Mapping the mind: bridge laws and the psycho-neural interface

Abstract

Recent advancements in the brain sciences have enabled researchers to determine, with increasing accuracy, patterns and locations of neural activation associated with various psychological functions. These techniques have revived a longstanding debate regarding the relation between the mind and the brain: while many authors claim that neuroscientific data can be employed to advance theories of higher cognition, others defend the so-called 'autonomy' of psychology. Settling this significant issue requires understanding the nature of the bridge laws used at the psycho-neural interface. While these laws have been the topic of extensive discussion, such debates have mostly focused on a particular type of link: reductive laws. Reductive laws are problematic: they face notorious philosophical objections and they are too scarce to substantiate current research at the intersection of psychology and neuroscience. The aim of this article is to provide a systematic analysis of a different kind of bridge laws-associative laws-which play a central, albeit overlooked role in scientific practice.

The Future of Cognitive Neuroscience? Reverse Inference in Focus

“…Yet as captured in P 2 and P 2 ′, the bridge laws required for reverse inference are associative statements which, unlike their reductive counterparts, do not presuppose any kind of identity-a priori, a posteriori, necessary, or contingent. Indeed, associative bridge laws are so metaphysically uncommitted that they are also consistent with positions that reject token physicalism, as long as the latter allows a systematic connection between mental and neural properties (Nathan & Del Pinal, 2016). In short, the plausible assumption that the natural kinds of the special sciences are multiply-realizable leaves reverse inference completely unscathed (for a related argument, see Roskies, 2009).…”