Natural Kinds in the Brain Sciences: The Debate is Still Alive
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48160/18532330me8.174Keywords:
multiple realizability, natural kinds, brain sciencesAbstract
In this article we analyze Brain Sciences classifications as a room for assessing, updating and improving our current ideas about multiple realizability (MR) and Biology’s natural kinds (NKs) debate. Multiple realizability, the possibility of achieving a goal by several causally unexpected means has historically being a displeasing position. Nonetheless, it has permeated distant fields of the original debate such as Brain Sciences. It has been tought that the success of neuro-sciences rests in four claims: 1) Interspecific comparisons; 2) Continuity of neural mechanisms across species; 3) Uniqueness of functions of the brain; 4) Acommon neural grain. In this article, we refer to evidence from Comparative Neuroanatomy across species, specifically to hypothesis and rules of brain evolution among species, and the Human Brain Project, to cast doubts about 1-4. This will allow us to attest that multiple realizability cannot be precluded in current Brain Sciences.
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