Explaining the Brain
Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 7 June 2007
- ISBN 9780199299317
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages330 pages
- Size 240x160x23 mm
- Weight 633 g
- Language English
- Illustrations numerous figures 0
Categories
Short description:
Carl Craver investigates what we are doing when we use neuroscience to explain what's going on in the brain. When does an explanation succeed and when does it fail? Craver offers explicit standards for successful explanation of the workings of the brain, on the basis of a systematic view about what neuroscientific explanations are: they are descriptions of mechanisms.
MoreLong description:
What distinguishes good explanations in neuroscience from bad? Carl F. Craver constructs and defends standards for evaluating neuroscientific explanations that are grounded in a systematic view of what neuroscientific explanations are: descriptions of multilevel mechanisms. In developing this approach, he draws on a wide range of examples in the history of neuroscience (e.g. Hodgkin and Huxleys model of the action potential and LTP as a putative explanation for different kinds of memory), as well as recent philosophical work on the nature of scientific explanation. Readers in neuroscience, psychology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of science will find much to provoke and stimulate them in this book.
This book should be of interest not just to those of us who care about philosophy of neuroscience, but also to philosophers of biology and philosophers of mind more generally. I expect it to shape debate for a long time to come.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction: Starting With Neuroscience
Introduction
Explanations in Neuroscience Describe Mechanisms.
Explanations in Neuroscience are Multilevel
Explanations in Neuroscience Integrate Multiple Fields
Criteria of Adequacy for an Account of Explanation
Chapter 2. Explanation and Causal Relevance
Introduction
How Calcium Explains Neurotransmitter Release
Explanation and Representation
The Covering-Law Model
The Unification Model
But What About the Hodgkin and Huxley Model?
Conclusion
Chapter 3. Causal Relevance and Manipulation
Introduction
The Mechanism of Long-Term Potentiation
Causation as Transmission
Transmission and Causal Relevance
Omission and Prevention
Causation and Mechanical Connection
Manipulation and Causation
Ideal Interventions
Invariance, Fragility, and Contingency
Manipulation and Criteria for Explanation
Manipulation, Omission, and Prevention
Conclusion
Chapter 4. The Norms of Mechanistic Explanation
Introduction
Two Normative Distinctions
Explaining the Action Potential
The Explanandum Phenomenon
Components
Activities
Organization
Constitutive Relevance
Relevance and the Boundaries of Mechanisms
Interlevel Experiments and Constitutive Relevance
Interference Experiments
Stimulation Experiments
Activation Experiments
Constitutive Relevance as Mutual Manipulability
Conclusion
Chapter 5. A Field-Guide to Levels
Introduction
Levels of Spatial Memory
A Field-Guide to Levels
Levels of Science (Units and Products)
Levels of Nature
Causal Levels (Processing and Control)
Levels of Size
Levels of Composition
Levels of Mereology
Levels of Aggregativity
Levels of Mere Material/Spatial Containment
Levels of Mechanisms
Conclusion
Chapter 6 Nonfundamental Explanation
Introduction
Causal Relevance and Making a Difference
Contrasts and Switch-Points
Causal Powers at Higher Levels of Mechanisms
Causal Relevance among Realized Properties
Conclusion
Chapter 7. The Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience
Introduction
Reduction and the History of Neuroscience
LTP's Origins: Not a Top-Down Search but Intralevel Integration
The Mechanistic Shift
Mechanism as a Working Hypothesis
Intralevel Integration and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience
The Space of Possible Mechanisms
Specific Constraints on the Space of Possible Mechanisms
Componency Constraints
Spatial Constraints
Temporal Constraints
Active Constraints
Reduction and the Intralevel Integration of Fields
Interlevel Integration and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience
What is Interlevel Integration?
Constraints on Interlevel Integration
Accommodative Constraints
Spatial and Temporal Interlevel Constraints
Interlevel Manipulability Constraints
Mosaic Interlevel Integration
Conclusion: The Epistemic Function of the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience
