This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Functional Attribution: Meeting the Explanatory Constraint Functional Attribution: Normativity Postscript: Counterpoint Notes References.

A series of explanatory hypotheses are examined under the assumption that the logical structure of function attributions is dependent on the methodological constraints which these hypotheses conform to. Two theses are argued for: (1) Given these methodological constraints, if something has the function of doing Y, then normally it is the only kind of thing that can do Y in that kind of system. (2) What distinguishes function attributions from causal attribution is not that function attributions explain the (...) etiology of the causally efficacious object, as Wright has suggested. The distinction lies rather in that the object's having the effect, which is attributed to it as its function, must figure in the explanation of why it does what it does to achieve that effect. (shrink)

There is an explanatory constraint on practical reasons: practical reasons have to be the kinds of things that we can act for. Some philosophers, notably Bernard Williams, have argued that the explanatory constraint favours internalism about reasons: for an agent to have a reason to x, it is at least a necessary condition that she would, after ideal deliberation, be motivated to x. Internalism suggests that naturalism about reasons is more plausible for, in this view, reasons (...) are psychological states. However, reasons must not only be the kinds of things we can act for, at least some reasons must be good reasons, i.e. normative requirements. Derek Parfit argues that internalist, naturalist accounts cannot capture the normative aspect of reasons. He takes this to be a point in favour of his own externalist, non-naturalist account. I ask first whether Williams' account does fail to account for the normativity of reasons as Parfit argues, and second whether Parfit's externalist account can adequately meet the explanatory constraint. Although I claim that the answer to the first question is yes and the second no, the answer to both questions turns on the nature of practical rationality. My case stands if practical rationality is procedural, and falls if practical rationality is substantive. I argue, however, that the burden of proof is on those who, like Parfit, wish to defend a substantive account of practical rationality. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.24(2) 2005: 97-108. (shrink)

In ‘A modal theory of function’, I gave an argument against all existing theories of function and outlined a new theory. Karen Neander and Alex Rosenberg argue against both my negative and my positive claim. My aim here is not merely to defend my account from their objections, but to (a) very briefly point out that the new account of etiological function they propose in response to my criticism cannot avoid the circularity worry either and, more importantly, to (b) highlight, (...) and attempt to make precise, an important feature of my modal theory that may have been understated in the original paper – that function attributions depend on the explanatory project at hand. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to justify the belief that there are biological normative mechanisms that fulfill non-trivial causal roles in the explanations (as formulated by researchers) of actions and behaviors present in specific systems. One example of such mechanisms is the predictive mechanisms described and explained by predictive processing (hereinafter PP), which (1) guide actions and (2) shape causal transitions between states that have specific content and fulfillment conditions (e.g. mental states). Therefore, I am guided by a specific (...) theoretical goal associated with the need to indicate those conditions that should be met by the non-trivial theory of normative mechanisms and the specific models proposed by PP supporters. In this work, I use classical philosophical methods, such as conceptual analysis and critical reflection. I also analyze selected studies in the field of cognitive science, cognitive psychology, neurology, information theory and biology in terms of the methodology, argumentation and language used, in accordance with their theoretical importance for the issues discussed in this study. In this sense, the research presented here is interdisciplinary. My research framework is informed by the mechanistic model of explanation, which defines the necessary and sufficient conditions for explaining a given phenomenon. The research methods I chose are therefore related to the problems that I intend to solve. In the introductory chapter, “The concept of predictive processing”, I discuss the nature of PP as well as its main assumptions and theses. I also highlight the key concepts and distinctions for this research framework. Many authors argue that PP is a contemporary version of Kantianism and is exposed to objections similar to those made against the approach of Immanuel Kant. I discuss this thesis and show that it is only in a very general sense that the PP framework is neo-Kantian. Here we are not dealing with transcendental deduction nor with the application of transcendental arguments. I argue that PP is based on reverse engineering and abduction inferences. In the second part of this chapter, I respond to the objection formulated by Dan Zahavi, who directly accuses this research framework of anti-realistic consequences. I demonstrate that the position of internalism, present in the so-called conservative PP, does not imply anti-realism, and that, due to the explanatory role played in it by structural representations directed at real patterns, it is justified to claim that PP is realistic. In this way, I show that PP is a non-trivial research framework, having its subject, specific methods and its own epistemic status. Finally, I discuss positions classified as the socalled radical PP. In the chapter “Predictive processing as a Bayesian explanatory model” I justify the thesis according to which PP offers Bayesian modeling. Many researchers claim that the brain is an implemented statistical probabilistic network that is an approximation of the Bayesian 7 rule. In practice, this means that all cognitive processes are to apply Bayes' rule and can be described in terms of probability distributions. Such a solution arouses objections among many researchers and is the subject of wide criticism. The purpose of this chapter is to justify the thesis that Bayesian PP is a non-trivial research framework. For this purpose, I argue that it explains certain phenomena not only at the computational level described by David Marr, but also at the level of algorithms and implementation. Later in this chapter I demonstrate that PP is normative modeling. Proponents of the use of Bayesian models in psychology or decision theory argue that they are normative because they allow the formulation of formal rules of action that show what needs to be done to make a given action optimal. Critics of this approach emphasize that such thinking about the normativity of Bayesian modeling is unjustified and that science should shift from prescriptive to descriptive positions. In a polemic with Shira Elqayam and Jonathan Evans (2011), I show that the division they propose into prescriptivism and Bayesian descriptivism is apparent, because, as I argue, there are two forms of prescriptivism, i.e. the weak and the strong. I argue that the weak version is epistemic and can lead to anti-realism, while the strong version is ontic and allows one to justify realism in relation to Bayesian models. I argue that a weak version of prescriptivism is valid for PP. It allows us to adopt anti-realism in relation to PP. In practice, this means that you can explain phenomena using Bayes' rule. This does not, however, imply that they are Bayesian in nature. However, the full justification of realism in relation to the Bayesian PP presupposes the adoption of strong prescriptivism. This position assumes that phenomena are explained by Bayesian rule because they are Bayesian as such. If they are Bayesian in nature, then they should be explained using Bayesian modeling. This thesis will be substantiated in the chapters “Normative functions and mechanisms in the context of predictive processing” and “Normative mechanisms and actions in predictive processing”. In the chapter “The Free Energy Principle in predictive processing”, I discuss the Free Energy Principle (hereinafter FEP) formulated by Karl Friston and some of its implications. According to this principle, all biological systems (defined in terms of Markov blankets) minimize the free energy of their internal states in order to maintain homeostasis. Some researchers believe that PP is a special case of applying this principle to cognition, and that predictive mechanisms are homeostatic mechanisms that minimize free energy. The discussion of FEP is important due to the fact that some authors consider it to be important for explanatory purposes and normative. If this is the case, then FEP turns out to be crucial in explaining normative predictive mechanisms and, in general, any normative biological mechanisms. To define the explanatory possibilities of this principle, I refer to the discussion of its supporters on the issue they define as the problem of continuity and discontinuity between life and mind. A critical analysis of this discussion and the additional arguments I have formulated have allowed me to revise the explanatory ambitions of FEP. I also reject the belief that this principle is necessary to explain the nature of predictive mechanisms. I argue that the principle formulated and defended by Friston is an important research heuristic for PP analysis. 8 In the chapter “Normative functions and mechanisms in predictive processing”, I start my analyzes by formulating an answer to the question about the normative nature of homeostatic mechanisms. I demonstrate that predictive mechanisms are not homeostatic. I defend the view that a full explanation of normative mechanisms presupposes an explanation of normative functions. I discuss the most important proposals for understanding the normativity of a function, both from a systemic and teleosemantic perspective. I conclude that the non-trivial concept of a function must meet two requirements which I define as explanatory and normative. I show that none of the theories I have invoked satisfactorily meets both of these requirements. Instead, I propose a model of normativity based on Bickhard's account, but supplemented by a mechanistic perspective. I argue that a function is normative when: (1) it allows one to explain the dysfunction of a given mechanism; (2) it contributes to the maintenance of the organism's stability by shaping and limiting possible relations, processes and behaviors of a given system; and when (3) (according to the representational and predictive functions) it enables explaining the attribution of logical values of certain representations / predictions. In such an approach, a mechanism is normative when it performs certain normative functions and when it is constitutive for a specific action or behavior, despite the fact that for some reason it cannot realize it either currently or in the long-term. Such an understanding of the normativity of mechanisms presupposes the acceptance of the epistemic hypothesis. I argue that this hypothesis is not cognitively satisfactory, and therefore the ontic hypothesis should be justified, which is directly related to adopting the position of ontic prescriptivism. For this reason, referring to the mechanistic theory of scientific explanations, I formulate an ontical interpretation of the concept of a normative mechanism. According to this approach, a mechanism or a function is normative when they perform such and such causal roles in explaining certain actions and behaviors. With regard to the normative properties of predictive mechanisms and functions, this means that they are the causes of specific actions an organism carries out in the environment. In this way, I justify the necessity of accepting the ontic hypothesis and rejecting the epistemic hypothesis. The fifth chapter, “Normative mechanisms and actions in predictive processing”, is devoted to the dark room problem and the related exploration-exploitation trade-off. A dark room is the state that an agent could be in if it minimized the sum of all potential prediction errors. I demonstrate that, in accordance with the basic assumption of PP about the need for continuous and long-term minimization of prediction errors, such a state should be desirable for the agent. Is it really so? Many authors believe it is not. I argue that the test of the value of PP is the possibility of a non-trivial solution of this problem, which can be reduced to the choice between active and uncertainty-increasing exploration and safe and easily predictable exploitation. I show that the solution proposed by PP supporters present in the literature does not enable a fully satisfactory explanation of this dilemma. Then I defend the position according to which the full explanation of the normative mechanisms, and, subsequently, the solution to the dilemma of exploration and exploitation, involves reference to the existence of constraints present in the environment. The constraints 9 include elements of the environment that make a given mechanism not only causal but also normative. They are therefore key to explaining the predictive mechanisms. They do not only play the role of the context in which the mechanism is implemented, but, above all, are its constitutive component. I argue that the full explanation of the role of constraints in normative predictive mechanisms presupposes the integration of individual models of specific cognitive phenomena, because only the mechanistic integration of PP with other models allows for a non-trivial explanation of the nature of normative predictive mechanisms that would have a strong explanatory value. The explanatory monism present in many approaches to PP makes it impossible to solve the problem of the dark room. Later in this chapter, I argue that the Bayesian PP is normative not because it enables the formulation of such and such rules of action, but because the predictive mechanisms themselves are normative. They are normative because they condition the choice of such and such actions by agents. In this way, I justify the hypothesis that normative mechanisms make it possible to explain the phenomenon of agent motivation, which is crucial for solving the dark room problem. In the last part of the chapter, I formulate the hypothesis of distributed normativity, which assumes that the normative nature of certain mechanisms, functions or objects is determined by the relations into which these mechanisms, functions or objects enter. This means that what is normative (in the primary sense) is the relational structure that constitutes the normativity of specific items included in it. I suggest that this hypothesis opens up many areas of research and makes it possible to rethink many problems. In the “Conclusion”, I summarize the results of my research and indicate further research perspectives. (shrink)

Crafted within a knowledge-first epistemological framework, Mona Simion’s engaging and wide-ranging work ensures that both the Knowledge Norm of Assertion (KNA) and Classical Invariantism (CI) can be part of a viable and productive research program.Dissatisfied with current strategies on offer in the literature, she successfully counters objections to the pair sourced in “shiftiness intuitions”—intuitions that seem to indicate that mere changes in practical context can impact the propriety of assertions and knowledge attributions. For example, in Keith DeRose’s famous pair of (...) low stakes versus high stakes bank cases, the consequences of Keith’s acting on The bank is open on Saturday if it were false change from trivial in low stakes to catastrophic in high stakes. We are to suppose that the proposition is true, and that Keith has access to the same quantity and quality of evidence for it in both cases. In low stakes, but not in high stakes, we are inclined to think that Keith can appropriately assert to his inquiring wife “The bank is open on Saturday.” In low stakes, Keith’s knowledge ascription “I know that the bank is open on Saturday” strikes us as aptly asserted and true. In high stakes only a knowledge denial on Keith’s part strikes us as aptly asserted and true.If we want to hang on to KNA, it looks like we will have to abandon CI and concede that ‘knows’ or knowledge is sensitive to changes in practical considerations. If we want to retain CI, we can try to say that, while Keith does still know that the bank is open on Saturday in high stakes, he does not have sufficient warrant to properly assert that it is. But such a move seems to run counter to KNA. We appear to be stuck in the Shiftiness Dilemma.Keen to get us out of the dilemma and to preserve the idea that epistemically good thinking and asserting are independent of practical concerns, Simion suggests a strategy that can also be used to protect other epistemic speech-act norms and notions from similar threats of practical shiftiness. She notes that having an impact on the degree of epistemic warrant required is not enough to make a norm an epistemic one. Fair enough. If I am given strong practical reason (a million dollars, or a gun to the head) not to adopt full belief until I have gathered more evidence, there is potentially some nonepistemic norm at work in the demand for further evidence. So it is a live possibility (indeed, a plausible one, as Simion would say) that our intuitions in the Shiftiness Dilemma are being misdescribed: they are tracking all-things-considered propriety of assertion, not epistemic propriety. In high stakes, practical norms override the epistemic norm KNA. Keith’s asserting “The bank is open on Saturday” would be epistemically proper but all-things-considered improper.Simion backs up her account with an etiological-function origin story and typology for the norms of assertion. Here is her characterization of etiological function for traits, artifacts, and actions. E-function.A token of type T has the e-function of type B of producing effect E in a system S iff (1) tokens of T produced E in the past, (2) producing E resulted in benefit of type B in S/S’s ancestors, and (3) producing E’s having B-benefited S’s ancestors contributes to the explanation of why T exists in S.In this schema, norms governing an action are typed by the functions or purposes of the action, which in turn are typed by the benefits the action delivers. The epistemic norm of assertion will be the one that characteristically and reliably enables participants in the practice of assertion to secure its primary epistemic good, which Simion identifies as knowledge (testimonial knowledge in hearers generated under normal conditions by the assertions of knowledgeable speakers). Moves in a practice either directly or indirectly aim at fulfilling the goal of the practice. Assertion is a move in the practice of inquiry, which has the generation of knowledge as its aim. Hence, Simion concludes, assertion aims at generating knowledge.This account helps to explain why, in cases like high stakes, Keith all-things-considered ought not to assert “The bank is open on Saturday,” even though he knows it is true. Prudential norms of assertion override the epistemic KNA, for when multiple functions come into conflict, the ones that are more important to the survival of the organism will generate weightier normative constraints.Simion then applies her account to the general category of constatives—for example, speech acts that express a speaker’s belief and the intention that the hearer form or continue to hold the like belief. Employing the taxonomy of Bach and Harnish, she argues that, as expressions of belief and hence varieties of assertion, constatives are subject to knowledge norms as well. Bach and Harnish identify fifteen different subcategories of constatives, each characterized in terms of the kind of belief and intention they express. The norms governing a species have to be at least as strong as the norms governing the corresponding type. As species of the type assertion, each subcategory, then, is subject to at least the necessary direction of KNA. Ultimately, we arrive at a knowledge norm for every speech act on the list, such as The Knowledge Norm of Conjecture (KNC):One’s conjecture that p is epistemically permissible only if one knows that there is reason, but not sufficient reason, to believe that p. Most of the proposed interpretations of various constatives are on the whole reasonable enough, though J. L. Austin would surely be unhappy to see so many different speech acts fashioned into varieties of assertion. Simion concludes with reflections on conjecturing, telling, and moral assertion.Construing the challenge of shiftiness intuitions in terms of the Shiftiness Dilemma allows Simion to declare success when the compatibility of KNA and CI with the relevant data of intuition is secured. Ensuring empirical adequacy for an explanatory framework is an important step, but pronouncements of victory by way of inference to the best explanation would be premature.Other candidates have been shown to match KNA’s familiar explanatory successes (involving lottery propositions, Moorean statements, etc.). Unlike KNA, alternatives that require only epistemically justified or rational belief or credence can allow that a subject is epistemically proper to assert what they believe when their belief is epistemically rational, even under conditions where there are defeating reasons that they are not in a position to be aware of. Furthermore, such norms seem better suited for philosophical or heated moral discussions where there is little consensus and individuals routinely fail to know that what they assert is true. Simion sounds the alarm that the Shiftiness Dilemma threatens to generalize “to epistemic normativity as a whole” (xi–xii), but norms concerning rational credence seem particularly immune.As Simion notes, the etiological-function model of norms that she proposes could be rebuilt with a different central epistemic aim at its core. Indeed, Millikan-inspired models along these lines are appealed to in other areas in philosophy where the concept of information takes center stage—a concept that may be more amenable to rigorous definition and use in dialogue with the sciences than knowledge. We can wonder, also, what special weight the etiological-function model accords to a knowledge-first perspective on epistemic normativity when the model is malleable in this way.The effectiveness of Simion’s strategy for shielding epistemically good thinking and assertion from practical shiftiness becomes less apparent when we try to apply it to Keith’s belief or judgment that the knowledge ascription/denial he asserts is true. It is unclear whether we are to suppose that, in high stakes, Keith epistemically ought to believe/judge that his asserted knowledge denial is false, but all-things-considered he ought to believe/judge that it is true. We do not have to accept that the knowledge-first, etiological function account of normativity for assertion carries over to belief, of course, but then what progress have we made in accounting for the shiftiness in Keith’s judgment that he knows the bank is open on Saturday in low stakes but not in high stakes?Furthermore, there are other ways to generate problems for fallibilist Classical Invariantists in low versus high stakes pairs of cases. Here is a simplified version of a puzzle from the debate over pragmatic encroachment. Consider low cases where you meet the invariant standards for knowing that p, but your justified confidence falls short of certainty. Among these cases, there must be some where you also meet the invariant standards for knowing that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome. Say, for instance, that you have a machine with a ϕ button, and your machine, which you know to be extremely reliable, tells you what the cost or benefit will be if you push the button and p is true versus if p is false. If you ϕ (push the ϕ button) and p is true, you win one hundred dollars; if you ϕ and p is false, you lose one hundred dollars. You face the choice: to ϕ or not to ϕ. Since you know that p, and you know that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, you rationally conclude that ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, and hence that you ought to ϕ. If you know which choice of action has the best overall outcome, that is what you all-things-considered should do. Now consider high, where the quantity and quality of your evidence for p is the same, and you still know that your machine is extremely reliable. This time, however, the machine tells you that if you push ϕ and p is true, you win one hundred dollars, but if you push ϕ and p is false, you lose $1 million. Your rational confidence in p is not high enough to justify pushing the button, so you rationally conclude that you ought not to ϕ. Since in high nothing evidentially relevant has changed (all that has changed is the machine informing you of a new, more serious cost of acting on p if p is false), the classical invariantist will have to say that you still know that ϕ, and you still know that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome. So, according to CI, you should still be able to reason properly as follows: you know that p, and you know that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, so you know that ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, hence you ought to ϕ. Classical invariantists owe us an explanation concerning how we can avoid the paradox here without conceding that knowledge is practically shifty. (shrink)

