Beyond reduction: mechanisms, multifield integration and the unity of neuroscience.
Philosophers of neuroscience have traditionally described interfield integration using reduction models. Such models describe formal inferential relations between theories at different levels. I argue against reduction and for a mechanistic model of interfield integration. According to the mechanistic model, different fields integrate their research by adding constraints on a multilevel description of a mechanism. Mechanistic integration may occur at a given level or in the effort to build a theory that oscillates among several levels. I develop this alternative model using a putative exemplar of reduction in contemporary neuroscience: the relationship between the psychological phenomena of learning and memory and the electrophysiological phenomenon known as Long-Term Potentiation. A new look at this historical episode reveals the relative virtues of the mechanistic model over reduction as an account of interfield integration.
Craver
Carl F
CF
Department of Philosophy, Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA. ccraver@wustl.edu
D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009488:Neurosciences / Q000639:trends*; D010684:Philosophy; D013997:Time Factors