B&LdeJ1 Theoretical Issues in Psychology Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Mind for Psychologists

B&LdeJ2 3 kinds of explanations Reduction Levels of explanation Reasons and causes Explanatory pluralism Chapter 2 Kinds of explanations

B&LdeJ3 Explanation Explanation is answering to a ‘why’ question. Three kinds of explanations: 1) Nomological explanation (D-N model) answers ‘why’ by subsumption under a general law (‘covering law’): sciences. 2) Hermeneutic understanding (‘Verstehen’) answers ‘why’ by reconstructing context, explicating meaning and experience: humanities. 3) Functional explanation answers ‘why’ by finding the function (‘what is it for’); mechanistic explanation: biology (engineering); biological psychology.

B&LdeJ4 Nomological explanation law 1 …………law n condition 1 … condition n event (fact) explanans explanandum Subsuming an event (fact) under a general law. Or deducing an explanandum from an explanans. Prediction logically equals explanation. Problem: doesn’t work for motives, reasons and actions.

B&LdeJ5 Nomological explanation Example: L1: Frustration causes aggression L2: Football supporters whose club lost are frustrated C1: These supporters’ football club lost E: These football supporters are aggressive

B&LdeJ6 Hermeneutic understanding Understanding and explicating human behavior and texts. Describing meaningful relations in context. Interpreting individual cases (no laws). Motives and reasons (not causes). Actions (not movements). Hermeneutic circle of whole and parts. Problem: no objectivity, not verifiable or falsifiable

B&LdeJ7 Explaining Natural sc. Time-spatial events Causes Nomothetical Object / objectivism Method-oriented Generalising over objective facts Experimental, biological psychology Understanding Social sc./humanities Actions Reasons (motives) Idiographical Subject / subjectivism Meaning-oriented Unique events Persons experience Client-centered therapy, psychoanalysis

B&LdeJ8 Reasons and causes in social science Explaining or understanding behavior? Action (rational, goal-directed, meaningful,motivated). Or Movement (mechanical, causal, determined). Solution: multiple levels of explanation, understanding and causal explanation can coexist.

B&LdeJ9 Functional explanations What an item does, what goal it serves; not what it is (made of). Teleology (goal-directedness). The presence of a trait is explained by its function, e.g., mammals have a heart to pump blood. Characteristic for biology: adaptive functions selected in evolution. Evolutionary psychology: function of jealousy, cheater detection, etc. (see Ch. 9.2).

B&LdeJ10 Functional explanations The presence of a trait is explained by its function. Adaptation (not physical causation, not interpretation of meaning). How system works, its design and functioning (no laws, no causes, no predictions). Problem: danger of cheap, circular, pseudo- explanation (adaptationism).

B&LdeJ11 Mechanistic explanation Extension of functional explanation. A phenomenon is explained by the orchestrated functioning of the component parts of a mechanism. E.g., heart (mechanism) pumping blood (phenomenon) by muscles and valves (components) together. Interlevel: lower level of components explains higher level phenomenon.

B&LdeJ12 Function Etiological: the trait is selected in the past for a specific effect:  evolutionary explanation. Causal role: the contribution a trait makes to the capacity of the whole system:  systemic, engineering explanation.

B&LdeJ13 Functionalism Is a materialistic notion of mind Behaviorism: no mental terms and things; only observables. Mind-brain Identity theory: mind is brain; mental terms have to be reduced to brain terms. Functionalism: materialism without reductionism.

B&LdeJ14 Functionalism A mental process is a functional organisation of a machine (e.g., brain), an ‘abstract’ organisation, can be realised in different kinds of hardware. ‘Token materialism’: every function is realised in something material. No ‘type materialism’: realisation in different kinds of material objects (computers, brains). Therefore no reduction to neurophysiology.

B&LdeJ15 Behaviorism (behavior) Identity theory (mind=brain) Functionalism: ‘1st cognitive Revolution’ (cognition) ‘2nd cognitive revolution’ (cognition, brain & behavior) 1913 – ca1950 ca – – present Materialism in history

B&LdeJ16 Two forms of mind materialism Type materialism of the Identity theory: ‘I’m afraid when typical brain cells are firing’ Token materialism of functionalism: ‘I’m afraid when my cognitive system is in a certain functional state’

B&LdeJ17 The type, the class: students The tokens: student A student B Type and token

B&LdeJ18 Problems of type materialism (IT) according to functionalists We have insufficient knowledge of brains. Autonomy of psychology, no reduction (identity) of psychological to neural processes. IT is too ‘chauvinistic’: only human brains can show intelligence; but how about a chess computer?

