Synthese 167 (3):511-539 (2009)
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Abstract |
Descriptive accounts of the nature of explanation in neuroscience and the global goals of such explanation have recently proliferated in the philosophy of neuroscience and with them new understandings of the experimental practices of neuroscientists have emerged. In this paper, I consider two models of such practices; one that takes them to be reductive; another that takes them to be integrative. I investigate those areas of the neuroscience of learning and memory from which the examples used to substantiate these models are culled, and argue that the multiplicity of experimental protocols used in these research areas presents specific challenges for both models. In my view, these challenges have been overlooked largely because philosophers have hitherto failed to pay sufficient attention to fundamental features of experimental practice. I demonstrate that when we do pay attention to such features, evidence for reduction and integrative unity in neuroscience is simply not borne out. I end by suggesting some new directions for the philosophy of neuroscience that pertain to taking a closer look at the nature of neuroscientific experiments.
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Keywords | Explanation Experimentation Mechanism Reliability Validity Multiplicity Experimental Paradigm Experimental Protocol Internal Validity External validity Pluralism |
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Reprint years | 2009 |
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DOI | 10.1007/s11229-008-9389-4 |
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References found in this work BETA
Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience.Carl F. Craver - 2007 - Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press.
Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science.Ian Hacking - 1983 - Cambridge University Press.
The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science.Nancy Cartwright - 1999 - Cambridge University Press.
The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation.Ernest Nagel - 1961 - New York, NY, USA: Harcourt, Brace & World.
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Citations of this work BETA
Neural Representations Observed.Eric Thomson & Gualtiero Piccinini - 2018 - Minds and Machines 28 (1):191-235.
Stabilizing Mental Disorders: Prospects and Problems.Jacqueline Anne Sullivan - 2014 - In Harold Kincaid & Jacqueline Sullivan (eds.), Classifying Psychopathology: Mental Kinds and Natural Kinds. MIT Press. pp. 257-281.
Construct Stabilization and the Unity of the Mind-Brain Sciences.Jacqueline Anne Sullivan - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (5):662-673.
View all 67 citations / Add more citations
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2009-01-28
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221 ( #52,031 of 2,518,075 )
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28 ( #31,233 of 2,518,075 )
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