Mechanism, Explanatory Pluralism and Efficient Coding Explanation in Neuroscience

BARBERIS, SERGIO

Revista Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento

Facultad de Psicología - Universidad Nacional de Córdoba

Lugar: Córdoba; Año: 2017 vol. 9 p. 9 - 18

1852-4206

There is a growing debate within the Philosophy community concerning the unity and diversity of explanation in neuroscience. The new Mechanist philosophy claims that neuroscience exhibits a mosaic unity in which models from multiple scientific fields contribute to the collective mechanistic explanation of an explanandum phenomenon φ by setting causal constraints on the space of possible mechanisms for φ. Non-mechanist philosophers acknowledge the relevance (even the centrality) of mechanistic research, but they want to emphasize the plurality and diversity of explanatory research programs in neuroscience. In this paper I argue, first, that the kind of explanatory pluralism many non-mechanist philosophers endorse which I call "causally restricted pluralism" is not a genuine alternative to Mechanism. Then, I present a liberalized interpretation of explanatory pluralism, one according to which there are models in neuroscience that contribute to the collective explanation of some phenomenon φ but that are not intended to set causal constraints on the space of possible mechanisms for φ. Finally, I review an explanatory research program in neuroscience, namely, efficient coding explanation, that is better accounted for by the liberalized interpretation of pluralism.