Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-03T22:36:46.735Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mechanistic Abstraction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Worth Boone  and
Gualtiero Piccinini
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We provide an explicit taxonomy of legitimate kinds of abstraction within constitutive explanation. We argue that abstraction is an inherent aspect of adequate mechanistic explanation. Mechanistic explanations—even ideally complete ones—typically involve many kinds of abstraction and therefore do not require maximal detail. Some kinds of abstraction play the ontic role of identifying the specific complex components, subsets of causal powers, and organizational relations that produce a suitably general phenomenon. Therefore, abstract constitutive explanations are both legitimate and mechanistic.

Type
Unifying the Mind-Brain Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 83 , Issue 5 , December 2016 , pp. 686 - 697
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Thanks to Brice Bantegnie, Sergio Barberis, Mazviita Chirimuuta, Carl Craver, Stuart Glennan, Eric Hochstein, Anne Jacobson, Arnon Levy, Marcin Milkowski, Tom Polger, two anonymous referees, and especially Ken Aizawa for helpful comments on previous drafts. Gualtiero Piccinini was partially supported by a University of Missouri Research Board Award.

References

Barberis, Sergio D. 2013. “Functional Analyses, Mechanistic Explanations, and Explanatory Tradeoffs.” Journal of Cognitive Science 14 (3): 229–51.Google Scholar
Barrett, David. 2014. “Functional Analysis and Mechanistic Explanation.” Synthese 191 (12): 2695–2714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechtel, William, and Richardson, Robert C.. 2010. Discovering Complexity: Decomposition and Localization as Strategies in Scientific Research. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boone, Worth, and Piccinini, Gualtiero. 2016. “The Cognitive Neuroscience Revolution.” Synthese 193:1509–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chirimuuta, Mazviita. 2014. “Minimal Models and Canonical Neural Computations: The Distinctness of Computational Explanation in Neuroscience.” Synthese 191 (2): 127–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl F. 2006. “When Mechanistic Models Explain.” Synthese 153:355–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl F. 2007. Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl F. 2014. “The Ontic Account of Scientific Explanation.” In Explanation in the Special Sciences: The Case of Biology and History, ed. Kaiser, Marie I., Scholz, Oliver R., Plenge, Daniel, and Hüttemann, Andreas, 27–52. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, Robert. 1983. The Nature of Psychological Explanation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Eliasmith, Chris, and Trujillo, Oliver. 2014. “The Use and Abuse of Large-Scale Brain Models.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 25:1–6.10.1016/j.conb.2013.09.009CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fodor, Jerry A. 1968. Psychological Explanation. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Glennan, Stuart. Forthcoming. New Mechanical Philosophy.Google Scholar
Haimovici, Sabrina. 2013. “A Problem for the Mechanistic Account of Computation.” Journal of Cognitive Science 14:151–81.Google Scholar
Kaplan, David M. 2011. “Explanation and Description in Computational Neuroscience.” Synthese 183 (3): 339–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, Arnon. 2014. “What Was Hodgkin and Huxley’s Achievement?” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (3): 469–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, Arnon, and Bechtel, William. 2013. “Abstraction and the Organization of Mechanisms.” Philosophy of Science 80 (2): 241–61.10.1086/670300CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machamer, Peter, Darden, Lindley, and Craver, Carl F.. 2000. “Thinking about Mechanisms.” Philosophy of Science 67 (1): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markram, Henry. 2006. “The Blue Brain Project.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 7:153–60.10.1038/nrn1848CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Milkowski, Marcin. 2016. “Explanatory Completeness and Idealization in Large Brain Simulations: A Mechanistic Perspective.” Synthese. 193:1457–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piccinini, Gualtiero. 2015. Physical Computation: A Mechanistic Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piccinini, Gualtiero, and Craver, Carl F.. 2011. “Integrating Psychology and Neuroscience: Functional Analyses as Mechanism Sketches.” Synthese 183 (3): 283–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piccinini, Gualtiero, and Maley, Cory. 2014. “The Metaphysics of Mind and the Multiple Sources of Multiple Realizability.” In New Waves in the Philosophy of Mind, ed. Sprevak, Mark and Kallestrup, Jesper, 125–52. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Polger, Thomas W., and Shapiro, Lawrence A.. 2016. The Multiple Realization Book. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Lauren N. 2015. “Dynamical Models and Explanation in Neuroscience.” Philosophy of Science 81 (1): 32–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shagrir, Oron. 2010. “Brains as Analog-Model Computers.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 41:271–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Lawrence A. 2004. The Mind Incarnate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Lawrence A. Forthcoming. “Mechanism or Bust? Explanation in Psychology.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 10.1093/bjps/axv062.Google Scholar
van Eck, Dingmar, and Weber, Erik. 2014. “Function Ascription and Explanation: Elaborating an Explanatory Utility Desideratum for Ascriptions of Technical Functions.” Erkenntnis 79 (6): 1367–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiskopf, Daniel. 2011. “Models and Mechanisms in Psychological Explanation.” Synthese 183 (3): 313–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar