Contents
353 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 353
  1. Artifact's ontology.C. R. Braida - manuscript
    This paper aims to defend a theory of artifacts based on the concept of field of action as an alternative to functionalist, intentionalist, and double-nature theories. The proposed theory is realist about the existence of entities that are artifacts and praxiological about the nature of such entities. The basis for the theory is the concept of action. The concepts of field of action and of participants in a field of action, such as agents, supports and objects, are introduced by abstraction (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Abstraction, Multiple Realizability, and the Explanatory Value of Omitting Irrelevant Details.Matthew C. Haug - manuscript
    Anti-reductionists hold that special science explanations of some phenomena are objectively better than physical explanations of those phenomena. Prominent defenses of this claim appeal to the multiple realizability of special science properties. I argue that special science explanations can be shown to be better, in one respect, than physical explanations in a way that does not depend on multiple realizability. Namely, I discuss a way in which a special science explanation may be more abstract than a competing physical explanation, even (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. Mixed-grain Property Collaboration: Reconstructing Multiple Realization after the Elimination of Levels.Robert D. Rupert - manuscript
  4. (1 other version)Are Acids Natural Kinds?Pieter Thyssen - manuscript
    Are acids natural kinds? Or are they merely relevant kinds? Although acidity has been one of the oldest and most important concepts in chemistry, surprisingly little ink has been spilled on the natural kind question. I approach the question from the perspective of microstructural essentialism. After explaining why both Brønsted acids and Lewis acids are considered functional kinds, I address the challenges of multiple realization and multiple determination. Contra Manafu and Hendry, I argue that the stereotypical properties of acids are (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. (4 other versions)Out of Nowhere: Introduction: the emergence of spacetime.Nick Huggett & Christian Wuthrich - 2021
    This is a chapter of the planned monograph "Out of Nowhere: The Emergence of Spacetime in Quantum Theories of Gravity", co-authored by Nick Huggett and Christian Wüthrich and under contract with Oxford University Press. (More information at www<dot>beyondspacetime<dot>net.) This chapter introduces the problem of emergence of spacetime in quantum gravity. It introduces the main philosophical challenge to spacetime emergence and sketches our preferred solution to it.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. (2 other versions)Understanding the new reductionism: The metaphysics of realization and reduction by functionalism.Carl Gillett - forthcoming - In de Joong & Schouten (eds.), Rethinking Reduction. Blackwell.
  7. (2 other versions)Levels of Description and Levels of Reality: A General Framework.Christian List - forthcoming - In Alastair Wilson & Katie Robertson (eds.), Levels of Explanation. Oxford University Press.
    This expository paper presents a general framework for representing levels and inter-level relations. The framework is intended to capture both epistemic and ontological notions of levels and to clarify the sense in which levels of explanation might or might not be related to a levelled ontology. The framework also allows us to study and compare different kinds of inter-level relations, especially supervenience and reduction but also grounding and mereological constitution. This, in turn, enables us to explore questions such as whether (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. (1 other version)Are Acids Natural Kinds?Pieter Thyssen - 2024 - Foundations of Chemistry 26 (2):225-253.
    Are acids natural kinds? Or are they merely relevant kinds? Although acidity has been one of the oldest and most important concepts in chemistry, surprisingly little ink has been spilled on the natural kind question. I approach the question from the perspective of microstructural essentialism. After explaining why both Brønsted acids and Lewis acids are considered functional kinds, I address the challenges of multiple realization and multiple determination. Contra Manafu and Hendry, I argue that the stereotypical properties of acids are (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. (1 other version)The Empirical Correlation of Mental and Bodily Phenomena.Grace Andrus de Laguna & Joel Katzav - 2023 - In Joel Katzav, Dorothy Rogers & Krist Vaesen (eds.), Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers. Cham: Springer. pp. 209-215.
  10. The Puzzling Resilience of Multiple Realization.Thomas W. Polger & Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2023 - Minds and Machines 33 (2):321-345.
    According to the multiple realization argument, mental states or processes can be realized in diverse and heterogeneous physical systems; and that fact implies that mental state or process kinds cannot be identified with particular kinds of physical states or processes. More specifically, mental processes cannot be identified with brain processes. Moreover, the argument provides a general model for the autonomy of the special sciences. The multiple realization argument is widely influential, but over the last thirty years it has also faced (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Polger and Shapiro on Realization and Multiple Realization.Ken Aizawa - 2022 - Review of Metaphysics 76 (2):325-344.
    Abstract:Polger and Shapiro have two principal takes on realization: An individual being a member of a kind is an instance of realization, and a kind being a member of a kind is an instance of realization. Both of these conceptions of realization suffer from serious objections. The broader conclusion that emerges from these many flaws is that, while their versions of realization and multiple realization are implausible, this does nothing to undermine the viability of more recent versions of nonreductive physicalism (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  12. The multiple realization of human color vision revisited.Ken Aizawa - 2022 - Frontiers in Psychology 13.
    Over the last 25 years, there has been a concerted effort to settle questions about multiple realization by bringing detailed scientific evidence to bear. Ken Aizawa and Carl Gillett have pursued this scientific approach to multiple realization with a precise theory and applications. This paper reviews the application of the Dimensioned approach to human color vision, addressing objections that have appeared in the literature.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. (1 other version)Introduction: Levels of Reality.Meir Hemmo & Orly Shenker - 2022 - In Meir Hemmo, Stavros Ioannidis, Orly Shenker & Gal Vishne (eds.), Levels of Reality in Science and Philosophy: Re-Examining the Multi-Level Structure of Reality. Springer.
    We give a general background describing how the notion of levels of reality comes about in contemporary nonreductive approaches to the special sciences, what the notion of levels means in these approaches, its role in our scientific outlook of the world, and why it is important.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  14. Why Functionalism Is a Form of ‘Token-Dualism’.Meir Hemmo & Orly R. Shenker - 2022 - In Meir Hemmo, Stavros Ioannidis, Orly Shenker & Gal Vishne (eds.), Levels of Reality in Science and Philosophy: Re-Examining the Multi-Level Structure of Reality. Springer.
    We present a novel reductive theory of type-identity physicalism, which is inspired by the foundations of statistical mechanics as a general theory of natural kinds. We show that all the claims mounted against type-identity physicalism in the literature don’t apply to Flat Physicalism, and moreover that this reductive theory solves many of the problems faced by the various non-reductive approaches including functionalism. In particular, we show that Flat Physicalism can account for the appearance of multiple realizability in the special sciences, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  15. Conceptual reductions, truthmaker reductive explanations, and ontological reductions.Savvas Ioannou - 2022 - Synthese 200 (4):1-26.
    According to conceptual reductive accounts, if properties of one domain can be conceptually reduced to properties of another domain, then the former properties are ontologically reduced to the latter properties. I will argue that conceptual reductive accounts face problems: either they do not recognise that many higher-level properties are correlated with multiple physical properties, or they do not clarify how we can discover new truthmakers of sentences about a higher-level property. Still, there is another way to motivate ontological reduction, the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Grace de Laguna’s Analytic and Speculative Philosophy.Joel Katzav - 2022 - Australasian Philosophical Review 6 (1):6-25.
    This paper introduces the philosophy of Grace Andrus de Laguna in order to renew interest in it. I show that, in the 1910s and 1920s, she develops ideas and arguments that are also found playing key roles in the development of analytic philosophy decades later. Further, I describe her sympathetic, but acute, criticism of pragmatism and Heideggerian ontology, and situate her work in the tradition of American, speculative philosophy. Before 1920, we will see, de Laguna appeals to multiple realizability to (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  17. Multiple Realization and Evolutionary Dynamics: A Fitness-Based Account.Graciela Kuechle & Diego Ríos - 2022 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (1):149-164.
