Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T11:22:00.210Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

NO REVOLUTION NECESSARY: NEURAL MECHANISMS FOR ECONOMICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2008

Carl F. Craver  and
Anna Alexandrova
Carl F. Craver
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
Anna Alexandrova
Affiliation:
University of Missouri St. Louis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We argue that neuroeconomics should be a mechanistic science. We defend this view as preferable both to a revolutionary perspective, according to which classical economics is eliminated in favour of neuroeconomics, and to a classical economic perspective, according to which economics is insulated from facts about psychology and neuroscience. We argue that, like other mechanistic sciences, neuroeconomics will earn its keep to the extent that it either reconfigures how economists think about decision-making or how neuroscientists think about brain mechanisms underlying behaviour. We discuss some ways that the search for mechanisms can bring about such top-down and bottom-up revision, and we consider some examples from the recent neuroeconomics literature of how varieties of progress of this sort might be achieved.

Type
Essay
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 24 , Issue 3: Neuroeconomics , November 2008 , pp. 381 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Angner, E. and Loewenstein, G.. Forthcoming. Behavioral economics. In Philosophy of economics, ed. Mäki, U.. Vol. 13 of Handbook of the philosophy of science, ed. Gabbay, D., Thagard, P. and Woods, J.. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Alexandrova, A. Forthcoming. Making models count. Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
Bechtel, W. 1986. The nature of cross-disciplinary research. In Integrating scientific disciplines, ed. Bechtel, W., 3–52. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechtel, W. 1988. Philosophy of science: An overview for cognitive science. Hillsdale: NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bechtel, W. 2008. Mental mechanisms. Routledge.Google Scholar
Bechtel, W. and Richardson, R. C.. 1993. Discovering complexity: Decomposition and localization as strategies in scientific research. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bickle, J. 2003. Philosophy and neuroscience: A ruthlessly reductive account. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binmore, K. 2007. Playing for real. A text on game theory. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bromberger, S. 1966. Why-Questions. In Readings in the philosophy of science, ed. Brody, B. A., 66–84. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Bunge, M. 1997. Mechanism and explanation. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 27: 410–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camerer, C., Loewenstein, G. and Prelec, D.. 2005. Neuroeconomics: how neuroscience can inform economics. Journal of Economic Literature XLII: 9–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, A. 1997. Being there: Putting mind, body, and world back together again. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Craver, C. F. 2006. When mechanistic models explain. Synthese 153:355–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, C. F. 2007. Explaining the brain: Mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience. Clarendon: Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Churchland, P. M. 1981. Eliminative materialism and the propositional attitudes. Journal of Philosophy 78: 67–90.Google Scholar
Churchland, P. M. 1989. A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Churchland, P. S. 1986. Neurophilosophy: Toward a unified science of the mind/.brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Darden, L. 2006. Reasoning in biological discoveries: Mechanisms, interfield relations, and anomaly resolution. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doris, J. M. Forthcoming. Field notes: A natural history of the self. Philosophical Issues: Metaethics.Google Scholar
Elster, J. 1989. Nuts and bolts for the social sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, M. [1953] 1994. Methodology of positive economics. In The philosophy of economics, ed. Hausman, D. M.., 145–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Glennan, S. S. 1996. Mechanisms and the nature of causation. Erkenntnis 44: 49–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glennan, S. S. 2002. Rethinking mechanistic explanation. Philosophy of Science Supplement 69: S342–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glimcher, P. W. 2003. Decisions, uncertainty and the brain: The science of neuroeconomics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guala, F. 2005. Methodology of experimental economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gul, F. and Pesendorfer, W.. 2005. The case for mindless economics. Manuscript. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.Google Scholar
Harrison, G. W. 2008. Neuroeconomics: a critical reconsideration. Economics and Philosophy 24.Google Scholar
Haugland, J. and Conant, J., eds. 2000. The road since structure. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Hausman, D. M. 1992. The inexact and separate science of economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hedström, P. 2005. Dissecting the social: On the principles of analytic sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hedström, P. and Swedberg, P.. 1998. Social mechanisms: An analytical approach to social theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, C. 1965a. Aspects of scientific explanation and other essays in the philosophy of science. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. 1965b. Aspects of scientific explanation. In Aspects of scientific explanation and other essays in the philosophy of science, 331–496. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, C. and Woodward, J.. 2003. Explanatory generalizations, Part 2: plumbing explanatory depth. Nous 37: 181–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kauffman, S. A. 1970. Articulation of parts explanation in biology and the rational search for them. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 8: 257–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakatos, I. and Musgrave, A., eds. 1970. Criticism and the growth of knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machamer, P. K., Darden, L. and Craver, C. F.. 2000. Thinking about mechanisms. Philosophy of Science 67: 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mäki, U. 1994. Isolation, idealization and truth in economics. In Idealization in economics, ed. Hamminga, B. and de Marchi, N.. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 38 (Special issue): 147–68.Google Scholar
Marr, D. 1982. Vision. San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman.Google Scholar
McCabe, K. 2008. Neuroeconomics and the economic sciences. Economics and Philosophy 24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearl, J. 2000. Causality: Models, reasoning, and inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Plott, C. R. 1997. Laboratory experimental testbeds: Application to the PCS auction. Journal of Economics and Management Strategy 6: 605–38.Google Scholar
Railton, P. 1978. A deductive-nomological model of probabilistic explanation. Philosophy of Science 45: 206–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reiss, J. 2007. Do we need mechanisms in social science? Philosophy of the Social Sciences 37: 163–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, A. 2007. Philosophy of social science. Boulder, CO: Westview/Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Roth, A. 2002. The economist as engineer: game theory, experimental economics and computation as tools of design economics. Econometrica 70: 1341–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. 1971a. Statistical explanation. In Statistical explanation and statistical relevance, ed. Salmon, W., 29–87. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W., ed. 1971b. Statistical explanation and statistical relevance. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. 1984. Scientific explanation and the causal structure of the world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Scriven, M. 1962. Explanations, predictions, and laws. In Scientific explanation, space, and time, ed. Feigl, H. and Maxwell, G., 170–230. Vol. 3 of Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 1977. Rational fools. Philosophy and Public Affairs 317–44.Google Scholar
Simon, H. 1969. The sciences of the artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Simon, H. 1994. Testability and approximation. In The philosophy of economics, ed. Hausman, D. M.., 214–16. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Steel, D. 2008. Across the boundaries: Extrapolation in biology and social science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thaler, R. 1980. Towards a positive theory of consumer choice. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1: 39–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, J. 1989. The causal/mechanical model of explanation. In Scientific Explanation, ed. Kitcher, P. and Salmon, W.. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 13: 357–83.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. 2002. What is a mechanism? A counterfactual account. Philosophy of Science (Supplement) 69: S366–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, J. 2003. Making things happen: A theory of causal explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar