Open Peer Commentary Gold & Stoljar: A neuron doctrine
“Mind is brain” is trivial and nonscientific in both neurobiology and cognitive science
J. Scott Jordan a1 a1 Department of Psychology, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, IL 60655
jordan@sxu.edu
Abstract
Gold & Stoljar reveal that adherence to the radical neuron
doctrine cannot be maintained via appeals to scientific principles.
Using arguments from (1) naturalism and materialism, (2) unification,
and (3) exemplars, it is shown that the “mind-is-brain”
materialism explicit in the trivial version of the neuron doctrine
ultimately suffers the same theoretical fate. Cognitive science,
if it is to adopt an ontology at all, would be better served by
a metaphysically neutral ontology such as double-aspect theory
or neutral monism.
