lecture - mechanistic explanation

Question 1

Neuroscientists give mechanistic explanations

Answer 1

“A mechanism is a structure performing a function in virtue of its
component parts, component operations, and their organization.
The orchestrated functioning of the mechanism is responsible for
one or more phenomena” (Bechtel & Abrahamsen 2005)

Question 2

Are mechanistic explanations reductionistic?

Answer 2

• both reductionistic and holistic
• they appeal to parts and operations at a lower level of
organization, but at the same time the mechanism must be
organized and appropriately situated in order to function
• mechanistic accounts are multilevel and do not privilege the
lowest level

Question 3

• cognition is embedded or situated:

Answer 3

cognitive processes depend
on the environment and we structure the environment to
facilitate these cognitive processes

Question 4

cognition is extended:

Answer 4

body and environment can be part of the

cognitive processes

Question 5

The modular view of the mind…• informational encapsulation:

Answer 5

a module only employs information
encoded within it in its processing; it cannot utilize information
stored in another module or in central cognition (Fodor 1984)

because modules cannot be influenced by one’s knowledge and
expectations, they can provide information about the world that
is not theory-laden

Question 6

Dynamical systems theory

Answer 6

• this is the method of radical enactivism (see also 7.2.3 in the book)
• explaining the behavior of cognitive systems by studying the patterns
between the variables that characterize the system being modeled
• however, these patterns typically cannot be explained in terms of the
behavior of individual system components because they are non-linear
• no reason to draw a strong boundary between the system and the rest
of the world

Question 7

Modularity versus mechanistic explanation

Answer 7

• modules do not contribute to the overall operation of the system, they
simply perform one of the tasks (e.g., perception or social cognition)
• parts of the mechanism contribute to its overall behavior
“The parts of a watch do not themselves keep time but perform
operations that enable the watch to keep time.”
• modules are encapsulated and isolated; the operations of the parts of
a mechanism are affected in a variety of ways by activity occurring
elsewhere in the mechanism

Question 8

decomposability mechanistc v. modular view

Answer 8

• modular systems are fully decomposable, mechanistic systems are
nearly decomposable

• the interactions are weak, but still important for overall functioning
• the components of a system depend only on the overall operation of
the other components, not the individual steps in the operation
• evolutionary advantage: modifications in one component that do not
affect features on which other components depend can be made
independently
• see also the Tempus/Hora example

Question 9

Bechtel’s challenge to extended cognition

Answer 9

• it is appropriate to construe cognitive agents as differentiated from
the environment because they are autonomous agents
• self-organizing systems that constitute and maintain themselves by
establishing their own organizational identity vis-à-vis the
environment

Question 10

Defining the explanandum

Answer 10

• mechanisms are identified according to the phenomenon they explain,
and therefore the crucial question is how to define the phenomenon