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)

The central aim of this paper is to shed light on the nature of explanation in computational neuroscience. I argue that computational models in this domain possess explanatory force to the extent that they describe the mechanisms responsible for producing a given phenomenon—paralleling how other mechanistic models explain. Conceiving computational explanation as a species of mechanistic explanation affords an important distinction between computational models that play genuine explanatory roles and those that merely provide accurate descriptions or predictions of phenomena. It (...) also serves to clarify the pattern of model refinement and elaboration undertaken by computational neuroscientists. (shrink)

Advocates of extended cognition argue that the boundaries of cognition span brain, body, and environment. Critics maintain that cognitive processes are confined to a boundary centered on the individual. All participants to this debate require a criterion for distinguishing what is internal to cognition from what is external. Yet none of the available proposals are completely successful. I offer a new account, the mutual manipulability account, according to which cognitive boundaries are determined by relationships of mutual manipulability between the properties (...) and activities of putative components and the overall behavior of the cognitive mechanism in which they figure. Among its main advantages, this criterion is capable of (a) distinguishing components of cognition from causal background conditions and lower-level correlates, and (b) showing how the core hypothesis of extended cognition can serve as a legitimate empirical hypothesis amenable to experimental test and confirmation. Conceiving the debate in these terms transforms the current clash over extended cognition into a substantive empirical debate resolvable on the basis of evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience. (shrink)

Recently, it has been provocatively claimed that dynamical modeling approaches signal the emergence of a new explanatory framework distinct from that of mechanistic explanation. This paper rejects this proposal and argues that dynamical explanations are fully compatible with, even naturally construed as, instances of mechanistic explanations. Specifically, it is argued that the mathematical framework of dynamics provides a powerful descriptive scheme for revealing temporal features of activities in mechanisms and plays an explanatory role to the extent it is deployed for (...) this purpose. It is also suggested that more attention should be paid to the distinctive methodological contributions of the dynamical framework including its usefulness as a heuristic for mechanism discovery and hypothesis generation in contemporary neuroscience and biology. (shrink)

Is the relationship between psychology and neuroscience one of autonomy or mutual constraint and integration? This volume includes new papers from leading philosophers seeking to address this issue by deepening our understanding of the similarities and differences between the explanatory patterns employed across these domains.

Since its introduction, multivariate pattern analysis, or ‘neural decoding’, has transformed the field of cognitive neuroscience. Underlying its influence is a crucial inference, which we call the decoder’s dictum: if information can be decoded from patterns of neural activity, then this provides strong evidence about what information those patterns represent. Although the dictum is a widely held and well-motivated principle in decoding research, it has received scant philosophical attention. We critically evaluate the dictum, arguing that it is false: decodability is (...) a poor guide for revealing the content of neural representations. However, we also suggest how the dictum can be improved on, in order to better justify inferences about neural representation using MVPA. 1Introduction 2A Brief Primer on Neural Decoding: Methods, Application, and Interpretation 2.1What is multivariate pattern analysis? 2.2The informational benefits of multivariate pattern analysis 3Why the Decoder’s Dictum Is False 3.1We don’t know what information is decoded 3.2The theoretical basis for the dictum 3.3Undermining the theoretical basis 4Objections and Replies 4.1Does anyone really believe the dictum? 4.2Good decoding is not enough 4.3Predicting behaviour is not enough 5Moving beyond the Dictum 6Conclusion. (shrink)

Since its introduction, multivariate pattern analysis, or ‘neural decoding’, has transformed the field of cognitive neuroscience. Underlying its influence is a crucial inference, which we call the decoder’s dictum: if information can be decoded from patterns of neural activity, then this provides strong evidence about what information those patterns represent. Although the dictum is a widely held and well-motivated principle in decoding research, it has received scant philosophical attention. We critically evaluate the dictum, arguing that it is false: decodability is (...) a poor guide for revealing the content of neural representations. However, we also suggest how the dictum can be improved on, in order to better justify inferences about neural representation using MVPA. (shrink)

