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A neuron doctrine in the philosophy of neuroscience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

Ian Gold
Affiliation:
Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australiaiangold@coombs.anu.edu.au www.coombs.anu.edu.au/Depts/RSSS/People/IanGold.html Department of Ophthalmology, Royal Victoria Hospital, Room H414, 687 avenue des Pins ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1A1 ian@vision.mcgill.ca
Daniel Stoljar
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 stoljar@colorado.edu Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australiadstoljar@coombs.anu.edu.au www.coombs.anu.edu.au/Depts/RSSS/People/Stoljar.html

Abstract

Many neuroscientists and philosophers endorse a view about the explanatory reach of neuroscience (which we will call the neuron doctrine) to the effect that the framework for understanding the mind will be developed by neuroscience; or, as we will put it, that a successful theory of the mind will be solely neuroscientific. It is a consequence of this view that the sciences of the mind that cannot be expressed by means of neuroscientific concepts alone count as indirect sciences that will be discarded as neuroscience matures. This consequence is what makes the doctrine substantive, indeed, radical. We ask, first, what the neuron doctrine means and, second, whether it is true. In answer to the first question, we distinguish two versions of the doctrine. One version, the trivial neuron doctrine, turns out to be uncontroversial but unsubstantive because it fails to have the consequence that the nonneuroscientific sciences of the mind will eventually be discarded. A second version, the radical neuron doctrine, does have this consequence, but, unlike the first doctrine, is highly controversial. We argue that the neuron doctrine appears to be both substantive and uncontroversial only as a result of a conflation of these two versions. We then consider whether the radical doctrine is true. We present and evaluate three arguments for it, based either on general scientific and philosophical considerations or on the details of neuroscience itself, arguing that all three fail. We conclude that the evidence fails to support the radical neuron doctrine.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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