What is the role (or roles) of mathematical theory in ecology and evolutionary biology? How does the construction of such theory advance our understanding? The lack of clear answers to this pair of questions has been a source of controversy both within the sciences themselves, and in the philosophical discussions of these sciences as well. In an attempt to shed some light on these issues, I look at what some biologists have had to say on the matter and at some (...) particular examples. I then draw some morals about the constraints on a successful philosophical treatment of the problem and on the limitations of current philosophical approaches to this type of theoretical explanation. (shrink)

I use Carl Gillett’s much heralded dimensioned theory of realization as a platform to develop a plausible part–whole theory. I begin with some basic desiderata for a theory of realization that its key terms should be defined and that it should be explanatory. I then argue that Gillett’s original theory violates these conditions because its explanatory force rests upon an unspecified “in virtue of” relation. I then examine Gillett’s later version that appeals instead to theoretical terms tied to (...) “mechanisms.” Yet I argue that it too violates the desiderata, since it defines realization for mechanisms in terms of two undefined ideas whose explanatory credentials have not been established—“implementation” and “grounds.” Thus I drop those ideas in favor of an explicit constraint that the parts and properties provide a mechanistic explanation. I also distinguish a special mechanistic theory from a preferred general theory that incorporates other kinds of part–whole explanations that target causal powers or capacities. The result is a theory that has the explanatory virtues of mechanistic theories as well as a broader scope desired by Gillett. I also compare the result to a similar idea from Robert Cummins that has been neglected in recent discussions of realization, namely, his general property analysis rather than his functional analysis. Finally, I defend the preferred general theory against possible objections that attempt to show a conflict between metaphysical demands on a theory of realization versus facts about good scientific explanation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: I explain and rebut four objections to the claim that attributions of intentional attitudes are normative judgments, all stemming, directly or indirectly, from the widespread assumption that the normative supervenes on the non-normative.

This paper is concerned with a quality space model as an account of the intelligibility of explanation. I argue that descriptions of causal or functional roles (Chalmers Levine, 2001) are not the only basis for intelligible explanations. If we accept that phenomenal concepts refer directly, not via descriptions of causal or functional roles, then it is difficult to find role fillers for the described causal roles. This constitutes a vagueness constraint on the intelligibility of explanation. Thus, I (...) propose to use quality space models to develop a systematic way of studying different modalities of perception and feelings, e.g., visual and auditory perception, pain, and emotion, that can reveal some structural relations among these modalities. It might turn out that topological explanation can be more intelligible than causal explanation in this case. I discuss two accounts of a quality space for color vision (Clark, 2000; Rosenthal, 2010) and propose how to construct a quality space for pain. Daniel Kostic is Associated Researcher at Berlin School of Mind and Brain. (shrink)

In The Explanatory Dispensability of Idealizations, Sam Baron suggests a possible strategy enabling the indispensability argument to break the symmetry between mathematical claims and idealization assumptions in scientific models. Baron’s distinction between mathematical and non-mathematical idealization, I claim, is in need of a more compelling criterion, because in scientific models idealization assumptions are expressed through mathematical claims. In this paper I argue that this mutual dependence of idealization and mathematics cannot be read in terms of symmetry and that Baron’s (...) non-causal notion of mathematical difference-making is not effective in justifying any symmetry-breaking between mathematics and idealization. The function of making a difference that Baron attributes to mathematics cannot be referred to physical facts, but to the features of quantities, such as step lengths or time intervals taken into account in the models. It appears, indeed, that it does not follow from Baron’s argument that idealizations do not help to carry the explanatory load at least for two reasons: mathematics is not independent of idealizations in modelling and idealizations help mathematics to carry the explanatory load of a model in different degrees. (shrink)

In The Explanatory Dispensability of Idealizations, Sam Baron suggests a possible strategy enabling the indispensability argument to break the symmetry between mathematical claims and idealization assumptions in scientific models. Baron’s distinction between mathematical and non-mathematical idealization, I claim, is in need of a more compelling criterion, because in scientific models idealization assumptions are expressed through mathematical claims. In this paper I argue that this mutual dependence of idealization and mathematics cannot be read in terms of symmetry and that Baron’s (...) non-causal notion of mathematical difference-making is not effective in justifying any symmetry-breaking between mathematics and idealization. The function of making a difference that Baron attributes to mathematics cannot be referred to physical facts, but to the features of quantities, such as step lengths or time intervals taken into account in the models. It appears, indeed, that it does not follow from Baron’s argument that idealizations do not help to carry the explanatory load at least for two reasons: mathematics is not independent of idealizations in modelling and idealizations help mathematics to carry the explanatory load of a model in different degrees. (shrink)

