Integrating psychology and neuroscience: functional analyses as mechanism sketches

Synthese 183 (3):283-311 (2011)
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Abstract

We sketch a framework for building a unified science of cognition. This unification is achieved by showing how functional analyses of cognitive capacities can be integrated with the multilevel mechanistic explanations of neural systems. The core idea is that functional analyses are sketches of mechanisms , in which some structural aspects of a mechanistic explanation are omitted. Once the missing aspects are filled in, a functional analysis turns into a full-blown mechanistic explanation. By this process, functional analyses are seamlessly integrated with multilevel mechanistic explanations

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Author Profiles

Gualtiero Piccinini
University of Missouri, St. Louis
Carl F. Craver
Washington University in St. Louis

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Vision.David Marr - 1982 - W. H. Freeman.
The Language of Thought.Jerry A. Fodor - 1975 - Harvard University Press.
Brainstorms.Daniel C. Dennett - 1978 - MIT Press.
Explaining the brain: mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience.Carl F. Craver - 2007 - New York : Oxford University Press,: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press.

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