Structuralist Contributions – and Limitations? – to the Study of Scientific Reduction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48160/18532330me2.71Keywords:
structuralism, reduction, practice, cognitionAbstract
Structuralism provides useful resources for advancing our understanding of the intertheoretic reduction relation and its place in the history of science. This paper begins by surveying these resources and assessing their metascientific significance. Nevertheless, important challenges remain. I close by arguing that the reductionism implicit in current scientific practice in a paradigmatic reductionistic scientific field –“molecular and cellular cognition”– is better understood on an “intervene and track” model rather than as any kind of intertheoretic relation. I illustrate my alternative model by describing briefly a recent reductionistic result from the field. It appears doubtful that any structuralist resources will illuminate this newly-recognized type of reduction-in-actual-scientific-practice.References
Abel, T., Nguyen, P., Barad, M., Deuel, T., Kandel, E. and R. Bourtchouladze (1997), “Genetic Demonstration of a Role for PKA in the Late Phase of LTP and in Hippocampus-Based Long-Term Memory”, Cell 88: 615-626.
Balzer, W., Moulines, C.U. and J.D. Sneed (1987), An Architectonic for Science, Dordrecht: Reidel.
Bechtel, W. (2008), Mental Mechanisms: Philosophical Perspectives on Cognitive Neuroscience, London: Routledge.
Bechtel, W. (2009), “Molecules, Systems and Behavior: Another View of Memory Consoli-dation”, in Bickle, J. (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 13-40.
Bickle, J. (1998), Psychoneural Reduction: The New Wave, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bickle, J. (2003), Philosophy and Neuroscience: A Ruthlessly Reductive Account, Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Bickle, J. (2005a), “Molecular Neuroscience to My Rescue (Again): A Reply to de Jong and Schouten”, Philosophical Psychology 18: 487-493.
Bickle, J. (2005b), “Phenomenology and Cortical Microstimulation” (co-author Ralph Ellis), in Smith, D. and A. Thomasson (eds.), Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.140-164.
Bickle, J. (2006b), “Ruthless Reductionism in Recent Neuroscience”, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 36: 134-140.
Bickle, J. (2006a), “Reducing Mind to Molecular Pathways: Explicating the Reductionism Implicit in Current Mainstream Neuroscienc”, Synthese 152: 411-434.
Bickle, J. (2007). “Who Says You Can’t Do a Molecular Biology of Consciousness?”, in Schouten, M. K. D. and H. de Jong (eds.), The Matter of the Mind, London: Blackwell, pp. 275-297.
Bickle, J. (2009a), “Real Reduction in Real Neuroscience: Metascience, Not Philosophy of Science (and Certainly Not Metaphysics!)”, in Hohwy, J. and J. Kallestrup (eds.), Being Reduced, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 34-51.
Bickle, J. (2009b), “There’s a New Kid in Town: Computational Cognitive Science, Meet Molecular and Cellular Cognition”, in Dedrick, D. and L. Trick (eds.), Cognition, Com-putation, and Pylyshyn, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009, pp. 139-156.
Bickle, J. (2012), “A Brief History of Neuroscience’s Actual Influences on Mind-Brain Reductionism”, in Gozzano, S. and C. Hill (eds.), New Perspectives on Type Identity, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 88-110.
Chalmers, D. (1996), The Conscious Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Craver, C. (2004), Explaining the Brain, New York: Oxford University Press.
Darden, L. and N. Maull (1977), “Interfield Theories”, Philosophy of Science 44: 43-64.
Feyerabend, P. (1962), “Explanation, Reduction, and Empiricism”, in Feigl, H. and G. Max-well (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. III, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 28-93.
Han, J.-H., Kushner, S., Yiu, A., Cole, C., Matynia, A., Brown, R., Neve, R., Guzowski, J.F., Silva, A.J. and S.A. Josselyn (2007), “Neuronal Competition and Selection During Mem-ory Formation”, Science 316: 457-460.
Hooker, C. (1981), “Towards a General Theory of Reduction. Part I: Historical and Scientif-ic Setting. Part II: Identity in Reduction. Part III: Cross-categorial Reduction”, Dialogue20: 38-59, 201-236, 496-529.
Kandel, E., Schwartz, J. and T. Jessell (eds.) (2001), Principles of Neural Science, 4th ed., New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kemeny, J. and P. Oppenheim (1956), “On Reduction”, Philosophical Studies 7: 6-17.
Kim, J. (2005), Physicalism, Or Something Near Enough, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Leuridan, B. (2012), “Three Problems for the Mutual Manipulability Account of Constitutive Relevance in Mechanisms”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63: 399-427.
Levine, J. (2000), Purple Haze, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mayr, D. (1976), “Investigations of the Concept of Reduction. I.”, Erkenntnis 10: 275-194.
Moulines, C.U. (1984), “Ontological Reduction in the Natural Sciences”, in Balzer, W., Pearce, D. and H.-J. Schmidt (eds.), Reduction in Science, Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 51-70.
Nagel, E. (1961), The Structure of Science, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Schaffner, K. (1967), “Approaches to Reduction”, Philosophy of Science 34: 137-147.Schaffner, K. (1992), “Philosophy of Medicine”, in Salmon, M., Earman, J., Glymour, C., Lennox, J., Machamer, P., McGuire, J., Norton, J., Salmon, W. and K. Schaffner (eds.), Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, pp. 310-344.
Silva, A.J. and J. Bickle (2009), “Science of Research and the Search for the Molecular Mechanisms of Cognitive Functions”, in Bickle, J. (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 71-126.
Silva, A.J., Landreth, A. and J. Bickle (forthcoming), Engineering the Next Revolution in Neuroscience, New York: Oxford University Press.
Suppes, P. (1956), Introduction to Logic, Princeton, NJ: van Nostrand.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2012 Metatheoria – Journal of Philosophy and History of ScienceThe documents published here are governed by the licensing criteria
Creative Commons Argentina.Atribución - No Comercial - Sin Obra Derivada 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ar/
