In the New Mechanist literature, most attention has focused on the compositional explanation of processes/activities of wholes by processes/activities of their parts. These are sometimes called “constitutive mechanistic explanations.” In this paper, we defend moving beyond this focus to a Pluralism about compositional explanation by highlighting two additional species of such explanations. We illuminate both Analytic compositional explanations that explain a whole using a compositional relation to its parts, and also Standing compositional explanations that explain a property of a whole (...) using a compositional relation to the properties of its parts. We also highlight how adopting a Pluralism about compositional explanations justifies a more Pluralist view of the ontological posits of such explanations and opens up a range of new research questions. (shrink)

Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley used abductive reasoning to draw conclusions about the ionic basis of the action potential. Here we build on that initial proposal. First, we propose that Hodgkin and Huxley’s constitutive abductive reasoning has four features. Second, we argue that Hodgkin and Huxley are not alone in giving such arguments. Tolman, 1948, and Baumgartner, 1960, also gave such arguments. The implication is that such arguments are common enough in science that philosophers of science should pay more attention (...) to them. Third, we propose that constitutive abduction describes a method that scientists use to confirm constitutive hypotheses that is an alternative to the mutual manipulability approach that is familiar in the New Mechanist literature. (shrink)

One way that scientifically recognized properties are multiply realized is by “compensatory differences” among realizing properties. If a property G is jointly realized by two properties F1 and F2, then G can be multiply realized by having changes in the property F1 offset changes in the property F2. In some cases, there are scientific laws that articulate how distinct combinations of physical quantities can determine one and the same value of some other physical quantity. One moral to draw is that (...) in such cases we have the multiple realization of a single determinate, “fine grained” property instance that is exactly similar to another instance. As simple as this moral is, it has ramifications for a number of recent discussions of multiple realization in science. Taken collectively, these ramifications indicate that multiple realization by compensatory adjustments merits greater attention in the philosophy of science literature than it has hitherto received. (shrink)

One might have thought that if something has two or more distinct realizations, then that thing is multiply realized. Nevertheless, some philosophers have claimed that two or more distinct realizations do not amount to multiple realization, unless those distinct realizations amount to multiple “ways” of realizing the thing. Corey Maley, Gualtiero Piccinini, Thomas Polger, and Lawrence Shapiro are among these philosophers. Unfortunately, they do not explain why multiple realization requires multiple “ways” of realizing. More significantly, their efforts to articulate multiple (...) “ways” of realizing turn out to be problematic. (shrink)

The Systematicity Arguments is the only book-length treatment of the systematicity and productivity arguments.

In ‘‘The Myth of Original Intentionality,’’ Daniel Dennett appears to want to argue for four claims involving the familiar distinction between original (or underived) and derived intentionality.

A critique of the hypothesis of extended cognition.

Obviously perception is embodied. After all, if creatures were entirely disembodied, how could physical processes in the environment, such as the propagation of light or sound, be transduced into a neurobiological currency capable of generating experience? Is there, however, any deeper, more subtle sense in which perception is embodied? Perhaps. Alva Nos (2004) theory of enactive perception provides one proposal. Where it is commonly thought that.

One of the boldest claims one finds in the enactivist and embodied cognition literature is that perceiving is bodily action. Research on the role of eye movements in vision have been thought to support PBA, whereas research on paralysis has been thought to pose no challenge to PBA. The present paper, however, will argue just the opposite. Eye movement research does not support PBA, whereas paralysis research presents a strong challenge that seems not to have been fully appreciated.

It is sometimes suggested that the history of computation in cognitive science is one in which the formal apparatus of Turing-equivalent computation, or effective computability, was exported from mathematical logic to ever wider areas of cognitive science and its environs. This paper, however, indicates some respects in which this suggestion is inaccurate. Computability theory has not been focused exclusively on Turing-equivalent computation. Many essential features of Turing-equivalent computation are not captured in definitions of computation as symbol manipulation. Turing-equivalent computation did (...) not play the role in McCulloch and Pitts’s early cybernetic work that is sometimes attributed to it. Finally, various segments of the neuroscientific community invoke a notion of computation that differs from the Turing-equivalent notion.Keywords: Circular causality; Computation; Cortical maps; Neural networks; Symbol manipulation; Turing-equivalent computation. (shrink)

This paper argues that the biochemistry of memory consolidation provides valuable model systems for exploring the multiple realization of psychological states.

Special Issue: The Material Bases of Cognition Guest Editors: Fred Adams · Kenneth Aizawa -/- Compositional Explanatory Relations and Mechanistic Reduction K.L. Theurer 287 -/- Constitution, and Multiple Constitution, in the Sciences: Using the Neuron to Construct a Starting Framework C. Gillett 309 -/- The Mark of the Cognitive F. Adams · R. Garrison 339 -/- Dynamics and Cognition L.A. Shapiro 353 -/- Causal Parity and Externalisms: Extensions in Life and Mind P. Huneman 377 -/- Did I Do (...) That? Brain–Computer Interfacing and the Sense of Agency P. Haselager 405 . (shrink)

This paper will defend the cognitivist view of cognition against recent challenges from Andy Clark and Richard Menary. It will also indicate the important theoretical role that cognitivism plays in understanding some of the core issues surrounding the hypothesis of extended cognition.

