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Multiple Realizability Revisited: Linking Cognitive and Neural States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

William Bechtel  and
Jennifer Mundale
William Bechtel
Affiliation:
Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program Department of Philosophy, Washington University
Jennifer Mundale
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Central Florida
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Abstract

The contention that psychological states are multiply realizable in different substrates has been used to support the contention that neuroscience is not likely to be very useful in guiding an understanding how cognition works. But in the context of scientific research, how seriously should we really take this threat of multiple realizability? By examining how brain areas are identified in neuroscience (where the approach is comparative and employs functional criteria), we show that the skepticism about neuroscience's role in understanding cognition is misguided and that the apparent success of multiple realizability is based on methodological error. With respect to the former point, we develop and analyze a representative case in which the organization of the brain provides crucial information about the organization of the cognitive system. Then we show that the initial plausibility of claims to multiple realizability rest on (a) mismatching a broad-grained criterion (to show sameness of psychological states) with a finegrained criterion (to differentiate brain states), and (b) a failure to attend to the purposes for which taxonomies of brain and psychological states are developed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , June 1999 , pp. 175 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Send requests for reprints to William Bechtel, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program, Department of Philosophy, Campus Box 1073, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.

‡

Versions of this paper were presented at the Australian Cognitive Science Society Conference, the Conference on Body, Mind, and Brain at the University of Oregon, and at the National Neurobiology Laboratory, National University of Mexico, Querataro, Mexico. We are appreciative for the helpful comments and suggestions made by these audiences. We also received very helpful comments and suggestions from two referees for this journal, Patricia Churchland and Owen Flanagan, for which we are most appreciative.

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