Why expect causation at all? A pessimistic parallel with neuroscience

Biology and Philosophy 34 (6):1-6 (2019)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In their target article, Lynch, Parke, and O’Malley argue against the quick application of causal, interventionist explanatory frameworks to microbiomes and their purported role in many disparate states, from obesity to anxiety. I think the authors have undersold the force of their argument. A careful consideration of the scope of their claims, made easier by a parallel drawn from the history of explanation in neuroscience, yields a productive pessimism: that causal explanations likely operate at the wrong level of analysis for dynamic, distributed, Quineian entities like the microbiome. That is, we shouldn’t expect causal explanations for microbiomes at all—and this includes the authors’ own “microbiome success story” of C. difficile. Neuroscience, with its own computationally challenging, dynamic entity—the brain—may provide lessons for how to approach something like predictive control over the microbiome.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Can communities cause?Christopher Hunter Lean - 2019 - Biology and Philosophy 34 (6):59.
Experiment, Downward Causation, and Interventionist Levels of Explanation.Veli-Pekka Parkkinen - 2016 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 30 (3):245-261.
Mental causation and the paradoxes of explanation.Karsten R. Stueber - 2005 - Philosophical Studies 122 (3):243-77.
Abstract versus Causal Explanations?Reutlinger Alexander & Andersen Holly - 2016 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 30 (2):129-146.
Explanation in Computational Neuroscience: Causal and Non-causal.M. Chirimuuta - 2018 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (3):849-880.
Pushing brains: Can cognitive neuroscience provide experimental evidence for brain-mind causation?Martin Kurthen - 2010 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 16 (2):5-22.
Causal Relations and Explanatory Strategies in Physics.Andrew Wayne - 2015 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 29 (1):75-89.

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-11-21

Downloads
12 (#929,749)

6 months
1 (#1,042,085)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Javier Gomez-Lavin
Purdue University

Citations of this work

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Modularity of Mind.Robert Cummins & Jerry Fodor - 1983 - Philosophical Review 94 (1):101.
The Brain at Rest: What It Is Doing and Why That Matters.Colin Klein - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (5):974-985.

Add more references