Abstract: There has recently been controversy over the existence of 'multiple realization' in addition to some confusion between different conceptions of its nature. To resolve these problems, we focus on concrete examples from the sciences to provide precise accounts of the scientific concepts of 'realization' and 'multiple realization' that have played key roles in recent debates in the philosophy of science and philosophy of psychology. We illustrate the advantages of our view over a prominent rival account ( Shapiro, 2000 and (...) 2004 ) and use our work to rebut recent objections to the long-standing claim that psychological properties are multiply realized. For we use scientific evidence, in combination with our more precise theoretical framework, to show that we have strong reason to believe that psychological properties are indeed multiply realized both at the biochemical and neuronal levels. (shrink)

This paper has two principal goals. The first is to set out a bit of conceptual cartography, mapping out a number of distinct conceptual issues that are frequently conflated in the vast literature on multiple realization. The second is to review very briefly how work by Carl Gillett and myself attempts to address a few of the many problems of multiple realization. One of these is explaining what Jerry Fodor apparently took to be mysterious, namely, how multiple realization of properties (...) is possible. (shrink)

Biologists seems to hold two fundamental beliefs: Organisms are organized into levels and the individuals at these levels differ in their properties. Together these suggest that there will be massive multiple realization, i.e. that many human psychological properties are multiply realized at many neurobiological levels. This paper provides some documentation in support of this suggestion.

Introduction to the 2009 Synthese Special Issue on Philosophy and Neuroscience. The papers are: -/- The multiplicity of experimental protocols: a challenge to reductionist and non-reductionist models of the unity of neuroscience Jacqueline A. Sullivan -/- Making sense of mirror neurons Lawrence Shapiro -/- Evaluating the evidence for multiple realization Thomas W. Polger -/- Multiple realization and methodological pluralism Robert C. Richardson -/- Neuroscience and multiple realization: a reply to Bechtel and Mundale Ken Aizawa .

A review of Rumelhart, Stich, and Ramsey's book of this name.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Systematicity of Inference The Systematicity of Cognitive Representations The Compositionality of Representations Another Systematicity Argument Can Functional Combinatorialism Explain the Systematic Relations in Thought? Conclusion.

Among the many ideas that go by the name of “enactivism” there is the idea that by “cognition” we should understand what is more commonly taken to be behavior. For clarity, label such forms of enactivism “enactivismb.” This terminology requires some care in evaluating enactivistb claims. There is a genuine risk of enactivist and non-enactivist cognitive scientists talking past one another. So, for example, when enactivistsb write that “cognition does not require representations” they are not necessarily denying what cognitivists claim (...) when they write that “cognition requires representations.” This paper will draw attention to instances of some of these unnecessary confusions. (shrink)

A review of Manfred Spitzer's The mind within the net: Models of learning, thinking, and acting.

In the extended mind literature, one sometimes finds the claim that there is no neural correlate of consciousness. Instead, there is a biological or ecological correlate of consciousness. Consciousness, it is claimed, supervenes on an entire organism in action. Alva Noë is one of the leading proponents of such a view. This paper resists Noë's view. First, it challenges the evidence he offers from neuroplasticity. Second, it presses a problem with paralysis. Third, it draws attention to a challenge from the (...) existence of metamers and visual illusions. (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify certain features of the systematicity arguments by a review of some of the largely underexamined background in Chomsky’s and Fodor’s early work on transformational grammar.

An increasing number of writers (for example, Kim ((1992), (1999)), Bechtel and Mundale (1999), Keeley (2000), Bickle (2003), Polger (2004), and Shapiro ((2000), (2004))) have attacked the existence of multiple realization and wider views of the special sciences built upon it. We examine the two most important arguments against multiple realization and show that neither is successful. Furthermore, we also defend an alternative, positive view of the ontology, and methodology, of the special science. In contrast to the claims of recent (...) critics, we show that methodological connections between the neurosciences and psychology are plausibly often the result of multiple realization. (shrink)

Despite the considerable attention that the systematicity argument has enjoyed, it is worthwhile examining the argument within the context of similar explanatory arguments from the history of science. This kind of analysis helps show that Connectionism, qua Connectionism, really does not have an explanation of systematicity. Second, and more surprisingly, one finds that the systematicity argument sets such a high explanatory standard that not even Classicism can explain the systematicity of thought.

