Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:51:45.543Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Two Common Errors in Explaining Biological and Psychological Phenomena

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

William Bechtel*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy of Science, University of Illinois at the Medical Center

Abstract

One way in which philosophy of science can perform a valuable normative function for science is by showing characteristic errors made in scientific research programs and proposing ways in which such errors can be avoided or corrected. This paper examines two errors that have commonly plagued research in biology and psychology: 1) functional localization errors that arise when parts of a complex system are assigned functions which these parts are not themselves able to perform, and 2) vacuous functional explanations in which one provides an analysis that does account for the inputs and outputs of a system but does not employ the same set of functions to produce this output as does the natural system. These two kinds of error usually arise when researchers limit their investigation to one type of evidence. Historically, correction of these errors has awaited researchers who have employed the opposite type of evidence. This paper explores the tendency to commit these errors by examining examples from historical and contemporary science and proposes a dialectical process through which researchers can avoid or correct such errors in the future.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1982

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.)

Footnotes

I thank Robert C. Richardson, William G. Lycan, William C. Wimsatt, Warren Schmaus, David Hull, two anonymous referees for Philosophy of Science, and audiences at the University of Cincinnati, the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, and the Chicago Study Group for the History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

References

Bechtel, W. (1982a), “Functional Localization Assumptions as Impediments to Clinical Research,” in L. R. Troncale, ed., A General Survey of Systems Methodology, Monterey, CA: Intersystems Publications, Vol. II: 953962.Google Scholar
Bechtel, W. (1982b), “Vitalism and Dualism: Towards a More Adequate Materialism”, Nature and System 4: 2343.Google Scholar
Bernard, C. (1865), Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale, Paris: Bailliere. English translation by H. C. Greene, An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, New York: Dover, 1959.Google Scholar
Bradley, D.; Garrett, M. F. Zurif, E. (1980), “Syntactic Deficits in Broca's Aphasia”, in D. Caplan, ed., Biological Studies of Mental Processes. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Broca, P. (1861), “Remarques sur le siège de la faculté du language articulé, suivie d'une observation d'aphémie”, Bulletin de la Societe Anatomique de Paris 36: 330357. Selections translated in Herrnstein and Boring (1966).Google Scholar
Churchland, P. S. (1980), “A Perspective on Mind-Brain Research”, the Journal of Philosophy 77: 185207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, R. (1975), “Functional Analysis”, The Journal of Philosophy 72: 741769.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darden, L. and Maull, N. (1977), “Interfield Theories”, Philosophy of Science 44: 4364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. (1970), “Mental Events”, in L. Foster and J. W. Swanson, eds., Experience and Theory. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Dean, R. B. (1941), “Theories of Electrolyte Equilibrium in Muscle”, Biological Symposia 3: 331370.Google Scholar
Ecanow, B. and Klawans, H. (1974), “Physical-Chemical Properties of Cellular Constituents and their Contribution to Neuronal Function”, in H. Klawans, ed., Models of Human Neurological Disease. Amsterdam: Excerpta Medica.Google Scholar
Ecanow, B. and Bechtel, W. (forthcoming), “Physical Chemistry in Cell Physiology: Its History and Future Potential”.Google Scholar
Fancher, R. (1979), Pioneers of Psychology New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Fitsch, G. and Hitzig, E. (1870), “Ueber die elektrische Erregbarkeit des Grosshirns”, Archiv für Anatomie, Physiologie, und wissenschaftliche Medicin: 300332. Selections translated in Herrnstein and Boring (1966).Google Scholar
Fodor, J. A. (1979), The Language of Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. A. (1980), “Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research Methodology in Cognitive Psychology”, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 63109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, J. A. (forthcoming), The Modularity of Mind. Montgomery, VT: Bradford Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flourens, J. P. M. (1824), Recherches expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions du système nerveux dans les animaux vertébrés. Paris: Crevot. Selections translated in Herrnstein and Boring (1966).Google Scholar
Fruton, J. (1972), Molecules and Life. New York: Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Gall, F. J. (1825), Sur les fonctions du cerveau et sur celles de chacune de ses parties, Paris. Translated by W. Lewis as Gall's Works: On the Functions of the Brain and Each of Its Parts. Boston, 1835.Google Scholar
Herrnstein, R. J. and Boring, E. G. (1966), A Source Book in the History of Psychology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, F. L. (1964), “Introduction”, in J. Liebig, Animal Chemistry or Organic Chemistry in Its Application to Physiology and Pathology. New York: Johnson Reprint Company.Google Scholar
Holmes, F. L. (1974), Claude Bernard and Animal Chemistry. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubel, D. H. and Wiesel, T. N. (1979), “Brain Mechanisms of Vision”, Scientific American 238: 150162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kandel, E. R. (1979), “Small Systems of Neurons”, Scientific American 238: 6676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, B. E. (1979), “Inferring Functional Localization from Neurological Evidence”, in E. Walker, ed., Explanations in the Biology of Language. Montgomery, VT: Bradford Books.Google Scholar
Kohler, R. C. (1973), “The Enzyme Theory and the Origin of Biochemistry”, Isis 64: 181196.Google ScholarPubMed
Kuhn, T. (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Liebig, J. (1842), Animal Chemistry or Organic Chemistry in Its Application to Physiology and Pathology, W. Gregory, trans. Cambridge: John Owen. Reprinted: New York: Johnson Reprint Company, 1964.Google Scholar
Ling, G. N. and Negendank, W. (1980), “Do Isolated Membranes and Purified Vesicles Pump Sodium? A Critical Review and Reinterpretation”, Perspective in Biology and Medicine 23: 215239.Google ScholarPubMed
O'Keefe, J. and Nadel, L. (1978), The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Olds, J. (1965), “Pleasure Centers in the Brain”, Scientific American 195: 105116.10.1038/scientificamerican1056-105CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, H. (1975), Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Volume II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pylyshyn, Z. (1980), “Cognition and Computation”, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 111169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, R. C. (1980), “Reductionistic Research Programs in Psychology”, in P. D. Asquith and R. N. Giere, eds., PSA 1980. East Lansing, MI: The Philosophy of Science Association, Vol. 1: 171183.Google Scholar
Richardson, R. C. (forthcoming), “Top Down Strategies, Reductional Heuristics, and Localization of Function”.Google Scholar
Schultze, M. (1861), Ueber Muskelkörperchen und das was man eine Zelle zu nennen habe”, Müller’ s Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie und für wissenschaftliche medizin. Excerpts translated in T. S. Hall, ed., A Source Book in Animal Biology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970.Google Scholar
Szent-Gyorgyi, A. V. (1939), On Oxidation, Fermentation, Vitamines, Health and Disease. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins Company.Google Scholar
Thatcher, R. W. and John, E. Roy (1977), Foundations of Cognitive Processes, Volume I of Functional Neuroscience. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1974) “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases”, Science 185: 11241131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Valenstein, E. S. (1973), Brain Control: A Critical Examination of Brain Stimulation and Psychosurgery. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Wernicke, C. (1908), “The Symptom Complex of Aphasia: A Psychological Study on an Anatomical Basis”, in A. Church, ed., Diseases of the Nervous System. New York: Appleton, Century, Crofts.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W. C. (1976), “Reductionism, Levels of Organization, and the Mind-Body Problem, in G. Globus, G. Maxwell, and I. Savodnik, eds., Consciousness and the Brain: A Scientific and Philosophical Inquiry. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W. C. (1978), “Reduction and Reductionism”, in P. D. Asquith and H. Kyburg, eds., Current Research in Philosophy of Science. East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar
Young, R. M. (1970), Mind, Brain, and Adaptation in the 19th Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar