Natural Minds

Multiple realization was once taken to be a challenge to reductionist visions, especially within cognitive science, and a foundation of the "antireductionist consensus." More recently, multiple realization has come to be challenged on naturalistic grounds, as well as on more "metaphysical" grounds. Within cognitive science, one focal issue concerns the role of neural plasticity for addressing these issues. If reorganization maintains the same cognitive functions, that supports claims for multiple realization. I take up the reorganization involved in language dysfunctions to deal with questions concerned with multiple realization and neural plasticity. Beginning with Broca's case for localization and the nineteenth century discussion of "reorganization," and returning to more recent evidence for neural plasticity, I argue that, in the end, there is substantial support for multiple realization in cognitive systems; I further argue that this is wholly consistent with a recognition of methodological pluralism in cognitive science.

Section: Methodological Pluralism and Multiple Realizationmentioning

confidence: 91%

Multiple realization and methodological pluralism

Richardson

2008

“…4 Inter-level theories hold that realization relates the properties of different individuals, canonically the properties of wholes with the properties of their parts; Gillett calls this the "dimensioned" view, and it is the one that he favors (2002,2003). I favor a flat view of realization, but I will not rehearse my dispute with Gillett on that issue (Polger 2004(Polger , 2007Polger and Shapiro 2008). In fact, it is worth noting that the dimensioned view is at least apparently more plausible as an account of "vertical" mechanistic explanations.…”

Section: Approaches To Realizationmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…It goes without saying that this flurry of work has not produced any consensus about the correct theory, or even about the constraints on such a theory. For example, I have argued that a correct account of realization should at least make it possible that the relationship between physical systems and probabilistic automata-the relationship that Putnam called "realization" in the 1950s and 1960s-is a realization relation (Polger 2004(Polger , 2007. But some theorists flatly reject that requirement (Gillett 2002(Gillett , 2007.…”

Section: Approaches To Realizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mechanisms and explanatory realization relations

Polger

2010

Self Cite

My topic is the confluence of two recently active philosophical research programs. One research program concerns the metaphysics of realization. The other research program concerns scientific explanation in terms of mechanisms. In this paper I introduce a distinction between descriptive and explanatory approaches to realization. I then use this distinction to argue that a well-known account of realization, due to Carl Gillett, is incompatible with a well-known account of mechanistic explanation, due to Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden, and Carl Craver (MDC, Philos Sci 57:1-25, 2000). This is surprising, not least of which because Gillett has cited MDC's work as evidence that his account of realization is the right way to think about realization in the sciences. The times, they are a changin'My topic is the confluence of two recently active philosophical research programs. One research program concerns the metaphysics of realization. Within the literature on realization there is substantial disagreement about even the general outlines of a theory. Occasionally it seems that the only common ground is that realization is a dependence relation that sometimes or always relates entities that figure in different explanatory schema, such as those of the special sciences and those of more fundamental sciences. The other research program concerns scientific explanation in terms of mechanisms. According to the advocates of the "new mechanism" there is a distinctive

“…Insofar as it is a possibility that artifacts could have psychological states, that is simply the possibility that the brain state theory is false. We brain state theorists accept that we are fallible, but we deny that it is a prior constraint on any theory of mind that it permit that artifacts can have psychological states (Polger 2004). Admittedly, the opponent of identity theories will not let the dispute rest at this retort.…”

Section: Of Pains and Brainsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Evaluating the evidence for multiple realization

Polger

2008

Self Cite

Consider what the brain-state theorist has to do to make good his claims. He has to specify a physicalchemical state such that any organism (not just a mammal) is in pain if and only if (a) it possesses a brain of suitable physical-chemical structure; and (b) its brain is in that physical-chemical state. This means that the physical-chemical state in question must be a possible state of a mammalian brain, a reptilian brain, a mollusc's brain (octopuses are mollusca, and certainly feel pain), etc. At the same time, it must not be a possible (physically possible) state of the brain of any physically possible creature that cannot feel pain. Even if such a state can be found, it must be nomologically certain that it will also be a state of the brain of any extraterrestrial life that may be found that will be capable of feeling pain before we can even entertain the supposition that it may be pain.It is not altogether impossible that such a state will be found… . But this is certainly an ambitious hypothesis. AbstractThe belief that mental states are multiply realized is now nearly universal among philosophers, as is the belief that this fact decisively refutes the identity theory. I argue that the empirical support for multiple realization does not justify the confidence that has been placed in it. In order for multiple realization of mental states to be an objection to the identity theory, the neurological differences among pains, for example, must be such as to guarantee that they are of distinct neurological kinds. But the phenomena traditionally cited do not provide evidence of that sort of variation. In particular, examples of neural plasticity do not provide such evidence.