What can polysemy tell us about theories of explanation?

Philosophical accounts of scientific explanation are broadly divided into ontic and epistemic views. This paper explores the idea that the lexical ambiguity of the verb to explain and its nominalisation supports an ontic conception of explanation. I analyse one argument which challenges this strategy by criticising the claim that explanatory talk is lexically ambiguous, 375–394, 2012). I propose that the linguistic mechanism of transfer of meaning, 109–132, 1995) provides a better account of the lexical alternations that figure in the systematic polysemy of explanatory talk, and evaluate the implications of this proposal for the debate between ontic and epistemic conceptions of scientific explanation

Agency, qualia and life: connecting mind and body biologically

Many believe that a suitably programmed computer could act for its own goals and experience feelings. I challenge this view and argue that agency, mental causation and qualia are all founded in the unique, homeostatic nature of living matter. The theory was formulated for coherence with the concept of an agent, neuroscientific data and laws of physics. By this method, I infer that a successful action is homeostatic for its agent and can be caused by a feeling - which does not motivate as a force, but as a control signal. From brain research and the locality principle of physics, I surmise that qualia are a fundamental, biological form of energy generated in specialized neurons. Subjectivity is explained as thermodynamically necessary on the supposition that, by converting action potentials to feelings, the neural cells avert damage from the electrochemical pulses. In exchange for this entropic benefit, phenomenal energy is spent as and where it is produced - which precludes the objective observation of qualia

MICRO-Foundations in Strategic Management: Squaring Coleman's Diagram

Abell, Felin and Foss argue that "macro-explanations" in strategic management, explanations in which organizational routines figure prominently and in which both the explanandum and explanans are at the macro-level, are necessarily incomplete. They take a diagram (which has the form of a trapezoid) from Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.)/London, (1990) to task to show that causal chains connecting two macro-phenomena always involve "macro-to-micro" and "micro-to-macro" links, links that macro-explanations allegedly fail to recognize. Their plea for micro-foundations in strategic management is meant to shed light on these "missing links". The paper argues that while there are good reasons for providing micro-foundations, Abell, Felin and Foss's causal incompleteness argument is not one of them. Their argument does not sufficiently distinguish between causal and constitutive relations. Once these relations are carefully distinguished, it follows that Coleman's diagram has to be squared. This in turn allows us to see that macro-explanations need not be incomplete

Potentiality in Biology

We take the potentialities that are studied in the biological sciences (e.g., totipotency) to be an important subtype of biological dispositions. The goal of this paper is twofold: first, we want to provide a detailed understanding of what biological dispositions are. We claim that two features are essential for dispositions in biology: the importance of the manifestation process and the diversity of conditions that need to be satisfied for the disposition to be manifest. Second, we demonstrate that the concept of a disposition (or potentiality) is a very useful tool for the analysis of the explanatory practice in the biological sciences. On the one hand it allows an in-depth analysis of the nature and diversity of the conditions under which biological systems display specific behaviors. On the other hand the concept of a disposition may serve a unificatory role in the philosophy of the natural sciences since it captures not only the explanatory practice of biology, but of all natural sciences. Towards the end we will briefly come back to the notion of a potentiality in biology

Long-Term Potentiation: One Kind or Many?

Do neurobiologists aim to discover natural kinds? I address this question in this chapter via a critical analysis of classification practices operative across the 43-year history of research on long-term potentiation (LTP). I argue that this 43-year history supports the idea that the structure of scientific practice surrounding LTP research has remained an obstacle to the discovery of natural kinds

Mechanisms, Then and Now: From Metaphysics to Practice

For many old and new mechanists, Mechanism is both a metaphysical position and a thesis about scientific methodology. In this paper we discuss the relation between the metaphysics of mechanisms and the role of mechanical explanation in the practice of science, by presenting and comparing the key tenets of Old and New Mechanism. First, by focusing on the case of gravity, we show how the metaphysics of Old Mechanism constrained scientific explanation, and discuss Newton’s critique of Old Mechanism. Second, we examine the current mechanistic metaphysics, arguing that it is not warranted by the use of the concept of mechanism in scientific practice, and motivate a thin conception of mechanism (the truly minimal view), according to which mechanisms are causal pathways for a certain effect or phenomenon. Finally, we draw analogies between Newton’s critique of Old Mechanism and our thesis that the metaphysical commitments of New Mechanism are not necessary in order to illuminate scientific practice

Knowledge, science and death: the theory of brain-sign

In today’s paradigmatic climate, the possibility of knowledge, and therefore science, still depends upon our being conscious. However, no scientifically accepted account of consciousness exists. In recent years I have developed the theory of brain-sign which replaces consciousness as a wholly physical neural condition. The first tenet is that the brain is a causal organ, not a knowledge organ. The second is that brain-sign, used in inter-neural communication for uncertain or imprecise collective action, derives at each moment from the causal orientation of the brain. Signs are ubiquitous bio-physical entities. Thus there is no problematic dualism, consciousness and world. We now have two accounts of the brain phenomenon. The first (consciousness) is an inexplicable physical anomaly. The second (brain-sign) belongs in the physical universe, and fulfils a crucial neurobiological function. With brain-sign theory we even ‘discover’ that we do not know we are alive or will die

Causal circuit explanations of behavior: Are necessity and sufficiency necessary and sufficient?

In the current advent of technological innovation allowing for precise neural manipulations and copious data collection, it is hardly questioned that the explanation of behavioral processes is to be chiefly found in neural circuits. Such belief, rooted in the exhausted dualism of cause and effect, is enacted by a methodology that promotes “necessity and sufficiency” claims as the goal-standard in neuroscience, thus instructing young students on what shall reckon as explanation. Here we wish to deconstruct and explicate the difference between what is done, what is said, and what is meant by such causal circuit explanations of behavior. Well-known to most philosophers, yet ignored or at least hardly ever made explicit by neuroscientists, the original grand claim of “understanding the brain” is imperceptibly substituted by the methodologically sophisticated task of empirically establishing counterfactual dependencies. But for the 21st century neuroscientist, after so much pride, this is really an excess of humility. I argue that to upgrade intervention to explanation is prone to logical fallacies, interpretational leaps and carries a weak explanatory force, thus settling and maintaining low standards for intelligibility in neuroscience. To claim that behavior is explained by a “necessary and sufficient” neural circuit is, at best, misleading. In that, my critique (rather than criticism) is indeed mainly negative. Positively, I briefly suggest some available alternatives for conceptual progress, such as adopting circular causality (rather than lineal causality in the flavor of top-down reductionism), searching for principles of behavior(rather than taking an arbitrary definition of behavior and rushing to dissect its “underlying” neural mechanisms), and embracing process philosophy (rather than substance-mechanistic ontologies). Overall, if the goal of neuroscience is to understand the relation between brain and behavior then, in addition to excruciating neural studies (one pillar), we will need a strong theory of behavior (the other pillar) and a solid foundation to establish their relation (the bridge)

Mechanisms and Difference-Making

I argue that difference-making should be a crucial element for evaluating the quality of evidence for mechanisms, especially with respect to the robustness of mechanisms, and that it should take central stage when it comes to the general role played by mechanisms in establishing causal claims in medicine. The difference- making of mechanisms should provide additional compelling reasons to accept the gist of Russo-Williamson thesis and include mechanisms in the protocols for Evidence- Based Medicine (EBM), as the EBM+ research group has been advocatin