Psychoneural Reduction

Bickle, John

doi:10.7551/mitpress/5682.001.0001

Cited by 127 publications

(90 citation statements)

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“…John Bickle (1998), in his Psychoneural Reduction, argues that although analogue relations are quite similar to Nagelian bridge laws, there is an important difference, namely that the elements of the analogue relations are only ''ordered pairs of terms drawn from the nonlogical vocabularies of the two theories. Their sole function is to indicate the term substitutions in T(R)* that will yield the laws of T(R).…”

Section: ): ''(T(b) and C T(r)*) And (T(r)* Ar T(r)) Warrants (T(b) R mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…First, there is the original deductivenomological account of Ernest Nagel (1961), second, there is the functional approach most profoundly proposed by Jaegwon Kim (1998Kim ( , 1999Kim ( , 2005, and third, there is Hooker 's model (1981) reintroduced by John Bickle (1998) under the term of ''new-wave'' reduction. What both Kim and Bickle try to show is that all the problems Nagelian reduction has to face with are easily avoidable within the framework they promote.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reconsidering the Role of Bridge Laws In Inter-Theoretical Reductions

Fazekas

2009

Erkenn

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The present paper surveys the three most prominent accounts in contemporary debates over how sound reduction should be executed. The classical Nagelian model of reduction derives the laws of the target-theory from the laws of the base theory plus some auxiliary premises (so-called bridge laws) connecting the entities of the target and the base theory. The functional model of reduction emphasizes the causal definitions of the target entities referring to their causal relations to base entities. The new-wave model of reduction deduces not the original target theory but an analogous image of it, which remains inside the vocabulary of the base theory. One of the fundamental motivations of both the functional and the new-wave model is to show that bridge laws can be evaded. The present paper argues that bridge laws-in the original Nagelian sense-are inevitable, i.e. that none of these models can evade them. On the one hand, the functional model of reduction needs bridge laws, since its fundamental concept, functionalization, is an inter-theoretical process dealing with entities of two different theories. Theoretical entities of different theories (in a general heterogeneous case) do not have common causal relations, so the functionalization of an entity-without bridge laws-can only be executed in the framework of its own theory. On the other hand, the socalled images of the new-wave account cannot be constructed without the use of bridge laws. These connecting principles are needed to guide the process of deduction within the base theory; without them one would not be able to recognize if the deduced structure was an image of the target theory.

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Section: ): ''(T(b) and C T(r)*) And (T(r)* Ar T(r)) Warrants (T(b) R mentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconsidering the Role of Bridge Laws In Inter-Theoretical Reductions

Fazekas

2009

Erkenn

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“…A central aim of Carl Craver's recent book: Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience (Oxford 2007) is to provide an alternative to reductionist accounts (e.g., Churchland 1982;Bickle 1998) of how unity is achieved in neuroscience. In my view, the alternative he offers is no better grounded than its reductionist counterparts.…”

Section: Multiplicity and "Mosaic Unity"mentioning

confidence: 99%

The multiplicity of experimental protocols: a challenge to reductionist and non-reductionist models of the unity of neuroscience

Sullivan

2008

Synthese

121

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Descriptive accounts of the nature of explanation in neuroscience and the global goals of such explanation have recently proliferated in the philosophy of neuroscience (e.g., Bechtel, Mental mechanisms: Philosophical perspectives on cognitive neuroscience. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007; Bickle, Philosophy and neuroscience: A ruthlessly reductive account. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishing, 2003; Bickle, Synthese, 151, 411-434, 2006; Craver, Explaining the brain: Mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 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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“…But even then, the ontological conclusions are secondary to and dependent upon the logically prior reduction question relating distinct scientific products or procedures (as I once held-see Bickle 1998). And scientific realism need not be affiliated with scientific reductionism (as I now hold-see Bickle 2003).…”

Section: Thanks For Nuthin'!mentioning

confidence: 94%

Has the last decade of challenges to the multiple realization argument provided aid and comfort to psychoneural reductionists?

Bickle

2010

Synthese

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The previous decade has seen renewed critical interest in the multiple realization argument. These criticisms constitute a "second wave" of challenges to this central argument in late-20th century philosophy of mind. Unlike the first wave, which challenged the premise that multiple realization is inconsistent with reduction or type identity, this second wave challenges the truth of the multiple realization premise itself. Since psychoneural reductionism was prominent among the explicit targets of the multiple realization argument, one might think that this second wave of challenges provides important aid and comfort to reductionists. In this paper, however, I provide reasons for thinking it does not. This is not to the detriment of psychoneural reductionism because, as I also argue here, and unrecognized by the current non-reductive orthodoxy in philosophy of mind, one key argument among the first wave of criticisms of the multiple realization argument has never been adequately rejoined.Keywords Multiple realization argument · Psychoneural reductionism · Metascience · Molecular neuroscience The standard multiple realization argumentThe Multiple Realization argument has been central to the philosophies of mind, psychology, and cognitive science for nearly a half-century. Like most philosophical arguments with staying power, its standard formulation is remarkably simple and straightforward:Premise 1: one and the same psychological kind is multiply realized by distinct physical-chemical (e.g., neural) kinds ("multiple realization").

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Psychoneural Reduction

Cited by 127 publications

References 0 publications

Reconsidering the Role of Bridge Laws In Inter-Theoretical Reductions

Reconsidering the Role of Bridge Laws In Inter-Theoretical Reductions

The multiplicity of experimental protocols: a challenge to reductionist and non-reductionist models of the unity of neuroscience

Has the last decade of challenges to the multiple realization argument provided aid and comfort to psychoneural reductionists?

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