Visual modules can be viewed as expressions of a marked analytic attitude in the study of vision. In vision psychology, this attitude is accompanied by hypotheses that characterize how visual modules are thought to operate in perceptual processes. Our thesis here is that there are what we call “intrinsic reasons” for the presence of such hypotheses in a vision theory, that is, reasons of a deductive kind, which are imposed by the partiality of the basic terms in the definition of (...) a module, and by peculiar characteristics of those terms. Specifically, we discuss three hypotheses of functional attributes: successive stages in the action of modules, residual indeterminacy of their effects, and the role of prior constraints. For each of the three, we indicate its occurrence in perceptual psychology, explain corresponding intrinsic reasons, and illustrate such reasons with examples. (shrink)

Content nonconceptualism and State conceptualism are motivated by different readings of what I want to call here Bermúdez’s conditions on content-attribution (2007). In one read- ing, what is required is a neo-Fregean content to solve problems of cognitive significance at the nonconceptual level (Toribio, 2008; Duhau, 2011). In the other reading, what is required is a neo-Russellian or possible-world content to account for how conspecifics join attention and cooperate, contemplating the same things from different perspectives in the same perceptual (...) field. The solution to this apparent contradiction is the rejection of the real content view and the adherence to what I call here Content-pragmatism: there is no such thing as the content of experience. According to content pragmatism, “proposition” is not as real as a mental state, but rather, it is a term of art that semanticists use, as a matter of theoretical convenience, to classify mental states. What follows from Content-pragmatism is Content- pluralism: there are so many contents that are required to meet Bermúdez’s condition on content attribution. Because both criticism and the defense of State conceptualism overlook the real scope of Bermúdez’s condition on content attribution, they are ineffective. In this paper, I will argue that the opposition between State and Content nonconceptualism is a real one, but only a relative one, that is, relative to the opposite constraints to be met. If we want to solve the problems of cognitive significance, the best we can do is to let the content of experience be modeled as neo-Fregean content, namely, a compound of nonconceptual modes of presentation of objects and properties. In this case, Content-nonconceptualism prevails. In contrast, if we want to account for how conspecifics join attention to the same entities in the same perceptual field from different perspectives, the best we can do is let the content of experience be modeled either as a structured Russellian proposition or as a function from possible worlds to truth-values. In this case, State-nonconceptualism prevails. (shrink)

Content nonconceptualism and State conceptualism are motivated by constraints of content-attribution that pull in opposite directions, namely, the so-called cognitive significance requirement and what I would like to call here the same representing constraint. The solution to this apparent contradiction is the rejection of the real content view and the adherence to what I call here Content-pragmatism. In CPR, “proposition” is not as real as a mental state, but rather is a term of art that semanticists use, as (...) a matter of theoretical convenience, to classify mental states. What follows from CPR is Content-pluralism : there is no such a thing as the content of experience. Because both criticisms and the defense of SNC overlook CPR and CP, they are ineffective. In this paper, I will argue that the opposition between SNC and CNC is a real one, but only a relative one, that is, relative to the opposite constraints to be met, namely CSR and SRR. If we want to meet CSR, the best we can do is to let the content of experience be modeled as neo-Fregean content, namely a compound of non-conceptual modes of presentation of objects and properties. In this case, CNC prevails. In contrast, if we want to meet SRR, the best we can do is let the content of experience be modeled either as a Russellian compound of objects and properties or as a function from possible worlds to truth-values. In this case, SNC prevails. (shrink)

Given the tremendous burst of activity in the philosophy of science during the last quarter century, the number of books by trained philosophers dealing with the logic of biology is surprisingly small. Simon’s book resembles Morton Beckner’s The Biological Way of Thought in its comprehensive ambitions: "trying to discover what, if anything, is distinctive about biological science, its concepts, and its mode of explaining." The most obvious difference of the two books is Simon’s long central chapter on "Theories, Models, and (...) the Concept of the Gene," which deals with the history of genetics from Mendel’s predecessors to the successors of Watson and Crick. Beckner paid little explicit attention to the history of biology. Another difference lies in Beckner’s dogged assessment of all problems in the logic of biology from the perspective of what he called the Humean Pattern of Explanation—a detailed and difficult variant of the approach of Hempel, Oppenheim, and Nagel. Simon’s philosophical position is more flexible than Beckner’s. He provides an acceptable review of the literature of the last decade and a half; some of his conclusions are most interesting—even when incompletely supported by his arguments; and the utility of his book is insured by the fact that it is necessary to go back over twelve years to find another with which it can be compared. The first chapter contains a very effective critique of J. J. C. Smart’s thesis that biology is no more an autonomous science than is electrical engineering, but is merely applied physics and chemistry. Smart had argued from the grounds that all biological generalizations implicitly refer to terrestrial evolution and are not truly universal, and Simon demonstrates the general lack of success of all efforts to demonstrate a difference in kind between so-called laws of nature and empirical generalizations of the sort found in biology. The second chapter continues in this same vein, drawing an interesting contrast between phylogenetic explanation in biology and the explanation of individual events in human history, and claiming that ‘explanatory’ status may be granted to accounts which do not meet the requirements of the deductive-nomological model, as in the case of Darwin’s theories of the geographical distribution of plants and animals and the persistence of rudimentary organs. The author’s negative reaction to much of the recent philosophical literature concerning the role of functional analysis in biology seems particularly well placed. Following Hempel, most philosophers writing in the past ten years have regarded the occurrence of the item whose function is in question as the event to be explained. Simon correctly points out that in the biological literature, statements indicating the presence of this item are part of the explanans, usually one component in an explanation of the normal functioning of the organism. He also insists that functional or teleological statements cannot effectively be replaced by nonteleological ones. A functional account is one that relates an entity to the role it plays in an organized system. In the first of several serene non-sequiturs which mar the latter half of this book, Simon insists that the above account shows that the notion of function is essentially an "extrinsic" one and that teleological principles generally cannot be used to account for experience. No better argument than an appeal to Kant’s authority backs up this conclusion. The third chapter deals with the recent history of genetics; its summary makes the claim that "at no time during this history was it correct to say that one model was replaced by another one; rather, the development appears to have been one involving successive correction and refining of earlier conceptions. There has been no revolution: geneticists have always succeeded in either repelling or accommodating critical attacks on the model." The evidence presented earlier in the chapter confers some plausibility on this conclusion, but no more: Simon takes no notice of the controversy surrounding Kuhn and the notion of scientific revolutions, and provides no criteria by which to distinguish "revolutions" from "accommodations." The precise nature of the methodological continuity to be found in the history of genetics is crucial for the view that "biology, or at least genetics, must be regarded as incapable of yielding a complete explanation of the phenomena that come within its purview; if the ultimate principles appealed to are not those of chemistry and physics and hence essentially nonbiological, the explanation cannot be regarded as complete." The text does not clearly indicate the extent to which the author agrees with the statement just quoted; perhaps he only attributes it to "many biologists" impressed by the successes of molecular genetics. It is clear the Simon regards something he calls the "Cartesian attitude" as pervasive in biology. "Biologists are committed to attempting to explain the phenomena of life in terms of the nonliving... The property of being alive or being associated with a living system is simply not treated as a logical primitive within biological science." But this seems to take us back full circle—to the position of Smart, that biology is no more than applied physics and chemistry. Simon disagrees with Smart. How does he stand vis-a-vis this last statement of the Cartesian spirit he finds so pervasive in biology? I think he disagrees with it, but it is very hard to tell. Perhaps the answer is that the resolution of the issue of the autonomy of biology is a pragmatic matter, relative to a complex set of needs and commitments: the sorts of things that determine life styles, political attitudes, and religious points of view, as well as the growth of scientific understanding. The question of the precise configuration of Simon’s pragmatism remains very vague indeed—a consequence of his over use of the style of impersonal attribution rather than direct assertion. Simon says generally sane and familiar things about Biology and the Idea of Progress and about Biology and Ethics. The really startling assertion of the penultimate chapter, that "consciousness" is neither a biological nor a behavioral predicate, and that its foundations are essentially moral and legal, is unfortunately supported by no argument whatsoever. Instead, the reader is urged to examine two of the author’s previous articles.—E. M. (shrink)

Dawson's provocative comment makes three connected points: (1) to be falsifiable, theories that assume flexible features must constrain their feature creation and mechanisms, (2) the explanatory power of such functional theories is rooted in the properties of their underlying physical mechanisms, and (3) to derive the relevant constraints of feature creation from these mechanisms, it is critical to avoid the scope slip. We will argue here that even though we agree with (1) and (2), (3) confuses two different (...) levels of analysis of computational systems: the functional identification and the physical implementation of relevant constraints. (shrink)

Despite decades of controversy, functionalism continues to be a lively research tradition in the social sciences. Furthermore, social scientists who reject Parsonian functionalism and its variants frequently make liberal use of functional explanations. Yet, neither social scientists nor philosophers have reached any consensus on when and where functional accounts are legitimate. Critics doubt that functionalism is really explanatory or testable; advocates are unfortunately vague on their claims and the evidence for them. In what follows I try to (...) clarify what functionalism entails, discuss some ways in which functional hypotheses can be confirmed, and evaluate criticisms. While I think much functionalism is bad science, I hope to show that the problem is not one of principle but of practice.Social scientists use the term “functionalism” in diverse ways. At times the term refers to a specific theoretical movement in sociology and anthropology—the movement identified with Malinowski and Parsons. (shrink)

We provide an economic interpretation of the practice consisting in incorporating risk measures as constraints in an expected prospect maximization problem. For what we call the infimum of expectations class of risk measures, we show that if the decision maker (DM) maximizes the expectation of a random prospect under constraint that the risk measure is bounded above, he then behaves as a “generalized expected utility maximizer” in the following sense. The DM exhibits ambiguity with respect to a family of (...) utility functions defined on a larger set of decisions than the original one; he adopts pessimism and performs first a minimization of expected utility over this family, then performs a maximization over a new decisions set. This economic behaviour is called “maxmin under risk” and studied by Maccheroni (Econ Theory 19:823–831, 2002). As an application, we make the link between an expected prospect maximization problem, subject to conditional value-at-risk being less than a threshold value, and a non-expected utility economic formulation involving “loss aversion”-type utility functions. (shrink)

This chapter examines a question at the intersection of the mind-body problem and the analysis of mental representation: the question of the direction of constraint between psychological fact and theory and neurophysiological or physical fact and theory. Does physiology constrain psychology? Are physiological facts more basic than psychological facts? Or do psychological theories, including representational analyses, guide and constrain physiology? Despite the antireductionist bent of functionalist positions, it has generally been assumed that physics or physiology are more basic than, (...) and hence contraining on, psychological fact and theory. Section 1 sketches the intuitions that would lead one to adopt such a view. The chapter then examines whether one-sided constraint has been and should be found in practice. It argues that philosophical analysis of psychological science shows that rigorous functional analyses can be carried out in advance of physiological knowledge. Indeed, in the investigation of sensory perception, ascription of psychological function leads the way in the individuation and investigation of neurophysiology. We shall look at several cases in visual perception (binocular single vision, stereopsis, and color vision), in which psychological results have provided a basis for physiological research. It is tempting to think that the psychological functions that enable physiological investigation would be Wrightian teleofunctions. It is, thus, natural to suppose that psychologists and neurophysiologists have proceeded with a conception of the purpose of a given neural structure, and have viewed neural anatomy and neural activity as the substrate for or instantiation of various properly psychological functions. For example, neuroscientists surely understand that the eye and visual system are for seeing, rather than for detecting an electric discharge in the vicinity of the retina (which sighted humans can do, via the subjective light produced by such discharges), and they guide their investigations of the eye, visual cortex, and intervening pathways accordingly. As a result, they will view rods and cones in the eye as photoreceptors, even though these structures will produce "output" (will respond with hyperpolarization) to other forms of energy. At the same time, there may be cases in which the functions that have guided research are in fact precisely determined input-output functions, whose teleofunctional status is absent or misdescribed. I will argue that in the case of trichromatic color matches, the psychological function involved is an input-output function, and that this result has implications for the description of color vision as a psychological capacity. (shrink)

The thesis examines the philosophical implications of the computational theory of early vision developed by Marr. According to Marr, early visual processes consist of sequences of "modular" computational mechanisms. These processes rely on functional relations between rates of change in stimulus magnitudes which result from certain contingent, global properties--natural constraints--of the physical world. ;Marr argues that explanations of early vision must have three distinct levels of description: computational, algorithmic and physical. In Chapter 1 I defend the explanatory significance (...) of this distinction in levels. In fulfilling its role in describing the dependence of visual processes on natural constraints, the computational level forms an autonomous level of description in the sense that it is unaffected by the computational steps at the other levels. ;In Chapter 2 I discuss the implications of natural constraints for the issues of individualism and methodological solipsism. I conclude that Mart's theory is nonindividualistic in the sense that visual content does not supervene on neural properties. However, this merely reflects the fact that different computational theories may be selected for the same system. Importantly, Marr's theory does not violate methodological solipsism since interpretations within theories must supervene on neural properties. ;In Chapter 3 I argue from the results of Chapters 1 and 2 that psychological explanation does not reduce to neurophysiology. This conclusion does not follow from the functionalist argument against physicalism, which is based on an incorrect account of computational theories. Rather the conclusion reflects the explanatory incompleteness of neurophysiological theories given the autonomous role of the computational level. ;In Chapter 4 I look in detail at the arguments for a "language of thought" as they apply to early vision. I distinguish two versions of the language of thought hypothesis, one weaker than the other. I conclude that the stronger version, which claims that a cognitive system is "program-using", is false of early vision because of the role of natural constraints. The weaker claim that cognitive processes employ symbolic transformations is true of the computational-level theory of early vision, but there is insufficient evidence to establish the claim at the algorithmic level. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to investigate what epistemic role, if any, do appeals to representations play in cognitive neuroscience. I suggest that while at present they seem to play something in between a minimal and a substantive explanatory role, there is reason to believe that representations have a substantial contribution to the construction of neuroscientic explanations of cognitive phenomena.

The view that special science properties are multiply realizable has been attacked in recent years by Shapiro, Bechtel and Mundale, Polger, and others. Focusing on psychological and neuroscientific properties, I argue that these attacks are unsuccessful. By drawing on interspecies physiological comparisons I show that diverse physical mechanisms can converge on common functional properties at multiple levels. This is illustrated with examples from the psychophysics and neuroscience of early vision. This convergence is compatible with the existence of general constraints (...) on the evolution of cognitive systems, and does not involve any ad hoc typing of coarse-grained higher level properties. The mechanisms that realize these common higher level properties are really distinct by the criteria laid down by critics of multiple readability. Finally, I present an account of how such functional properties might constitute special science kinds by playing a central explanatory role in a range of cognitive models. Behavioral science kinds in particular are the functionally defined constituents picked out by our most successful models of the multilevel systems and mechanisms that explain cognitive capacities. (shrink)

The essays collected in this special issue explore what legitimacy means for actors and institutions that do not function like traditional states but nevertheless wield significant power in the global realm. They are connected by the idea that the specific purposes of non-state actors and the contexts in which they operate shape what it means for them to be legitimate and so shape the standards of justification that they have to meet. In this introduction, we develop this guiding methodology further (...) and show how the special issue’s individual contributions apply it to their cases. In the first section, we provide a sketch of our purpose-dependent theory of legitimacy beyond the state. We then highlight two features of the institutional context beyond the state that set it apart from the domestic case: problems of feasibility and the structure of international law. (shrink)

