Explaining the brain : mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience / Carl F. Craver.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Craver, Carl F.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Neurosciences--Philosophy.

Neurosciences.

Brain--Philosophy.

Brain.

Philosophy.

Medical Subjects:

Neurosciences.

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xx, 308 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.

Summary:

Carl Craver investigates what we are doing when we use neuroscience to explain what's going on in the brain. When does an explanation succeed and when does it fail? Craver offers explicit standards for successful explanation of the workings of the brain, on the basis of a systematic view about what neuroscientific explanations are: they are descriptions of mechanisms.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

List of Figures and Tables

1. Introduction: Starting with Neuroscience

1. Introduction

2. Explanations in Neuroscience Describe Mechanisms

3. Explanations in Neuroscience are Multilevel

4. Explanations in Neuroscience Integrate Multiple Fields

5. Criteria of Adequacy for an Account of Explanation

2. Explanation and Causal Relevance

2. How Calcium Explains Neurotransmitter Release

3. Explanation and Representation

4. The Covering-Law Model

5. The Unification Model

6. But What About the Hodgkin and Huxley Model?

7. Conclusion

3. Causal Relevance and Manipulation

2. The Mechanism of Long-Term Potentiation

3. Causation as Transmission

3.1. Transmission and causal relevance

3.2. Omission and prevention

4. Causation and Mechanical Connection

5. Manipulation and Causation

5.1. Invariance, fragility, and contingency

5.2. Manipulation and criteria for explanation

5.3. Manipulation, omission, and prevention

6. Conclusion

4. The Norms of Mechanistic Explanation

2. Two Normative Distinctions

3. Explaining the Action Potential

4. The Explanandum Phenomenon

5. Components

6. Activities

7. Organization

8. Constitutive Relevance

8.1. Relevance and the boundaries of mechanisms

8.2. Interlevel experiments and constitutive relevance

8.3. Constitutive relevance as mutual manipulability

9. Conclusion

5. A Field-Guide to Levels

2. Levels of Spatial Memory

3. A Field-Guide to Levels

3.1. Levels of science (units and products)

3.2. Levels of nature

3.3. Levels of mechanisms

4. Conclusion

6. Nonfundamental Explanation

2. Causal Relevance and Making a Difference

3. Contrasts and Switch-points.

4. Causal Powers at Higher Levels of Mechanisms

5. Causal Relevance at Higher Levels of Realization

7. The Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience

2. Reduction and the History of Neuroscience

2.1. LTP's origins: not a top-down search but intralevel integration

2.2. The mechanistic shift

2.3. Mechanism as a working hypothesis

3. Intralevel Integration and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience

3.1. The space of possible mechanisms

3.2. Specific constraints on the space of possible mechanisms

3.3. Reduction and the intralevel integration of fields

4. Interlevel Integration and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience

4.1. What is interlevel integration?

4.2. Constraints on interlevel integration

4.3. Mosaic interlevel integration

5. Conclusion: The Epistemic Function of the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience

Bibliography

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [272]-291) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780191538445

0191538442

0-19-171507-7

9786611155339

0-19-153844-2

1-4356-2412-2

1-281-15533-0

0-19-956822-7

OCLC:

731646896