    Multiple realization occurs when a natural kind is variably realized at more basic levels and the common physical structure of the realizers is not essential for supporting nomological statements. It has been suggested that this phenomenon may be an outcome of natural selection acting over multiple realizers that perform an adaptive function. In this paper, we make the following contributions. First, we present a revision of this model, characterized by stricter equilibrium conditions and superior explanatory power. Second, we present a (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  18. Does Neuroplasticity Support the Hypothesis of Multiple Realizability?Amber Maimon & Meir Hemmo - 2022 - Philosophy of Science 89 (1):107-127.
    It is commonly maintained that neuroplastic mechanisms in the brain provide empirical support for the hypothesis of multiple realizability. We show in various case studies that neuroplasticity stems from preexisting mechanisms and processes inherent in the neural structure of the brain. We argue that not only does neuroplasticity fail to provide empirical evidence of multiple realization, its inability to do so strengthens the mind-body identity theory. Finally, we argue that a recently proposed identity theory called Flat Physicalism can be enlisted (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  19. Bayesian theories, visual perceptual states, and multiple realizability.Leo Mares - 2022 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 42 (3):158-166.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. Can Multiple Realisation be Explained?Alexander Franklin - 2021 - Philosophy 96 (1):27-48.
    Multiple realisation prompts the question: how is it that multiple systems all exhibit the same phenomena despite their different underlying properties? In this paper I develop a framework for addressing that question and argue that multiple realisation can be reductively explained. I illustrate this position by applying the framework to a simple example – the multiple realisation of electrical conductivity. I defend my account by addressing potential objections:contra Polger and Shapiro, Batterman, and Sober, I claim that multiple realisation is commonplace, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  21. A challenge to the second law of thermodynamics from cognitive science and vice versa.Meir Hemmo & Orly Shenker - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):4897-4927.
    We show that the so-called Multiple-Computations Theorem in cognitive science and philosophy of mind challenges Landauer’s Principle in physics. Since the orthodox wisdom in statistical physics is that Landauer’s Principle is implied by, or is the mechanical equivalent of, the Second Law of thermodynamics, our argument shows that the Multiple-Computations Theorem challenges the universal validity of the Second Law of thermodynamics itself. We construct two examples of computations carried out by one and the same dynamical process with respect to which (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  22. Flat Physicalism.Meir Hemmo & Orly Shenker - 2021 - Theoria 88 (4):743-764.
    This paper describes a version of type identity physicalism, which we call Flat Physicalism, and shows how it meets several objections often raised against identity theories. This identity theory is informed by recent results in the conceptual foundations of physics, and in particular clar- ifies the notion of ‘physical kinds’ in light of a conceptual analysis of the paradigmatic case of reducing thermody- namics to statistical mechanics. We show how Flat Physi- calism is compatible with the appearance of multiple realisation (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  23. Unity of Science.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2021 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Unity of science was once a very popular idea among both philosophers and scientists. But it has fallen out of fashion, largely because of its association with reductionism and the challenge from multiple realisation. Pluralism and the disunity of science are the new norm, and higher-level natural kinds and special science laws are considered to have an important role in scientific practice. What kind of reductionism does multiple realisability challenge? What does it take to reduce one phenomenon to another? How (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (9 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  24. Degrees of Freedom.Pieter Thyssen & Sylvia Wenmackers - 2021 - Synthese 198 (11):10207-10235.
    Human freedom is in tension with nomological determinism and with statistical determinism. The goal of this paper is to answer both challenges. Four contributions are made to the free-will debate. First, we propose a classification of scientific theories based on how much freedom they allow. We take into account that indeterminism comes in different degrees and that both the laws and the auxiliary conditions can place constraints. A scientific worldview pulls towards one end of this classification, while libertarianism pulls towards (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  25. The many problems of multiple realization.Kenneth Aizawa - 2020 - American Philosophical Quarterly 57 (1):3-16.