Physicalism and antireductionism are the ruling orthodoxy in the philosophy of biology. But these two theses are difficult to reconcile. Merely embracing an epistemic antireductionism will not suffice, as both reductionists and antireductionists accept that given our cognitive interests and limitations, non-molecular explanations may not be improved, corrected or grounded in molecular ones. Moreover, antireductionists themselves view their claim as a metaphysical or ontological one about the existence of facts molecular biology cannot identify, express, or explain. However, this is tantamount (...) to a rejection of physicalism and so causes the antireductionist discomfort. In this paper we argue that vindicating physicalism requires a physicalistic account of the principle of natural selection, and we provide such an account. The most important pay-off to the account is that it provides for the very sort of autonomy from the physical that antireductionists need without threatening their commitment to physicalism. (shrink)

Philosophical Psychology, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-6, Ahead of Print.

Habituation, a form of non‐associative learning, isno longer studied exclusively within the fields of psychology and neuroscience. Indeed, the same stimulus–response pattern is observed at the molecular, cellular, and organismal scales and is not dependent upon the presence of neurons. Hence, a more inclusive theory is required to accommodate aneural forms of habituation. Here an abstraction of the habituation process that does not rely upon particular biological pathways or substrates is presented. Instead, five generalizable elements that define the habituation process (...) are operationalized. The formulation can be applied to interrogate systems as they respond to several stimulation paradigms, providing new insights and supporting existing behavioral data. The model can be used to deduce the relative contribution of elements that contribute to the measurable output of the system. The results suggest that habituation serves as a general biological strategy that any system can implement to adaptively respond to harmless, repetitive stimuli. (shrink)

Rationale Treatment guidelines recommend a more conservative surgical approach than mastectomy for early stage breast cancer and a stronger emphasis on adjuvant therapy. Registry data at South Australian teaching hospitals have been used to monitor survivals and treatment in relation to these guidelines.Aims and objectives To use registry data to: (1) investigate trends in survival and treatment; and (2) compare treatment with guidelines.Methods Registry data from three teaching hospitals were used to analyse trends in primary courses of treatment of breast (...) cancers during 1977–2003 (n = 4671), using univariate analyses and multiple logistic regression. Disease-specific survivals were analysed using Kaplan–Meier product limit estimates and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression.Results The 5-year survival was 79.9%, but with a secular increase, reaching 83.6% in 1997–2003. The relative risk of death (95% confidence limits) was 0.74 (0.62, 0.88) for 1997–2003, compared with previous diagnoses, after adjusting for tumour node metastasis stage, grade, age and place of residence. Treatment changes included an increase in conservative surgery (as opposed to mastectomy) from 51.7% in 1977–1990 to 76.8% in 1997–2003 for stage I (P < 0.001) and from 31.1% to 52.2% across these periods for stage II (P < 0.001). Adjuvant radiotherapy also became more common (P < 0.001), with 20.6% of patients receiving this treatment in 1977–1990 compared with 60.7% in 1997–2003. Radiotherapy generally was more prevalent when conservative surgery was provided, although also relatively common in mastectomy patients when tumour diameters exceeded 50 mm or when there were four or more involved nodes. The proportion of patients receiving chemotherapy increased (P < 0.001), from 19.6% in 1977–1990 to 36.9% in 1997–2003, and the proportion having hormone therapy also increased (P < 0.001), from 34.3% to 59.4% between these periods.Conclusions Survivals appear to be increasing and treatment trends are broadly consistent with guideline directions, and the earlier research on which these recommendations were based. (shrink)

According to Mario Gómez-Torrente in Roads to Reference, the reference of a demonstrative is fixed in an object by the speaker’s referential intentions. I argue that this is a mistake. First, I draw attention to a venerable alternative theory that Gómez-Torrente surprisingly overlooks: the reference is fixed in an object directly by a relation established in perceiving the object. Next I criticize IRH, arguing that it is implausible, redundant, and misleading. Finally, I present a theory of demonstrations that is like (...) the alternative theory for demonstratives. For, though demonstrations do not determine the reference of demonstratives, they play an independent referential role which is important in explaining David Kaplan’s famous Carnap-Agnew example and many others including some of Gómez-Torrente’s. (shrink)

