Explaining the Brain : Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience

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. Contents......Page 17 List of Figures and Tables......Page 20 1. Introduction......Page 22 2. Explanations in Neuroscience Describe Mechanisms......Page 23 3. Explanations in Neuroscience are Multilevel......Page 30 4. Explanations in Neuroscience Integrate Multiple Fields......Page 37 5. Criteria of Adequacy for an Account of Explanation......Page 40 1. Introduction......Page 42 2. How Calcium Explains Neurotransmitter Release......Page 43 3. Explanation and Representation......Page 49 4. The Covering-Law Model......Page 55 5. The Unification Model......Page 61 6. But What About the Hodgkin and Huxley Model?......Page 70 7. Conclusion......Page 82 1. Introduction......Page 84 2. The Mechanism of Long-Term Potentiation......Page 86 3. Causation as Transmission......Page 93 3.1. Transmission and causal relevance......Page 99 3.2. Omission and prevention......Page 101 4. Causation and Mechanical Connection......Page 107 5. Manipulation and Causation......Page 114 5.1. Invariance, fragility, and contingency......Page 120 5.2. Manipulation and criteria for explanation......Page 121 5.3. Manipulation, omission, and prevention......Page 125 6. Conclusion......Page 126 1. Introduction......Page 128 2. Two Normative Distinctions......Page 133 3. Explaining the Action Potential......Page 135 4. The Explanandum Phenomenon......Page 143 5. Components......Page 149 6. Activities......Page 154 7. Organization......Page 155 8. Constitutive Relevance......Page 160 8.1. Relevance and the boundaries of mechanisms......Page 162 8.2. Interlevel experiments and constitutive relevance......Page 165 8.3. Constitutive relevance as mutual manipulability......Page 173 9. Conclusion......Page 181 1. Introduction......Page 184 2. Levels of Spatial Memory......Page 186 3. A Field-Guide to Levels......Page 191 3.1. Levels of science (units and products)......Page 193 3.2. Levels of nature......Page 198 3.3. Levels of mechanisms......Page 209 4. Conclusion......Page 216 1. Introduction......Page 217 2. Causal Relevance and Making a Difference......Page 219 3. Contrasts and Switch-points......Page 223 4. Causal Powers at Higher Levels of Mechanisms......Page 232 5. Causal Relevance at Higher Levels of Realization......Page 238 6. Conclusion......Page 248 1. Introduction......Page 249 2. Reduction and the History of Neuroscience......Page 254 2.1. LTP’s origins: not a top-down search but intralevel integration......Page 258 2.2. The mechanistic shift......Page 261 2.3. Mechanism as a working hypothesis......Page 264 3. Intralevel Integration and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience......Page 267 3.1. The space of possible mechanisms......Page 268 3.2. Specific constraints on the space of possible mechanisms......Page 269 3.3. Reduction and the intralevel integration of fields......Page 276 4.1. What is interlevel integration?......Page 277 4.2. Constraints on interlevel integration......Page 279 4.3. Mosaic interlevel integration......Page 287 5. Conclusion: The Epistemic Function of the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience......Page 288 Bibliography......Page 293 A......Page 314 B......Page 315 C......Page 316 E......Page 318 G......Page 319 H......Page 320 K......Page 321 L......Page 322 M......Page 323 N......Page 324 P......Page 325 R......Page 326 S......Page 327 U......Page 328 Y......Page 329 "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 Huxley's 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."--Jacket Introduction: starting with neuroscience Explanation and causal relevance Causal relevance and manipulation The norms of mechanistic explanation A field-guide to levels Nonfundamental explanation The mosaic unity of neuroscience. Craver offers explicit standards for successful explanation of the workings of the brain, on the basis of a systematic view about what neuroscientific explanations are: they are descriptions of mechanisms