    This paper has two principal goals. The first is to set out a bit of conceptual cartography, mapping out a number of distinct conceptual issues that are frequently conflated in the vast literature on multiple realization. The second is to review very briefly how work by Carl Gillett and myself attempts to address a few of the many problems of multiple realization. One of these is explaining what Jerry Fodor apparently took to be mysterious, namely, how multiple realization of properties (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  26. The Meta-Dynamic Nature of Consciousness.John A. Barnden - 2020 - Entropy 22.
    How, if at all, consciousness can be part of the physical universe remains a baffling problem. This article outlines a new, developing philosophical theory of how it could do so, and offers a preliminary mathematical formulation of a physical grounding for key aspects of the theory. Because the philosophical side has radical elements, so does the physical-theory side. The philosophical side is radical, first, in proposing that the productivity or dynamism in the universe that many believe to be responsible for (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  27. Multiple Realization in Systems Biology.Wei Fang - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (4):663-684.
    Thomas Polger and Lawrence Shapiro claim that unlike human-made artifacts cases of multiple realization in naturally occurring systems are uncommon. Drawing on cases from systems biology, I argue t...
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  28. Multiple Realization in Systems Biology.Wesley Fang - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (4):663–684.
    Polger and Shapiro (2016) claim that unlike human-made artifacts cases of multiple realization in naturally occurring systems are uncommon. Drawing on cases from systems biology, I argue that multiple realization in naturally occurring systems is not as uncommon as Polger and Shapiro initially thought. The relevant cases, which I draw from systems biology, involve generalizable design principles called network motifs which recur in different organisms and species and perform specific functions. I show that network motifs with entirely different underlying causal (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  29. Bayesian Networks and Causal Ecumenism.David Kinney - 2020 - Erkenntnis 88 (1):147-172.
    Proponents of various causal exclusion arguments claim that for any given event, there is often a unique level of granularity at which that event is caused. Against these causal exclusion arguments, causal ecumenists argue that the same event or phenomenon can be caused at multiple levels of granularity. This paper argues that the Bayesian network approach to representing the causal structure of target systems is consistent with causal ecumenism. Given the ubiquity of Bayesian networks as a tool for representing causal (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  30. Multiple realization and compositional variation.Kevin Morris - 2020 - Synthese 197 (6):2593-2611.
    It has often been thought that compositional variation across systems that are similar from the point of view of the special sciences provides a key point in favor of the multiple realization of special science kinds and in turn the broadly nonreductive consequences often thought to follow from multiple realization. Yet in a series of articles, and culminating in The Multiple Realization Book, Tom Polger and Larry Shapiro argue that an account of multiple realization demanding enough to yield such nonreductive (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  31. Multiple Realizability from a Causal Perspective.Lauren N. Ross - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (4):640-662.
    This article examines the multiple realizability thesis within a causal framework. The beginnings of this framework are found in Elliott Sober’s “Multiple Realizability Argument against Reduction,”...
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  32. Theories of Multiple Realization.Lawrence Shapiro - 2020 - American Philosophical Quarterly 57 (1):17-30.
    Philosophers look to the realization relation as a way to make sense of the possibility that special science kinds are physical, yet not reducible to kinds in physics. A realized property fails to reduce because it can be realized in multiple ways, thus blocking its identification with lower-level properties. One prominent analysis of realization, subset realization, distinguishes multiple realizers on the basis their “left-over powers,” that is, those that don’t contribute to the individuative powers of the realizer. However, I argue, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  33. Where Do You Get Your Protein? Or: Biochemical Realization.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (3):799-825.
    Biochemical kinds such as proteins pose interesting problems for philosophers of science, as they can be studied from the points of view of both biology and chemistry. The relationship between the biological functions of biochemical kinds and the microstructures that they are related to is the key question. This leads us to a more general discussion about ontological reductionism, microstructuralism, and multiple realization at the biology-chemistry interface. On the face of it, biochemical kinds seem to pose a challenge for ontological (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (13 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  34. Networks, intentionality and multiple realizability: Not enough to block reductionism.Markus I. Eronen & Laura F. Bringmann - 2019 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42.
    Borsboom, Cramer, and Kalis propose that the network approach blocks reductionism in psychopathology. We argue that the two main arguments, intentionality and multiple realizability of mental disorders, are not sufficient to establish that mental disorders are not brain disorders, and that the specific role of networks in these arguments is unclear.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  35. Universality Reduced.Alexander Franklin - 2019 - Philosophy of Science 86 (5):1295-1306.
    The universality of critical phenomena is best explained by appeal to the Renormalisation Group (RG). Batterman and Morrison, among others, have claimed that this explanation is irreducible. I argue that the RG account is reducible, but that the higher-level explanation ought not to be eliminated. I demonstrate that the key assumption on which the explanation relies – the scale invariance of critical systems – can be explained in lower-level terms; however, we should not replace the RG explanation with a bottom-up (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  36. Multiple Realizability and Biological Modality.Rami Koskinen - 2019 - Philosophy of Science 86 (5):1123-1133.
    Critics of multiple realizability have recently argued that we should concentrate solely on actual here-and-now realizations that are found in nature. The possibility of alternative, but unactualized, realizations is regarded as uninteresting because it is taken to be a question of pure logic or an unverifiable scenario of science fiction. However, in the biological context only a contingent set of realizations is actualized. Drawing on recent work on the theory of neutral biological spaces, the paper shows that we can have (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  37. On the neurobiological redefinition of psychiatric symptoms: elimination, reduction, or what?Maël Lemoine - 2019 - Synthese 196 (6):2117-2133.
    Because biologization of psychiatric constructs does not involve derivation of laws, or reduce the number of entities involved, the traditional term of ‘reduction’ should be replaced. This paper describes biologization in terms of redefinition, which involves changing the definition of terms sharing the same extension. Redefinition obtains through triangulation and calibration, that is, respectively, detection of an object from two different spots, and tweaking parameters of detection in order to optimize the picture. The unity of the different views of the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  38. Elimination, not Reduction: Lessons from the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) and Multiple Realisation.Tuomas K. Pernu - 2019 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42:e22.
    The thesis of multiple realisation that Borsboom et al. are relying on should not be taken for granted. In dissolving the apparent multiple realisation, the reductionist research strategies in psychopathology research (the Research Domain Criteria [RDoC] framework, in particular) are bound to lead to eliminativism rather than reductionism. Therefore, Borsboom et al. seem to be aiming at a wrong target.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  39. Why the social sciences are irreducible.Tobias Hansson Wahlberg - 2019 - Synthese 196 (12):4961-4987.
    It is often claimed that the social sciences cannot be reduced to a lower-level individualistic science. The standard argument for this position is the Fodorian multiple realizability argument. Its defenders endorse token–token identities between “higher-level” social objects and pluralities/sums of “lower-level” individuals, but they maintain that the properties expressed by social science predicates are often multiply realizable, entailing that type–type identities between social and individualistic properties are ruled out. In this paper I argue that the multiple realizability argument for explanatory (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (7 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  40. Multiple realization and multiple “ways” of realization: A progress report.Kenneth Aizawa - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 68 (C):3-9.
    One might have thought that if something has two or more distinct realizations, then that thing is multiply realized. Nevertheless, some philosophers have claimed that two or more distinct realizations do not amount to multiple realization, unless those distinct realizations amount to multiple “ways” of realizing the thing. Corey Maley, Gualtiero Piccinini, Thomas Polger, and Lawrence Shapiro are among these philosophers. Unfortunately, they do not explain why multiple realization requires multiple “ways” of realizing. More significantly, their efforts to articulate multiple (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  41. How (Not) to Theorize About Multiple Realization.David Barrett - 2018 - Metaphilosophy 49 (5):674-690.
    Though multiple realization has been an important concept in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology for more than fifty years, it has not been until quite recently that anyone proposed an actual theory of what multiple realization is. This paper argues that the most dominant current theories of multiple realization are unacceptable. It does so by mainly arguing for a particular methodology for theorizing about multiple realization. Rather than being mostly constrained by intuitions, as theorizing about folk notions (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  42. The Multiple Realization Book By Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro.Umut Baysan - 2018 - Analysis 78 (1):177-180.
    © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] fish propel their bodies under water in order to travel from one place to another, are they doing the same kind of thing that we do when we swim? If swimming is to be identified with exactly the kind of thing that we do when we swim, we should seriously consider the following question: Do fish swim? Believe (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  43. The Multiple Realization Book By Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro. [REVIEW]Umut Baysan - 2018 - Analysis 78 (1):anx078.
    _The Multiple Realization Book_By PolgerThomas W. and ShapiroLawrence A.Oxford University Press, 2016. xiv + 258 pp. £71.14 cloth, £18.99 paper.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  44. Some concerns with Polger and Shapiro’s view.Mark Couch - 2018 - Philosophical Psychology 31 (3):419-430.
    This paper provides some responses to Tom Polger and Larry Shapiro’s The Multiple Realization Book (2016). I first provide a description of the authors’ framework for thinking about multiple realization and the conditions they claim this involves. I explain what I think they get right and what they get wrong with this framework. After this, I then consider a few examples of multiple realization they discuss and the interpretations they offer. While I am sympathetic to several things they say about (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  45. The case for multiple realization in biology.Wei Fang - 2018 - Biology and Philosophy 33 (1-2):3.
    Polger and Shapiro argue that their official recipe, a criterion for judging when the phenomenon of multiple realization exists, renders MR less widespread than its proponents have assumed. I argue that, although Polger and Shapiro’s criterion is a useful contribution, they arrive at their conclusion too hastily. Contrary to Polger and Shapiro, I claim that the phenomenon of multiple realization in the biological world, judged by their criterion, is not as scarce as they suggest. To show this, an updated official (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  46. (2 other versions)Online Overview Article: Reductionism.Jan G. Michel - 2018 - SDA, Digital Humanities Project, Oxford University.
  47. Fish and microchips: on fish pain and multiple realization.Matthias Michel - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 176 (9):2411-2428.
    Opponents to consciousness in fish argue that fish do not feel pain because they do not have a neocortex, which is a necessary condition for feeling pain. A common counter-argument appeals to the multiple realizability of pain: while a neocortex might be necessary for feeling pain in humans, pain might be realized differently in fish. This paper argues, first, that it is impossible to find a criterion allowing us to demarcate between plausible and implausible cases of multiple realization of pain (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   21 citations  
  48. Mental Causation via Neuroprosthetics? A Critical Analysis.Tuomas K. Pernu - 2018 - Synthese (12):5159-5174.
    Some recent arguments defending the genuine causal efficacy of the mental have been relying on empirical research on neuroprosthetics. This essay presents a critical analysis of these arguments. The problem of mental causation, and the basic idea and results of neuroprosthetics are reviewed. It is shown how appealing to the research on neuroprosthetics can be interpreted to give support to the idea of mental causation. However, it does so only in a rather deflationary sense: by holding the mental identical with (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  49. The Swapping Constraint.Henry Ian Schiller - 2018 - Minds and Machines 28 (3):605-622.
    Triviality arguments against the computational theory of mind claim that computational implementation is trivial and thus does not serve as an adequate metaphysical basis for mental states. It is common to take computational implementation to consist in a mapping from physical states to abstract computational states. In this paper, I propose a novel constraint on the kinds of physical states that can implement computational states, which helps to specify what it is for two physical states to non-trivially implement the same (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  50. Ethical Reductionism.Neil Sinhababu - 2018 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 13 (1):32-52.
    Ethical reductionism is the best version of naturalistic moral realism. Reductionists regard moral properties as identical to properties appearing in successful scientific theories. Nonreductionists, including many of the Cornell Realists, argue that moral properties instead supervene on scientific properties without identity. I respond to two arguments for nonreductionism. First, nonreductionists argue that the multiple realizability of moral properties defeats reductionism. Multiple realizability can be addressed in ethics by identifying moral properties uniquely or disjunctively with properties of the special sciences. Second, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (9 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
1 — 50 / 353