Daniel Stoljar

A neuron doctrine in the philosophy of neuroscience

Many neuroscientists and philosophers endorse a view about the explanatory reach of neuroscience (which we will call the neuron doctrine) to the effect that the framework for understanding the mind will be developed by neuroscience; or, as we will put it, that a successful theory of the mind will be solely neuroscientific. It is a consequence of this view that the sciences of the mind that cannot be expressed by means of neuroscientific concepts alone count as indirect sciences that will be discarded as neuroscience matures. This consequence is what makes the doctrine substantive, indeed, radical. We ask, first, what the neuron doctrine means and, second, whether it is true. In answer to the first question, we distinguish two versions of the doctrine. One version, the trivial neuron doctrine, turns out to be uncontroversial but unsubstantive because it fails to have the consequence that the nonneuroscientific sciences of the mind will eventually be discarded. A second version, the radical neuron doctrine, does have this consequence, but, unlike the first doctrine, is highly controversial. We argue that the neuron doctrine appears to be both substantive and uncontroversial only as a result of a conflation of these two versions. We then consider whether the radical doctrine is true. We present and evaluate three arguments for it, based either on general scientific and philosophical considerations or on the details of neuroscience itself, arguing that all three fail. We conclude that the evidence fails to support the radical neuron doctrine.

Crimmins, Gonzales and Moore

Dretske, F. 1970. Epistemic operators. Journal of Philosophy 67: 1007–23. Dretske, F. 1981. The pragmatic dimension of knowledge. Philosophical Studies 40: 363–78. Lewis, D. 1979. Scorekeeping in a language game. Journal of Philosophical Logic 8: 339–59. Lewis, D. 1996. Elusive knowledge. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74: 549–67. Stine, G. C. 1976. Skepticism, relevant alternatives, and deductive closure. Philosophical Studies 29: 249–61. Stroud, B. 1984. The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism. New York: Oxford University Press.

On Biological and Cognitive Neuroscience

Many philosophers and neuroscientists defend a view we express with the slogan that mental science is neuroscience. We argue that there are two ways of interpreting this view, depending on what is meant by ‘neuroscience’. On one interpretation, the view is that mental science is cognitive neuroscience, where this is the science that integrates psychology with the biology of the brain. On another interpretation, the view is that mental science is biological neuroscience, where this is the investigation concerned with the chemistry, physiology and anatomy of neurons and neuronal assemblies. Since the claim about cognitive neuroscience is a scientific triviality, we concentrate on the claim about biological neuroscience, and criticise two initially promising lines of argument for it, one prompted by reflection on the history of biology, and one prompted by reflection on the neurophysiological process known as long-term potentiation, which may be implicated in learning. We argue that neither of these arguments is successful in supporting the view that mental science is biological neuroscience.

Does the Exclusion Argument Put Any Pressure on Dualism

ABSTRACT The exclusion argument is widely thought to put considerable pressure on dualism, if not to refute it outright. We argue to the contrary that, whether or not their position is ultimately true, dualists have a plausible response. The response focuses on the notion of ‘distinctness’ that is employed to distinguish between mental and physical properties: if ‘distinctness’ is understood in one way, the exclusion principle on which the argument rests can be denied by the dualist; if it is understood in another way, the argument is not persuasive.

Causation: Physical, Mental, and Social

Many philosophers hold (what might be called) the causal hierarchy picture of the world. The picture is hierarchical because it views social entities (institutions, groups, or corporations) as being composed of psychological entities (persons or individuals), which are themselves composed of biological entities (cells), which are themselves composed of fundamental physical entities (atoms and subatomic particles). The picture is causal because it assumes that causal statements are potentially true at every level in the hierarchy. While attractive, the picture raises an important question about how any upper level causal statements can be true. On the one hand, it seems part of the picture that upper level causal statements are true only if corresponding lower level statements are, but on the other, if the corresponding lower level statements are true, there seems no reason for supposing that the upper level statements are true in the first place. This article discusses the formulation of the problem in contemporary philosophy and its relation to a different but superficially similar problem that was historically raised against Cartesian dualism. The article also suggests that the problem emerges in the causal hierarchy picture only from a mistaken interpretation of a common causal principle, usually called the exclusion principle.