This paper lays the groundwork for a theory of time allocation across the life course, based on the idea that strength and skill vary as a function of age, and that return rates for different activities vary as a function of the combination of strength and skills involved in performing those tasks. We apply the model to traditional human subsistence patterns. The model predicts that young children engage most heavily in low-strength/low-skill activities, middle-aged adults in high-strength/high-skill activities, and older adults (...) in low-strength/high-skill activities. Tests among Machiguenga and Piro forager-horticulturalists of southeastern Peru show that males and females focus on low-strength/low-skill tasks early in life (domestic tasks and several forms of fishing), switch to higher-strength/higher-skill activities in their twenties and thirties (hunting, fishing, and gardening for males; fishing and gardening for females), and shift focus to high-skill activities late in life (manufacture/repair, food processing). (shrink)

Tarzian and ASBH Core Competencies Update Task Force (2013) say that making ethics consultation accountable means examining the abilities and qualifications of health care ethics consultants (HCECs...

This volume offers the first substantial study of Heidegger’s phenomenology of perception, focusing on perception as capacities that can be developed in learning processes, notably in ways befitting ontological mindfulness. The author proposes new interpretations of Heidegger’s five most important key words.

Original reading of Heidegger suggesting what his project could mean for building an ethical way of life now and in the future.

Mereological nihilism is the view that there are no composite objects; everything in existence is mereologically simple. The view is subject to a number of difficulties, one of which concerns what I call the problem of emergence. Very briefly, the problem is that nihilism seems to be incompatible with emergent properties; it seems to rule out their very possibility. This is a problem because there are good independent reasons to believe that emergent properties are possible. This paper provides a solution (...) to the problem. I will show that nihilism and emergence are perfectly compatible, providing one accepts a novel understanding of how objects can instantiate properties: what I call irreducibly collective instantiation. (shrink)

This collection of original essays by preeminent interpreters of continental philosophy explores the question of whether Western thought and culture have been dominated by a vision-centered paradigm of knowledge, ethics, and power. It focuses on the character of vision in modern philosophy and on arguments for and against the view that contemporary life and thought are distinctively "ocularcentric." The authors examine these ideas in the context of the history of philosophy and consider the character of visual discourse in the writings (...) of Plato, Descartes, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Benjamin, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Derrida, Foucault, Gadamer, Wittgenstein, and Habermas. With essays on television, the visual arts, and feminism, the book will interest readers in cultural studies, gender studies, and art history as well as philosophers. (shrink)

_Provides a critique of reason, demanding that we take greater responsibility for nature and other people._.

In a study that goes beyond the ego affirmed by Freudian psychology, David Levin offers an account of personal growth and self-fulfillment based on the development of our capacity for listening. Drawing on the work of Dewey, Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg, he uses the vocabulary of phenomenological psychology to distinguish four stages in this developmental process and brings us the significance of these stages for music, psychotherapy, ethics, politics, and ecology. This analysis substantiates his claim that the development of (...) our listening capacity is a process that fits Foucault's conception of a practice of the self, forming our character as social beings and moral agents. David Levin contends that our self- development as auditory beings is necessary for the achievement of a just and democratic society. (shrink)

This is a unique study, contuining the work of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, and using the techniques of phenomenology against the prevailing nihilism of our culture. It expands our understanding of the human potential for spiritual self-realization by interpreting it as the developing of a bodily-felt awareness informing our gestures and movements. The author argues that a psychological focus on our experience of well-being and pathology as embodied beings contributes significantly to a historically relevant critique of ideology. It also provides an (...) essential touchstone in experience for a fruitful individual and collective response to the danger of nihilism. Dr Levin draws on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology to clarify Heidegger's analytic of human beings through an interpretation that focuses on our experience of being embodied. He reconstructs in modern terms the wisdom implicit in western and semitic forms of religion and philosophy, considering the work of Freud, Jung, Focault and Neitzsche, as well as that of American educational philosophers, including Dewey. In particular, he draws on the psychology of Freud and Jung to clarify our historical experience of gesture and movement and to bring to light its potential in the fulfilment of Selfhood. Throughout the book, the pathologies of the ego and its journey into Selfhood are considered in relation to the conditons of technology and the powers of nihilism. (shrink)