B&LdeJ19 Functionalism Mental states are functional states of physical systems. Functions have a causal role (cause other mental states and behavior). Functions are materially though multiply realised. Implementation is irrelevant for explanation. Liberalism: computers, animals, aliens can show intelligence.

B&LdeJ20 Criticism of biologically-oriented Functionalists This is machine functionalism: function is stripped of goal-directedness and adaptation. Therefore: teleological functionalism; biological functions, not abstracted from implementation or environment.

B&LdeJ21 Reduction and reductionism Reduction: explanatory strategy Explain complex phenomena by reducing to elements; chain of ‘why’ and ‘because’ going down from everyday macro-objects to elementary particles. Reductionism: ideology Reality is nothing but matter in motion (‘nothing buttery’), e.g., pain is firing of certain neurons; e.g., altruism is nothing but the blind instinct, programmed by a selfish gene.

B&LdeJ22 Theory reduction Theory reduction: deducing a higher level theory from more basic theories plus bridge laws (extension of D-N explanation): e.g., deduce thermodynamics (temperature and pressure) from statistical mechanics (molecules). Bridge laws connect theories, identifying terms (things) across theories (e.g., temperature is average kinetic energy of gas molecules): e.g., associative learning deduced from synaptic potentiation; Long Term and Short Term Memory deduced from LTP (biochemistry); ‘neural alphabet’ (Kandel).

B&LdeJ23 Classical reduction D Deducing higher level science from lower level; requires connectability (bridge laws) and deducibility sociology  psychology  neurofysiology  physics complex  simple. ‘Unified science’ (positivism): same kind of observations, same kind of explanations everywhere in science, ultimately ‘ideal physics’. Basic theory incorporates higher level theory e.g., Mendelian genetics subsumed under biochemistry (DNA).

B&LdeJ24 Classical reduction Deducing higher level science from lower level, connected by bridge laws; smooth incorporation of reduced (old) in reducing (new) theory. Problem: Old theory usually false, concepts do not refer. New theory corrects old, meaning of concepts changes. Therefore, no bridge laws, no deduction. Classical reduction fails as account of real scientific progress works. Then: eliminativism : drop old theory (and its world view); or functionalism : non-reductive materialism, autonomy.

B&LdeJ25 Non-reductive materialism Multiple realisation: classical reduction impossible in neuro-psychology: no bridge laws (type identities) between mind and brain. Supervenience: Mental processes determined by (dependent on) material processes. No change in mental states without change in neural process (i.e., no disembodied mind). Compatible with functionalism as theory about the mind: autonomy for psychology, no reduction; but also materialism, no dualism.

B&LdeJ26 Supervenience: the mental and the neural neural2neural3 Neural mental neural1 mental neural no reduction determination

B&LdeJ27 Reduction vs elimination Reduction: identification of higher level phenomenon with lower level. Retains ontology: the reduced phenomenon really exists e.g., water is H 2 O; temperature is kinetic energy; e.g., pain is (identical with) firing of certain neurons. Problem: old theory false, meaning changes: no bridge laws, no reduction. Eliminativism: replacing higher level entities and theories by more fundamental ones. Replaces ontology: higher level entities do not really exist e.g., talk of neural processes replaces ‘pain’, ‘consciousness’, ‘meaning’ etc.

B&LdeJ28 New wave reductionism, eliminativism Responds to failure of classical reduction: higher level eliminated. Old reduced theory is to some degree false, obsolete, or incomplete. Old reduced theory to some degree corrected or even entirely replaced by lower level reducing theory. Functional, psychological theories only approximate, coarse descriptions. Cognitive phenomena can better be explained by neuroscience.

B&LdeJ29 Reduction vs levels Reduction in D-N-model: unification, psychology is neuroscience. Eliminativism: psychology replaced by neuro- science: these are one-level stories. Alternative: multiple levels of explanation: explanatory pluralism, co-evolution of theories at different levels.

B&LdeJ30 W hen classical reduction fails 1.Autonomy (functionalism), or 2.Elimination (more or less correction of the reduced theory), or 3.Explanatory pluralism (McCauley) coexisting theories, mutually influencing each other top-down and bottom-up.

B&LdeJ31 Explanatory pluralism Multiple levels of explanation coexist and coevolve. No autonomous levels (unlike functionalism), but mutual selection pressure. No reduction or elimination.