There is a strong philosophical intuition that direct study of the brain can and will constrain the development of psychological theory. When this intuition is tested against case studies on the neurophysiology and psychology of perception and memory, it turns out that psychology has led the way toward knowledge of neurophysiology. An abstract argument is developed to show that psychology can and must lead the way in neuroscientific study of mental function. The opposing intuition is based on mainly weak arguments (...) about the fundamentality or objectivity of physics or physiology in relation to psychology. -/- Philosophy of Science, Vol. 67, Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers (Sep., 2000). (shrink)

In opposition to the etiological conception of biological functions, this paper attempts to show that explanations by natural selection, far from justifying functional attributions, presuppose them, and that these attributions may be understood by appealing to a particular specification of the systemic conception of function, that is, the biological conception of function. This paper argues that the etiological conception of function is based on two fundamental errors: confusing the concept of function with the concept of adaptation, and confusing selectional (...) explanations with functional analyses. This explains the inappropriate demand that those analyses include an etiological explanatory content and make possible the distinction between adaptations and exaptations. (shrink)

According to historical theories of biological function, a trait's function is determined by natural selection in the past. I argue that, in addition to historical functions, ahistorical functions ought to be recognized. I propose a theory of biological function which accommodates both. The function of a trait is the way it contributes to fitness and fitness can only be determined relative to a selective regime. Therefore, the function of a trait can only be specified relative to a selective regime. Apart (...) from its desirable pluralism, only this view of relational function can support the function/accident and function/malfunction distinctions commonly thought to be part of the concept of function. Furthermore, only relational function correctly characterizes the explanatory consequences of function attributions in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This target article presents a new computational theory of explanatory coherence that applies to the acceptance and rejection of scientific hypotheses as well as to reasoning in everyday life, The theory consists of seven principles that establish relations of local coherence between a hypothesis and other propositions. A hypothesis coheres with propositions that it explains, or that explain it, or that participate with it in explaining other propositions, or that offer analogous explanations. Propositions are incoherent with each other if (...) they are contradictory, Propositions that describe the results of observation have a degree of acceptability on their own. An explanatory hypothesis is acccpted if it coheres better overall than its competitors. The power of the seven principles is shown by their implementation in a connectionist program called ECHO, which treats hypothesis evaluation as a constraint satisfaction problem. Inputs about the explanatory relations are used to create a network of units representing propositions, while coherende and incoherence relations are encoded by excitatory and inbihitory links. ECHO provides an algorithm for smoothly integrating theory evaluation based on considerations of explanatory breadth, simplicity, and analogy. It has been applied to such important scientific cases as Lovoisier's argument for oxygen against the phlogiston theory and Darwin's argument for evolution against creationism, and also to cases of legal reasoning. The theory of explanatory coherence has implications for artificial intelligence, psychology, and philosophy. (shrink)

A body of work in ethics and epistemology has advanced a collectivist view of virtues. Collectivism holds that some social groups can be subjects in themselves which can possess attributes such as agency or responsibility. Collectivism about virtues holds that virtues are among those attributes. By focusing on two different accounts, I argue that the collectivist virtue project has limited prospects. On one such interpretation of institutional virtues, virtue-like features of the social collective are explained by particular group-oriented features of (...) individual role-bearers that are elicited by institutional structures or goals. On another account of groups as moral agents unbound by formal institutional constraints, to the extent that group characteristics meet the collectivist requirement, they fail to stand up as virtues in the substantive sense of a character trait. These two positions’ respective drawbacks and insights support a non-collectivist conclusion: Where there is a substantive virtue of some social group, it consists only in certain group-specific attitudes and motives of individuals qua members of that group. I end by outlining some risks in adopting collectivism about virtues as an explanatory or normative doctrine, and suggesting that we can abandon it without embracing an equally undesirable individualism in virtue theory. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists widely hold that artifact categories – just like biological categories – are individuated by their function. But recent empirical findings in psychology question this assumption. My proposal is to suggest a way of squaring these findings with the central role function should play in individuating artifact categories. But in order to do so, we need to give up on the standard account of artifact function, according to which function is fixed by design, and replace it with a (...) more context-sensitive account, according to which function attributions depend on the explanatory context and, as a result, categorization also depends on the explanatory context, just as the empirical findings from psychology suggest. I argue that the recent ‘modal theory of function’ originally proposed to explain biological function, is capable of providing such an account of artifact function. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of explanatory constraints and their role in scientific explanation. This analysis clarifies main characteristics of explanatory constraints, ways in which they differ from “standard” explanatory factors, and the unique roles they play in scientific explanation. While current philosophical work appreciates two main types of explanatory constraints, this paper suggests a new taxonomy: law-based constraints, mathematical constraints, and causal constraints. This classification helps capture unique features of constraint types, the different roles (...) they play in explanation, and it includes causal constraints, which are often overlooked in this literature. (shrink)

Recent work by historians and philosophers has called attention to the complexity of modern experimental physics and its intricate relation to interpretive and explanatory theory (Franklin 1987, Hacking 1983, Galison 1987 and 1989, Pickering 1984 and 1987). One point of general agreement has been that the contexts of discovery and justification often significantly overlap and do not uniformly correlate with experiment and theory. Instead, intended applications, instrumentation, experiment, phenomenological description, explicative models, and explanatory theory all act both as (...) incentives and as constraints during the production of scientific knowledge. The present paper investigates how one node of this network operates in the domain of solid state physics and chemistry. In particular, a case study analysis of how models function in transition metal oxide research provides ample support for several conclusions.First, it must be emphasized that the term “theory” can have misleading connotations in this domain if it is allowed to imply a single and foundational level of explanatory generality. (shrink)

Conversational contextualism states that the truth-conditions expressed by knowledge-attributing sentences vary relative to the context of utterance. This context is determined partly by different standards the person involved must meet in order to make the sentence true. I am concerned with the question of how these standards can be raised or lowered, and especially what happens to the standards and the conversational score when parties in a discussion push the conversational scores in different directions. None of the available options for (...) an answer seems satisfying. I argue that this results from a misunderstanding of the characteristics of the situation at hand. (shrink)

The tidal-wave theory is inspired by the particular morphology of the cerebellar cortex. It elegantly attributes function to the anisotropy of the cerebellar wiring and the geometry of Purkinje cell dendrites. In this commentary, physiological considerations are used to elaborate temporal and spatial constraints of the tidal-wave theory. It is shown, first, that limitations of temporal precision in the cortical inputs to the mammalian cerebellum delimit the spatial resolution of an input sequence (i.e., the minimal distance along the parallel fibers (...) which can detect sequential input) to the range of a millimeter at best. Second, temporal characteristics of Purkinje cell postsynaptic potentials are argued to predict a distance of at least several millimeters along the parallel fiber beam in order to generate a sequence in the cerebellar output. It is concluded that the implementation of tidal waves as a general principle of cerebellar function is questionable as there exist cerebelli too small to match these constraints. (shrink)

In this paper I address the current debate on ontic versus epistemic conceptualizations of mechanistic explanation in the mechanisms literature. Illari recently argued that good explanations are subject to both ontic and epistemic constraints: they must describe mechanisms in the world in such fashion that they provide understanding of their workings. Elaborating upon Illari’s ‘integration’ account, I argue that causal role function discovery of mechanisms and their components is an epistemic prerequisite for achieving these two aims. This analysis extends Illari’s (...) account in important ways, putting more pressure on ontic readings of mechanistic explanation and providing an answer to the question how ontic and epistemic constraints on mechanistic explanation are related. I argue these point in terms of cases on memory research drawn from neuroscience and research on extinct neurogenetic mechanisms from early nervous systems biology. (shrink)

Some eliminativists have predicted that a developed neuroscience will eradicate the principles and theoretical kinds (belief, desire, etc.) implicit in our ordinary practices of mental state attribution. Prevailing defenses of common-sense psychology infer its basic integrity from its familiarity and instrumental success in everyday social commerce. Such common-sense defenses charge that eliminativist arguments are self-defeating in their folk psychological appeal to the belief that eliminativism is true. I argue that eliminativism is untouched by this simple charge of inconsistency, and (...) introduce a different dialectical strategy for arguing against the eliminativist. In keeping with the naturalistic trend in the sociology and philosophy of science, I show that neuroscientists routinely rely on folk psychological procedures of intentional state attribution in applying epistemically reliable standards of scientific evaluation. These scientific contexts place ordinary procedures of attribution under greater stress, producing evidence of folk psychological success that is less equivocal than the evidence in mundane settings. Therefore, the dependence of science on folk psychology, when combined with an independently plausible explanatory constraint on reduction and an independently motivated notion of theoretical stress, allows us to reconstitute the charge of (neurophilic) eliminativist inconsistency in a more sophisticated form. (shrink)