This is a unique study, contuining the work of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, and using the techniques of phenomenology against the prevailing nihilism of our culture. It expands our understanding of the human potential for spiritual self-realization by interpreting it as the developing of a bodily-felt awareness informing our gestures and movements. The author argues that a psychological focus on our experience of well-being and pathology as embodied beings contributes significantly to a historically relevant critique of ideology. It also provides an (...) essential touchstone in experience for a fruitful individual and collective response to the danger of nihilism. Dr Levin draws on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology to clarify Heidegger's analytic of human beings through an interpretation that focuses on our experience of being embodied. He reconstructs in modern terms the wisdom implicit in western and semitic forms of religion and philosophy, considering the work of Freud, Jung, Focault and Neitzsche, as well as that of American educational philosophers, including Dewey. In particular, he draws on the psychology of Freud and Jung to clarify our historical experience of gesture and movement and to bring to light its potential in the fulfilment of Selfhood. Throughout the book, the pathologies of the ego and its journey into Selfhood are considered in relation to the conditons of technology and the powers of nihilism. (shrink)

First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper examines social determinants of resource competition among Tsimane Amerindian women of Bolivia. We introduce a semi-anonymous experiment (the Social Strategy Game) designed to simulate resource competition among women. Information concerning dyadic social relationships and demographic data were collected to identify variables influencing resource competition intensity, as measured by the number of beads one woman took from another. Relationship variables are used to test how the affiliative or competitive aspects of dyads affect the extent of prosociality in the game. (...) Using a mixed-modeling procedure, we find that women compete with those with whom they are quarreling over accusations of meat theft, mate competition, and rumor spreading. They also compete with members of their social network and with those who were designated as cooperative helpers or as close kin. Women take fewer beads from desired friends, neighbors, and from those viewed as enemies. We interpret favoritism toward enemies as resulting from fear of retribution. Our results suggest that social relations among women are multifaceted and often cannot be simplified by exclusive focus on genetic relatedness, physical proximity, or reciprocity. We argue that a complex understanding of cooperation and competition among women may require important contextual information concerning relationship history in addition to typical features of resource ecology. (shrink)

David Michael Levin's ongoing exploration of the moral character and enlightenment-potential of vision takes a new direction in _The Philosopher's Gaze_. Levin examines texts by Descartes, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Benjamin, Merleau-Ponty, and Lévinas, using our culturally dominant mode of perception and the philosophical discourse it has generated as the site for his critical reflections on the moral culture in which we are living. In Levin's view, all these philosophers attempted to understand, one way or another, the distinctive (...) pathologies of the modern age. But every one also attempted to envision—if only through the faintest of traces, traces of mutual recognition, traces of another way of looking and seeing—the prospects for a radically different lifeworld. The world, after all, inevitably reflects back to us the character, the reach and range, of our vision. In these provocative essays, the author draws on the language of hermeneutical phenomenology and at the same time refines phenomenology itself as a method of working with our experience and thinking critically about the culture in which we live. (shrink)

The principal argument of the present paper is that the human body is as much a reflective formation of multiple discourses as it is an effect of natural and environmental processes. This paper examines the implications of this argument, and suggests that recognizing the body in this light can be illuminating, not only for our conception of the body, but also for our understanding of medicine. Since medicine is itself a discursive formation, a science with both a history, and a (...) future, it is argued that much can be learned by reflecting on the progression of models, or “paradigm-shifts,”, in terms of which modern medicine has articulated the human body that figures at the heart of its discourse. Four historical periods of medicine will be considered, each one governed by its own distinctive paradigm. It is argued, finally, that, with the emergence of behavioural medicine, and, more particularly, psychoneuroimmunology, a new discursive formation in medicine, one can see a new conceptualization of the human body beginning to take shape; and that this new figure of the body makes it possible for the very first time to conceive the construction of testable hypotheses regarding correlations between the objective body of science and the phenomenological body of experienced meaning. (shrink)

First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.