Welcome to the Brains Blog’s Symposium series on the Cognitive Science of Philosophy. The aim of the series is to examine the use of empirical methods to generate philosophical insights. The use of diverse methods in research on causal cognition has come with a plurality of theories about how causal …
Valerie Gray Hardcastle Institute for Health Innovation Northern Kentucky University I agree that novel tool use is connected to significant conceptual and theoretical advancement in science. Indeed, I believe that technological advancement is the primary limiting factor in neurobiological theory development. But how it is connected can differ depending on …
Dan Burnston Philosophy Department, Tulane University Tulane Brain Institute Tools come in a variety of forms. Many experimental tools are ways of intervening upon and measuring the system of interest. Other tools, however, are analytical tools – tools for organizing and scrutinizing data taken from measurement. A major methodological advance …
Ann-Sophie Barwich Philosophy and Cognitive Science University of Indiana, Bloomington Imagine for a moment that you are observing the development of a groundbreaking experiment right before your eyes. You rapidly recognize that this study will make substantial contributions to the field and actually break new ground, but you are unable …
Carl F. Craver Philosophy and PNP Program Washington University in St. Louis Why are scientific tools philosophically interesting? Because instruments are where the rubber of experimentation meets the road of world. In my paper, I explore the epistemic norms that govern when a tool can be used …
John Bickle, Mississippi State University and University of Mississippi Medical Center I begin “Tinkering in the lab” by reviewing my previous publications on tool development in neuroscience. I take that work to suggest that in lab-based sciences such as neurobiology, theory is secondary to and entirely dependent upon, both historically …
The Editors of The Tools of Neuroscience Experiment: Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives, John Bickle (Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi Medical Center), Carl F. Craver (Washington University in St. Louis) and Ann-Sophie Barwich (Indiana University, Bloomington) are grateful to the editors of The Brains Blog for the opportunity …
