Artículo
Functional Analyses, Mechanistic Explanations and Explanatory Tradeoffs
Fecha de publicación:
04/2013
Editorial:
International Association for Cognitive Science
Revista:
Journal of Cognitive Science
ISSN:
1598-2327
Idioma:
Inglés
Tipo de recurso:
Artículo publicado
Clasificación temática:
Resumen
Recently, Piccinini and Craver have stated three theses concerning the relations between functional analysis and mechanistic explanation in cognitive sciences: No Distinctness: functional analysis and mechanistic explanation are explanations of the same kind; Integration: functional analysis is a kind of mechanistic explanation; and Subordination: functional analyses are unsatisfactory sketches of mechanisms. In this paper, I argue, first, that functional analysis and mechanistic explanations are sub-kinds of explanation by scientific (idealized) models. From that point of view, we must take into account the tradeoff between the representational/explanatory goals of generality and precision that govern the practice of model-building. In some modeling scenarios, it is rational to maximize explanatory generality at the expense of mechanistic precision. This tradeoff allows me to put forward a problem for the mechanist position. If mechanistic modeling endorses generality as a valuable goal, then Subordination should be rejected. If mechanists reject generality as a goal, then Integration is false. I suggest that mechanists should accept that functional analysis can offer acceptable explanations of cognitive phenomena.
Palabras clave:
Functional Analysis
,
Mechanistic Explanation
,
Model Explanation
,
Generality
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Articulos(SEDE CENTRAL)
Articulos de SEDE CENTRAL
Articulos de SEDE CENTRAL
Citación
Barberis, Sergio Daniel; Functional Analyses, Mechanistic Explanations and Explanatory Tradeoffs; International Association for Cognitive Science; Journal of Cognitive Science; 14; 3; 4-2013; 229-251
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