Krickel, Beate
Haynes, John-Dylan
SE Why and how should we investigate the brain to understand the mind? – Mechanisms and mechanistic explanation in cognitive neuroscience
Do. 12-14
Präsenz, Raum (Humboldt-Universität Berlin)
Beginn: 20.10.22
Ende: 16.02.2023
Anmeldung über ISIS, max. 40 TN
The commitment to the brain-dependence of cognition has been an integral part of cognitive science from the very beginning. Yet it was traditionally thought that studying the brain was useless for understanding cognition. Cognition, so the common view, is to the brain like the software is to the hardware – and no one would look at the physical details of a computer to understand a computer program. This view has changed since the “cognitive neuroscience revolution” (Boone & Piccinini 2016). From the perspective of philosophy of science, this change is accompanied by a new view of what it means to successfully explain cognition. While traditional cognitive science has focused on explanation via functional analysis, cognitive neuroscience—according to philosophers of science—provides mechanistic explanations of cognition. In this seminar, we will take a closer look at the role mechanistic explanation and mechanisms play in cognitive neuroscience. We will address questions such as the following:
• What are mechanisms in cognitive neuroscience?
• How do mechanistic explanation in cognitive neuroscience work?
• In which sense are mechanistic explanations of cognition explanatory?
• Which role do computation and representation have in mechanistic explanation?
• Are there other styles of explanation that cognitive neuroscientists use?
These questions will be addressed from the perspectives of contemporary philosophy of science as well as cognitive neuroscience. The seminar is co-taught by John-Dylan Haynes (Charité Berlin, Bernstein Center) and Beate Krickel (TU Berlin, Philosophy).
Literaturverweis:
Boone, Worth, and Gualtiero Piccinini. 2016. “The Cognitive Neuroscience Revolution.” Synthese 193(5):1509–34.
Diese Veranstaltung kann in folgenden Modulen angerechnet werden:
BA KulT PHIL 3
MA-PHIL 2, 3
MA-TGWT PHIL 4
BA-KulT FW 6/MA PHIL FW 27
BA-KulT FW 41
