Explaining the Brain / Edition 1

by Carl F. Craver

Overview

What distinguishes good explanations in neuroscience from bad? Carl F. Craver constructs and defends standards for evaluating neuroscientific explanations that are grounded in a systematic view of what neuroscientific explanations are: descriptions of multilevel mechanisms. In developing this approach, he draws on a wide range of examples in the history of neuroscience (e.g. Hodgkin and Huxleys model of the action potential and LTP as a putative explanation for different kinds of memory), as well as recent philosophical work on the nature of scientific explanation. Readers in neuroscience, psychology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of science will find much to provoke and stimulate them in this book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199299317
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/02/2007
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Carl F. Craver is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis.

Table of Contents

PrefaceChapter 1. Introduction: Starting With Neuroscience1. Introduction2 Explanations in Neuroscience Describe Mechanisms.3. Explanations in Neuroscience are Multilevel4. Explanations in Neuroscience Integrate Multiple Fields5. Criteria of Adequacy for an Account of ExplanationChapter 2. Explanation and Causal Relevance1. Introduction2. How Calcium Explains Neurotransmitter Release3. Explanation and Representation4. The Covering-Law Model5. The Unification Model6. But What About the Hodgkin and Huxley Model? 7. ConclusionChapter 3. Causal Relevance and Manipulation1. Introduction2. The Mechanism of Long-Term Potentiation3. Causation as Transmission3.1. Transmission and Causal Relevance3.2. Omission and Prevention4. Causation and Mechanical Connection5. Manipulation and Causation5.1. Ideal Interventions5.2. Invariance, Fragility, and Contingency5.3. Manipulation and Criteria for Explanation5.4. Manipulation, Omission, and Prevention6. ConclusionChapter 4. The Norms of Mechanistic Explanation1. Introduction2. Two Normative Distinctions3. Explaining the Action Potential4. The Explanandum Phenomenon5. Components6. Activities7. Organization8. Constitutive Relevance8.1. Relevance and the Boundaries of Mechanisms8.2. Interlevel Experiments and Constitutive Relevance8.21. Interference Experiments8.22. Stimulation Experiments8.23. Activation Experiments8.3. Constitutive Relevance as Mutual Manipulability9. ConclusionChapter 5. A Field-Guide to Levels1. Introduction2. Levels of Spatial Memory3. A Field-Guide to Levels3.1. Levels of Science (Units and Products)3.2. Levels of Nature3.21. Causal Levels (Processing and Control)3.22. Levels of Size3.23. Levels of Composition3.231. Levels of Mereology3.232. Levels of Aggregativity3.233. Levels of Mere Material/Spatial Containment3.3. Levels of Mechanisms4. ConclusionChapter 6 Nonfundamental Explanation1. Introduction2. Causal Relevance and Making a Difference3. Contrasts and Switch-Points4. Causal Powers at Higher Levels of Mechanisms5. Causal Relevance among Realized Properties6. ConclusionChapter 7. The Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience1. Introduction2. Reduction and the History of Neuroscience2.1. LTP's Origins: Not a Top-Down Search but Intralevel Integration2.2. The Mechanistic Shift2.3. Mechanism as a Working Hypothesis3. Intralevel Integration and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience3.1. The Space of Possible Mechanisms3.2. Specific Constraints on the Space of PossibleMechanisms3.21. Componency Constraints3.22. Spatial Constraints3.23. Temporal Constraints3.24. Active Constraints3.3. Reduction and the Intralevel Integration of Fields4. Interlevel Integration and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience4.1. What is Interlevel Integration? 4.2. Constraints on Interlevel Integration4.21. Accommodative Constraints4.22. Spatial and Temporal Interlevel Constraints4.23. Interlevel Manipulability Constraints4.3. Mosaic Interlevel Integration5. Conclusion: The Epistemic Function of the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience

Editorial Reviews

"There have been pockets of activity, I would say, but few systematic accounts that explore the field of neuroscience as a whole. Carl Craver's book Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience represents this new direction, and an excellent addition to a burgeoning field it is.... Explaining the Brain is timely, well-written, and meticulously argued.... I highly recommend this text to anyone with any interest in how theories in neuroscience are constructed.... As one of the first in-depth treatments of theory-construction in neuroscience, Craver's book sets the bar high. It will be difficult indeed to surpass this work in the near future."-Valerie Gray Hardcastle, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"Overall, Explaining the Brain is a complete read of thoughtful revelations on the inner workings of neuroscience intermixed with a few temperate insinuations on how its complex and ostensibly unsystematic workings may be unified. In summary, Craver's text is a read which is intense and...undeniably enlightening."—Metpsychology Online Reviews

From the Publisher