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The Brain’s Heterogeneous Functional Landscape

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Joseph B. McCaffrey
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Abstract

Multifunctionality poses significant challenges for human brain mapping. Cathy Price and Karl Friston argue that brain regions perform many functions in one sense and a single function in another. Thus, neuroscientists must revise their “cognitive ontologies” to obtain systematic mappings. Colin Klein draws a different lesson from these findings: neuroscientists should abandon systematic mappings for context-sensitive ones. I claim that neither account succeeds as a general treatment of multifunctionality. I argue that brain areas, like genes or organs, are multifunctional in different ways. I call this the “functional heterogeneity hypothesis.” I contend that different multifunctional parts require different mapping strategies.

Type
Cognitive Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 1010 - 1022
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Many thanks to Edouard Machery, Peter Machamer, Mazviita Chirimuuta, David Plaut, William Bechtel, Michael Anderson, Colin Klein, Charles Rathkopf, Peter Hagoort, Mikio Akagi, Trey Boone, Aaron Novick, Elissa Aminoff, Michael Freenor, and Matteo Colombo.

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