The same categorical phenomena which are attributed to hard grammatical constraints in some languages continue to show up as statistical preferences in other languages, motivating a grammatical model that can account for soft constraints. The effects of a hierarchy of person (1st, 2nd 3rd) on grammar are categorical in some languages, most famously in languages withError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMap inverse systems, but also in languages with person restrictions on passivization. In Lummi, for example, the person (...) of the subject argument cannot be lower than the person of a nonsubject argument. If this would happen in the active, passivization is obligatory; if it would happen in the passive, the active is obligatory (Jelinek and Demers 1983). These facts follow from the theory of harmonic alignment in OT: constraints favoring the harmonic association of prominent person (1st, 2nd) with prominent syntactic function (subject) are hypothesized to be present as subhierarchies of the grammars of all languages, but to vary in their effects across languages depending on their interactions with other constraints (Aissen 1999). There is a statistical reflection of these hierarchies in English. The same disharmonic person/argument associations which are avoided categorically in languages like Lummi by making passives either impossible or obligatory, are avoided in the SWITCHBOARD corpus of spoken English by either depressing or elevating the frequency of passives relative to actives. The English data can be grammatically analyzed within the stochastic OT framework (Boersma 1998, Boersma and Hayes 2001) in a way which provides a principled and unifying explanation for their relation to the crosslinguistic categorical person effects studied by Aissen (1999). (shrink)

In recent work, Andrew T. Forcehimes and Robert B. Talisse correctly note that G.A. Cohen’s fact-insensitivity thesis, properly understood, is explanatory. This observation raises an important concern. If fact-insensitive principles are explanatory, then what role can they play in normative deliberations? The purpose of my paper is, in part, to address this question. Following David Miller, I indicate that on a charitable understanding of Cohen’s thesis, an explanatory principle explains a justificatory fact by completing an otherwise logically (...) incomplete inference. As a result, the explanatory role such a principle plays is inseparable from its status as a (not necessarily successful) justificatory reason. With this interpretation in hand, I then proceed to argue that Lea Ypi’s and Robert Jubb’s recent criticisms fail to undermine Cohen’s thesis, and that fact-insensitive principles, once discovered, are especially helpful for purposes of deliberation in circumstances characterized by changing and changeable feasibility constraints. (shrink)

This paper critiques the view that consciousness is likely something extra which accompanies or is produced by neural states, something beyond the functional cognitive processes realized in the brain. Such a view creates the `explanatory gap'between function and nomenology which many suppose cannot be filled by functionalist theories of mind. Given methodological considerations of simplicity, ontological parsimony, and theoretical conservatism, an alternative hypothesis is recommended, that subjective qualitative experience is identical to certain information-bearing, behaviour-controlling functions, not something which (...) emerges from them. This hypothesis explains the isomorphism between the structure of experience and neural organization, while providing a naturalistic account of qualiait's relational properties of informational states, not a sparate ontology of phenomenal essences. On this functionalist view, the hard, empirical problem of consciousness is to discover precisely which neural functions constitute subjective experience. (shrink)

Moral motivation refers to the psychological causes that motivate or explain moral action. Moral action refers to action that complies with the requirements of morality. In this essay, I lay out alternative views on moral motivation, giving particular attention the way each view conceives of the explanatory link between practical reasoning and moral conduct. In trying to understand this link, philosophers look to moral judgment. The main rival accounts of the relationship between practical reasoning, moral judgment, and moral motivation (...) can be distinguished according to the way in which they respond to two questions: (1) Can a cognitive (i.e., belief-like) state produce in an agent a motivation at time t, without being accompanied by an affective (i.e., emotional or desire-like) state which exists prior to t? (2) Are moral judgments cognitive states or affective states? -/- I shall defend the Humean theory of motivation, or HTM, as the best account of moral motivation. HTM is often called the belief-desire model of action because it explains behavior by citing a combination of a desire for some end and a belief that a certain action is a means to satisfying that desire. The Humean answer to the first question above is that any process of practical reasoning which generates a motivation is necessarily linked to a non-cognitive state. Regarding the second question, Humeans are split between cognitivists and non-cognitivists. Anti-Humeans, on the other hand, hold that moral judgments express cognitive states, and that cognitive states can independently produce motivations via practical reasoning. -/- I offer two arguments in favor of HTM. First, I suggest that Humeanism meets one criterion of theory choice better than anti-Humeanism. This is the continuity constraint. Given that humans and non-humans evolved common ancestors, the continuity constraint advises us to prefer an account of human psychology which can explain how complex human traits evolved from simpler antecedents resembling the traits of non-human animals. Non-human primates, in particular, are capable of acting altruistically toward con-specifics. Altruistic behavior in primates can shed light on an evolutionary precursor to moral action in humans, since morally significant action often involves altruism. I maintain that a Humean theory of motivation offers the best explanation of altruistic behavior in non-human primates. Therefore, by the continuity constraint, HTM should be the preferred model of the psychological mechanisms underlying human moral motivation, unless empirical evidence strongly suggests otherwise. -/- To ward off the objection that anti-Humeanism is warranted due to the vast differences between humans and non-human primates, I offer a second argument for HTM. This is an argument from a criterion of theory choice called Morgan’s Canon. Morgan’s Canon is a standard of theoretical parsimony according to which a psychological mechanism should be attributed to an organism only if it’s the sole mechanism which can cause some behavior. I argue that HTM meets this criterion much better than anti-Humeanism. This is because the special psychological mechanisms which anti-Humeans postulate to explain moral action are not the sole mechanisms which could produce such action. Rather, the Humean belief-desire model could easily be recruited to explain moral action, as well as a broad variety of non-moral actions. (shrink)

Are there certain kinds of memory that impose conditions in communicative exchanges? In this article I address this issue having as a reference case the well known debate between J. Derrida and J. R. Searle. Through the pages of the exchange, Searle appeals to what he conceives as social memory of philosophical tradition and to the memory of his teacher J. L. Austin, as his intellectual legatee and authorized spokesman. On the other hand, Derrida 'stretches' the practice of citation - (...) a procedure normally mentioned as a mnemonic practice. In the exchange, memory is supposed to function as a constraint to the meaning attribution. But can it really play that role? Does any kind of memory constrain the meaning of Searle's words? By reading the Searle-Derrida debate as an exemplary case, and focusing on aspects of Derrida's thought, we argue that the idea of an introspective memory given, which because it appears justifies the formulation of memory beliefs, proves to be intrinsically unreliable. Therefore, we argue that the idea that memory beliefs logically constrain the ascription of meaning is undermined. (shrink)

Aristotle uses two kinds of material cause in his analysis of biological organisms: compositional matter, which persists through their birth and death;and functional matter, which consists of the organs and functional parts out of which biological organisms are made while they are alive. These two kinds of material cause, it has been argued, have quite different explanatory roles: functional matter is required by biological organisms to perform their essential functions,but compositional matter contributes nothing necessary to them (...) and is only responsible for their accidental properties. Against this view, I argue that biological organisms are systematically dependent upon their compositional matter and the latter is responsible for many of their necessary attributes. (shrink)

I introduce functional powers, i.e., causal powers that play the role of functions. In the first section, I characterize functions and present some desiderata for a good theory of functions. In the second section, I make some assumptions about the ontology of powers, teleology and structures-that will be helpful in order to ground my account of functional powers. In the third section, sixteen different types of functional powers are examined. All such types of functional powers will (...) exhaustively contribute to performing all the ontological and explanatory tasks that may be attributed to functions. Finally, in the fourth section, it is shown how my account of functions as functional powers satisfies all the desiderata presented at the outset. (shrink)

