities and yet are vulnerable to empirical assessment provide a generic frame for analyses of human practices. (shrink)