Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Item

Reconciling New Mechanism and Psychological Explanation: A Pragmatic Approach

De Vivo, Michael
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract

Recently, Gualtiero Piccinini and Carl Craver (2011) have argued that functional analyses in psychology lack explanatory autonomy from explanations in neuroscience. In this thesis I argue against this claim by motivating and defending a pragmatic-epistemic conception of autonomous psychological explanation. I argue that this conception of autonomy need not require that functional analyses be distinct in kind from neural-mechanistic explanations. I use the framework of Bas van Fraassen’s Pragmatic Theory of Explanation (van Fraassen 1980) to show that explanations in psychology and neuroscience can be seen as seeking understanding of autonomous levels of mechanistic phenomena.

Description
Date
2016-12-14
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Mechanisms, Explanation, Autonomy, Psychology, Neuroscience, Pragmatics
Citation
Embedded videos