Life scientists increasingly rely upon abstraction-based modeling and reasoning strategies for understanding biological phenomena. We introduce the notion of constraint-based reasoning as a fruitful tool for conceptualizing some of these developments. One important role of mathematical abstractions is to impose formal constraints on a search space for possible hypotheses and thereby guide the search for plausible causal models. Formal constraints are, however, not only tools for biological explanations but can be explanatory by virtue of clarifying general dependency-relations and (...) patterning between functions and structures. We describe such situations as constraint-based explanations and argue that these differ from mechanistic strategies in important respects. While mechanistic explanations emphasize change-relating causal features, constraint-based explanations emphasize formal dependencies and generic organizational features that are relatively independent of lower-level changes in causal details. Our distinction between mechanistic and constraint-based explanations is pragmatically motivated by the wish to understand scientific practice. We contend that delineating the affordances and assumptions of different explanatory questions and strategies helps to clarify tensions between diverging scientific practices and the innovative potentials in their combination. Moreover, we show how constraint-based explanation integrates several features shared by otherwise different philosophical accounts of abstract explanatory strategies in biology. (shrink)

The concept of developmental constraint was at the heart of developmental approaches to evolution of the 1980s. While this idea was widely used to criticize neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, critique does not yield an alternative framework that offers evolutionary explanations. In current Evo-devo the concept of constraint is of minor importance, whereas notions as evolvability are at the center of attention. The latter clearly defines an explanatory agenda for evolutionary research, so that one could view the historical shift (...) from ‘developmental constraint’ towards ‘evolvability’ as the move from a concept that is a mere tool of criticism to a concept that establishes a positive explanatory project. However, by taking a look at how the concept of constraint was employed in the 1980s, I argue that developmental constraint was not just seen as restricting possibilities (‘constraining’), but also as facilitating morphological change in several ways. Accounting for macroevolutionary transformation and the origin of novel form was an aim of these developmental approaches to evolution. Thus, the concept of developmental constraint was part of a positive explanatory agenda long before the advent of Evo-devo as a genuine scientific discipline. In the 1980s, despite the lack of a clear disciplinary identity, this concept coordinated research among paleontologists, morphologists, and developmentally inclined evolutionary biologists. I discuss the different functions that scientific concepts can have, highlighting that instead of classifying or explaining natural phenomena, concepts such as ‘developmental constraint’ and ‘evolvability’ are more important in setting explanatory agendas so as to provide intellectual coherence to scientific approaches. The essay concludes with a puzzle about how to conceptually distinguish evolvability and selection. (shrink)

In the field of history of Chinese philosophy, the key points and difficulties in the research on Fang Yizhi are mainly reflected in two ideological lines: one is how the academic pattern of the transition from Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties to the texturalism in the Qing Dynasty happened; the other is how the traditional Chinese humanities accepted the western modern natural sciences and technologies. Relatively speaking, in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, there were fewer academic (...) discussions on the relationship between intellectual thought and natural science and technology, and no universally accepted explanatory paradigm has been put forward yet. To understand the relationship between science and humanities in late Ming and early Qing Dynasty, as well as that between modern western natural science and ancient Chinese traditional thought, Fang Yizhi is a precious object of study. Fang Yizhi's thinking and practice about "things" is a bridge linking the natural world and the human world. “Thing” in Chinese philosophy has both concrete and abstract attributes, including but not limited to the category of “matter” in Western philosophy. Fang Yizhi has always been regarded as an encyclopedic thinker, and his theory of things is extremely rich. The theory and practice of things are the core of Fang Yizhi's philosophy. Fang Yizhi believes that the three religions all hold that the ultimate noumenon itself is "unknowable" and at the same time is the fundamental basis of every single thing, so people can only "study its origin" from the "knowable", that is, the "thing". This train of thought lies in the base of Fang’s thinking when describing and analyzing the relationship between Dao and things, which includes both theories of the universe and the ontology. This paper holds that the basic idea of Fang Yizhi's philosophy on the theory of body and function is that ‘there is no body but there is function’, while on the theory of universe it is that what above Yin and Yang are unknowable. Because the Dao has no body, it has only the function. And because nothing above the Yin and Yang can be understood, people can only use what is below the Yin and Yang such as the principle, qi 氣, image and number, to form the universal principle through the induction of the principle of “things”. Furthermore, Fang Yizhi ascribes the body, mind, nature and destiny to the concept of things, that is to say, he regards the self as the object of rational cognition. In this relationship, "I" is not only the subject of cognition, but also the object of cognition, thus realizing introspection inward. Thirdly, utensils and heaven and earth, that is, man-made objects and natural objects, are external to the self. Although Fang Yizhi also advocated "making" things external to human beings, under the social class system of scholars, peasants, workers and businessmen, he could only engage in the research of the theory of external things, that is, the so-called science of quality and measurement. On the whole, Fang Yizhi's physical research and practice did not go beyond the scope of Chinese traditional natural science, but he was good at summarizing research methods, actively absorbing the contents of western natural science, and put forward correct ideas on many specific natural science issues. Mou Zongsan's discussion on the relationship between existence and activity inspires the author to think about the significance of the theory of “round ∴”. Fang Yizhi drew a series of laws represented by the theory of “round∴” through the induction of the principle of being. Although these laws are derived from existing things, they themselves are not static, but show two levels of active states: one is the internal dynamics of the laws, that is, the constant rotation; the other is that the law derived from the existing things can be applied to the activities of people, considering eternity and change, the right timing and other variable factors. This paper tries to follow the essence of Fang Yizhi's thought to seek for communication and connection between objects and things, between being and activity, between natural science and moral and human ethics. From the perspective of the development of modern and contemporary Chinese philosophy, the study of mind has always occupied an important position, and the corresponding philosophical research of “things” is relatively lacking. In theory, mind and thing are relative and inseparable aspects, and the thoughts on “things” in traditional Chinese thought resources are comparable to the study of mind in terms of diachronic, textual volume and theoretical depth. The rapid development of modern natural science and technology and its challenges to the human world have promoted the deep and lasting reflecting on the problem of things and the relationship between people and things in western philosophy. Scientific rationality invades every aspect of human's life. The transformation of knowledge to practical technology enhances human's ability to control and transform things. Instrumental rationality dominates human's understanding of things, and “things” fall from the meaning world of human's living situation and become the means to meet human's needs. A re-examination of this period in Chinese history, when pre-modern ideas and science and technology first collided, may be helpful to enlighten us to think about the relationship between science and technology and the world of human significance. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that physicalism faces its most serious challenge when it comes to making room for the phenomenal character of psychological experience, its so-called what-it-is-like aspect. The challenge has surfaced repeatedly over the past two decades in a variety of forms. In a particularly striking one, Frank Jackson considers a situation in which Mary, a brilliant scientist who knows all the physical facts there are to know about psychological experience, has spent the whole of her life in a (...) black and white room. He asks, What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a colour television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then it is inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. (Jackson 1986: 130). (shrink)

The purported failures of ergodic theory (seen in its often proved ineptitude to ground a mechanical explanation of thermodynamics) are shown to arise from misconception of the functions served by scientific explanation. In fact, the predictive failures of ergodic theory are precisely its points of greatest physical utility, where genuinely new knowledge about actual physical systems can be obtained, once the links between explanation and reconstructive estimation are recognized.

This paper critiques the new mechanistic explanatory program on grounds that, even when applied to the kinds of examples that it was originally designed to treat, it does not distinguish correct explanations from those that blunder. First, I offer a systematization of the explanatory account, one according to which explanations are mechanistic models that satisfy three desiderata: they must 1) represent causal relations, 2) describe the proper parts, and 3) depict the system at the right ‘level.’ Second, I (...) argue that even the most developed attempts to fulfill these desiderata fall short by failing to appropriately constrain explanatorily apt mechanistic models. -/- *This paper used to be called "The Emperor's New Mechanisms". (shrink)