Despite the prominence of the systematicity argument in the debate between Classicists and Connectionists, there is extremely widespread misunderstanding of the nature of the argument. For example, Matthews (1994), has argued that the systematicity argument is a kind of trick, where Niklasson and van Gelder (1994), have claimed that it is obscure. More surprisingly, once one examines the argument carefully, one finds that Fodor, Pylyshyn, and McLaughlin, themselves have not fully understood it. 1 In part as a result of this, (...) many Connectionists who have tried to meet the challenge of explaining the systematicity of thought have been misled about what this challenge involves (e.g. Pollack 1990; Smolensky 1990; Niklasson and van Gelder 1994). I have five principal objectives in this paper. First, I want to respond to those who believe that the systematicity argument is mere obscurity by providing a clear presentation of it. Second, and at the same time, I want to respond to those who believe the argument is mere trickery by showing it to be an instance of a rather familiar form of legitimate scientific reasoning. Third, having seen what sort of reasoning is involved in the argument, I wish to indicate how certain attempts to meet the challenge of systematicity are inadequate. Fourth, having seen the explanatory standard set by the systematicity argument, I want to indicate how even Fodor, Pylyshyn, and McLaughlin, fail to see how Classicism fails to meet the standard. Fifth, and finally, I wish to indicate what consequences the foregoing considerations have for the prospects of Classicism and Connectionism. (shrink)

A review of Terry Horgan and John Tienson's book.

Terry Horgan and John Tienson have suggested that connectionism might provide a framework within which to articulate a theory of cognition according to which there are mental representations without rules (RWR) (Horgan and Tienson 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992). In essence, RWR states that cognition involves representations in a language of thought, but that these representations are not manipulated by the sort of rules that have traditionally been posited. In the development of RWR, Horgan and Tienson attempt to forestall a particular (...) line of criticism, theSyntactic Argument, which would show RWR to be inconsistent with connectionism. In essence, the argument claims that the node-level rules of connectionist networks, along with the semantic interpretations assigned to patterns of activation, serve to determine a set of representation-level rules incompatible with the RWR conception of cognition. The present paper argues that the Syntactic Argument can be made to show that RWR is inconsistent with connectionism. (shrink)

This paper pursues two lines of thought that help characterize the differences between some versions of virtue epistemology and the hypothesis that cognitive processes are realized by brain, body, and world.

This is a review of Andy Clark's book, Supersizing the Mind.

Biologists seems to hold two fundamental beliefs: Organisms are organized into levels and the individuals at these levels differ in their properties. Together these suggest that there will be massive multiple realization, i.e. that many human psychological properties are multiply realized at many neurobiological levels. This paper provides some documentation in support of this suggestion.

In his recent critical notice of The Bounds of Cognition in this journal, Justin Fisher advances a set of concerns that favor the hypothesis that, under certain circumstances, cognitive processes span the brain, body, and world. One is that it is too much to require that representations in cognitive process must have non-derived content. A second is that it is possible that extended objects bear non-derived content. A third is that extended cognition might advocate the extension of certain general categories (...) of cognition. A fourth is that Bounds misapplies Andy Clark and David Chalmers’ so-called “parity principle.” The purpose of this rejoinder is to show how Fisher’s concerns can be, or have already been, addressed. (shrink)

This is a critique of Lloyd's theory which appeared in his book, Simple Minds.

Behavior, language, development, identity, and science—all of these phenomena are commonly characterized as 'social' in nature. But what does it mean to be 'social'? Is there any intrinsic 'mark' of the social shared by these phenomena? In the first book to shed light on this foundational question, twelve distinguished philosophers and social scientists from several disciplines debate the mark of the social. Their varied answers will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, psychologists, and anyone interested in the theoretical foundations (...) of the social sciences. (shrink)

Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus have tried to place connectionism and artificial intelligence in a broader historical and intellectual context. This history associates connectionism with neuroscience, conceptual holism, and nonrationalism, and artificial intelligence with conceptual atomism, rationalism, and formal logic. The present paper argues that the Dreyfus account of connectionism and artificial intelligence is both historically and philosophically misleading.

This chapter contains sections titled: Cognition as Information Processing, as Computation, and as Abiding in the Meaningful Operationalism Is This Merely a Terminological Issue? Conclusion.

A review of Andy Clark's Surfing Uncertainty.

This chapter contains sections titled: Individuating Process Types in Science Individuating Processes in Cognitive Psychology A Broader Category of Cognition Conclusion.

That about sums up what is wrong with Clark's view.

The modern way of life is highly dependent upon the production of goods by industrial organizations that are in turn dependent upon their workers for their ongoing operations. Even though more than a century has passed since the dawn of the industrial revolution, many dangerous aspects of work, both physical and mental, remain in the workplace today. Using Buddhist philosophical principles, this paper suggests that although many sources of the problem reside within the larger society, the industrial engineer is still (...) a key factor in bettering work and providing a workplace suitable for their fellow workers. Drawing on these insights, we present a number of work design guidelines that industrial engineers who abide by Buddhist principles could practice to help overcome some of the many sufferings produced by modern work. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What are the Boundaries? What is Cognition? The Possibility of Extended Cognition Conclusion.