Neurosciences, Neuroeconomics, and Metaphysics

CRESPO, RICARDO F.

Santiago de Chile

Congreso; Neurociencias: teoría, práctica y reconfiguraciones del libre albedrío,; 2014

PUC

The recognition of the influence of theory on data selection and interpretation has led to the widely accepted notion that the content, formulation and method of scientific theories largely depends on a metaphysical worldview. This paper draws from Craig Dilworth?s (2006) thesis on the physicalist (and consequently materialist) metaphysical commitments of contemporary science to show how this link is present in neurosciences, economics, and neuroeconomics. However, these sciences are still somewhat torn between an acceptance of an absolutely physicalist view of reality and the defence of the existence of realities beyond matter. The physicalist worldview translates in sciences into a predominant scientific positivism shyly resisted by neurosciences and economics. In fact, neuroeconomics? parent theory -behavioural economics- seeks to explain the empirical anomalies of positivist standard economic theories by exploring beyond openly manifested data. However, the fledgling neuroeconomics claims to have found the root of these anomalies in an even more materialistic internal place: neural interactions. As a result, of course, the materialistic explanation is all but reinforced. In neuroeconomics, the physicalist worldview has prevailed over the openness to other realities, but, even so, some opposing voices can still be heard.