Carl Craver and I have written a paper arguing that functional analyses are just elliptical mechanistic explanations, contrary to the received view that functional analysis is distinct and autonomous from mechanistic explanation. Corollary: contrary to the received view, psychological explanation is not distinct and autonomous from neuroscientific explanation–rather, psychological explanation …
This nice study shows the need to beware of poorly controlled fMRI studies. (In particular: predefined significance thresholds = bad, multiple comparisons correction = good.)
At the last Eastern APA meeting in Philly, I attended an excellent session on The Epistemology of Experimental Practices, with Allan Franklin and Marcel Weber. During the discussion, I asked whether scientific methods and data should be public – that is, whether different investigators applying the same methods to the …
I just culled together a bunch of putative examples of downward causation, some from advocates, some from detractors. Particularly interesting and promising is the article by Robert Bishop, Downward causation in fluid convection, and Bechtel/Craver’s article Top-down causation without top-down causes, for which brief quotes will not do justice. (Note …
We are very happy to announce a new group, the ‘Society for the Metaphysics of Science’, (unsurprisingly) devoted to the ‘metaphysics of science’. We would like to invite anyone interested to join the group and also to attend our upcoming sessions at the Pacific and Central APA Conferences. The website …
The Church-Turing fallacy is the fallacy of supposing that the Church-Turing thesis (CT) or some other idea of Church and Turing entails that the mind can be explained computationally (i.e., computationalism). (The term ‘Church-Turing fallacy’ is due to Jack Copeland.)IMHO, CT is one of the technical ideas most heavily abused by philosophers of mind.CT …
