Interlevel Relations in Cognitive Science

Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an ‘explanatory gap’ between physical, functional and intentional facts, on the one hand, and the facts of phenomenal consciousness, on the other, argue that there are reasons of principle why phenomenal consciousness cannot be reductively explained: Jackson, ; Levine,, ; McGinn ; Sturgeon, ; Chalmers,. Some of these writers claim that the existence of such a gap would warrant a belief in some form of ontological dualism, whereas others argue (...) that no such entailment holds. In the other main camp, there are people who argue that a reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness is possible in principle, and yet others who claim, moreover, to have provided such an explanation in practice. I shall have nothing to say about the ontological issue here ; nor shall I have a great deal to say about the success or otherwise of the various proposed reductive explanations. My focus will be on the explanatory gap itself—more specifically, on the question whether any such principled gap exists. I shall argue that it does not. The debate will revolve around the nature and demands of reductive explanation in general. And our focus will be on Chalmers and Jackson —hereafter ‘C&J’—in particular, as the clearest, best articulated, case for an explanatory gap. While I shall not attempt to demonstrate this here, my view is that if the C&J argument can be undermined, then it will be a relatively straightforward matter to show that the other versions of the argument must fall similarly. (shrink)

Classically, the question of recognizing another subject is posed unilaterally, in terms of the observed behaviour of the other entity. Here, we propose an alternative, based on the emergent patterns of activity resulting from the interaction of both partners. We employ a minimalist device which forces the subjects to externalize their perceptual activity as trajectories which can be observed and recorded; the results show that subjects do identify the situation of perceptual crossing with their partner. The interpretation of the results (...) is guided by comparable evolutionary robotics simulations. There are two components to subjects’ recognition capacities: distinguishing mobile and fixed entities; and behaving so as to interact with their partner rather than with a mobile lure. The “Other” is characterized by the feature that there is sufficient regularity in the interactions to encourage the formation of anticipations; but sufficient indetermination that the actual behaviour is consistently surprising. Keywords: Recognition of other; perceptual crossing; evolutionary robotics. (shrink)

Unlike the overall framework of Ernest Nagel's work on reduction, his theory of intertheoretic connection still has life in it. It handles aptly cases where reduction requires complex representation of a target domain. Abandoning his formulation as too liberal was a mistake. Arguments that it is too liberal at best touch only Nagel's deductivist theory of explanation, not his condition of connectability. Taking this condition seriously gives a powerful view of reduction, but one which requires us to index explanatory power (...) to sciences as they are formulated at particular times. While we may thereby reduce more than philosophers have supposed, we must abandon hope (as Nagel did) of saying anything useful about reductionism. (shrink)

My thesis is a study in the ontology of psychology, and in particular the status of the entities it is willing to countenance vis-a-vis the physical sciences. The overriding theme which guides the present work is that psychology is an autonomous discipline, autonomous not only in the sense that it utilizes its own distinctive concepts and classification schemes, but in the much stronger sense that it has its own distinct and irreducible ontology which sets it apart from the physical sciences. (...) In a work, psychology is metaphysically autonomous. ;To this end I distinguish three kinds of physicalism which may be thought to constrain the ontology of psychological theory--type physicalism, token physicalism, and physicalism as supervenience--and criticize each in turn. The first is the topic for chapters 1 and 2, where I present and defend the multiple realizability argument, strengthening its case by taking into account the more important criticisms which can be found in the literature, for example, Kim's appeal to physical multiple realizations, infinite disjunctive properties, and species-specific laws. Then, in chapters 3 and 4, I critically evaluate token physicalism, first by showing the connection between token identities and the individuation of events, and then by showing that such token identities rest on an implausible theory of events. ;The most recent trend in the philosophy of mind, however, is to move away from identity theories altogether and embrace a view which I have called physicalism as supervenience. The basic idea is that psycho-physical dependencies are to be understood in terms of a supervenience relation, according to which physical events determine mental events, independent of questions about type or token identities. But this too is a mistake. While I do think there are exceptions to supervenience, my main point in chapter 5 is that psychophysical supervenience is too weak a relation to capture physicalist intuitions. ;What should become apparent, I hope, is that the autonomy of psychology is neither exceptional nor an exceptional fact. Indeed, other sciences like biology are likewise autonomous relative to more basic physical theories, and some of the arguments I give are easily extended to the case of other scientific disciplines. Hence the present study is relevant not only to traditional philosophic concerns over mind and body, but also carries implications for those disputes in the philosophy of science concerning inter-theoretic reductions and the traditional unity of science. (shrink)

Reference to mechanisms is virtually ubiquitous in science and its philosophy. Yet, the concept of a mechanism remains largely unanalyzed; So too for its possible applications in thinking about scientific explanation, experimental practice, and theory structure. This dissertation investigates these issues in the context of contemporary neurobiology. ;The theories of neurobiology are hierarchically organized descriptions of mechanisms that explain functions. Mechanisms are the coordinated activities of entities by virtue of which that function is performed. Since the activities composing mechanisms are (...) often susceptible to mechanical redescription themselves, theories in neurobiology have a characteristic hierarchical structure. The activities of entities at one level are the sub-activities of those at a higher level. ;This hierarchy reveals a fundamental symmetry of functional and mechanical descriptions. Functions are privileged activities of entities; they are privileged because they constitute a stage in some higher-level mechanism. The privileged activities of entities, in turn, are explained by detailing the stages of activity in the lower-level mechanism. Functional and mechanical descriptions are different tools for situating activities, properties, and entities into a hierarchy of activities. They are not competing kinds of description. Experimental techniques for testing such descriptions reflect this symmetry. ;Philosophical discussions of inter-level explanatory relationships have traditionally been framed by reference to inter-theoretic reduction models. The representational strictures of first order predicate calculus and the epistemological strictures logical empiricism combine in this reduction model to focus attention upon issues of identity and deriveability; these are entirely peripheral to the explanatory aims of mechanical explanation. Mechanical explanation is causal. Derivational models of explanation do not adequately reflect the importance of activities in rendering phenomena intelligible. ;Activities are kinds of change. "Bonding," "diffusing," "transcribing," "opening," and "attracting" all describe different kinds of transformation. Salmon's modified process theory is helpful in understanding the role of entities and properties in causal interactions; but it ultimately makes no room for kinds of change in the explanatory cupboard. We make change intelligible by identifying and characterizing its different kinds and relating these to activities that are taken to be fundamental for a science at a time. (shrink)

Do accounts of scientific theory formation and revision have implications for theories of everyday cognition? We maintain that failing to distinguish between importantly different types of theories of scientific inference has led to fundamental misunderstandings of the relationship between science and everyday cognition. In this article, we focus on one influential manifestation of this phenomenon which is found in Fodor's well-known critique of theories of cognitive architecture. We argue that in developing his critique, Fodor confounds a variety of distinct claims (...) about the holistic nature of scientific inference. Having done so, we outline more promising relations that hold between theories of scientific inference and ordinary cognition. (shrink)

I show that the recent account of levels in neuroscience proposed by Craver and Bechtel is unsatisfactory since it fails to provide a plausible criterion for being at the same level and is incompatible with Craver and Bechtel’s account of downward causation. Furthermore, I argue that no distinct notion of levels is needed for analyzing explanations and causal issues in neuroscience: it is better to rely on more well-defined notions such as composition and scale. One outcome of this is that (...) apparent cases of downward causation can be analyzed away. (shrink)

In this volume, Brakel raises questions about conventions in the study of mind in three disciplines—psychoanalysis, philosophy of mind, and experimental philosophy. She illuminates new understandings of the mind through interdisciplinary challenges to views long-accepted. Here she proposes a view of psychoanalysis as a treatment that owes its successes largely to its biological nature—biological in its capacity to best approximate the extinction of problems arising owing to aversive conditioning. She also discusses whether or not "the mental" can have any real (...) ontological standing, arguing that a form of reductive physicalism can be sufficient ontologically, but that epistemological considerations require a branch of non-reductive physicalism. She then notes the positive implications of this view for psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Finally, she investigates the role of "consistency" in method and content, toward which experimental philosophers strive. In essence, Brakel articulates the different sets of challenges pertaining to: a) ancient dilemmas such as the mind/body problem; b) longstanding debates about the nature of therapeutic action in psychoanalysis; and c) new core questions arising in the relatively young discipline of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

This commentary focuses on Dixon et al.'s discussion on the dangers of employing prejudice-reduction interventions that seek to promote intergroup harmony in historically unequal societies. Specifically, it illustrates these dangers by discussing my work in Israel on the processes and practices through which reconciliation-aimed encounters between Jews and Arabs mitigate sociopolitical change.

The paper argues that a functional reduction of ordinary psychology to neuropsychology is possible by means of constructing fine-grained functional, mental sub-types that are coextensive with neuropsychological types. We establish this claim by means of considering as examples the cases of the disconnection syndrome and schizophrenia. We point out that the result is a conservative reduction, vindicating the scientific quality of the mental types of ordinary psychology by systematically linking them with neuroscience. That procedure of conservative reduction by means of (...) functional sub-types is in principle repeatable down to molecular neuroscience. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the relationship between place and self can be accounted for by recent theoretical work on autobiographical memory. The link between place and self is conceptualized as a transitory mental representation that emerges as a “place of mine” (personal autobiographical experience) from a “place” (declarative knowledge). The function of “place of mine” is to guide personal memory and self-knowing consciousness of periods of our lives. I combine inquiries of memory, self, and place in a triadic (...) relationship, a synthesis, suggesting a conceptual model for the phenomenon of place-related self as a sub-system of the self. This is formed by a causal progression from a physical place across time via emotional and cognitive bonds, components of the autobiographical information grounding the self, apportioned across declarative memory. Finally, using the methods of factor analysis and structural equation modeling, I show that the proposed model accounts for previous and new data on place-related identity. (shrink)