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Causes without Mechanisms: Experimental Regularities, Physical Laws, and Neuroscientific Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Marcel Weber
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Abstract

This article examines the role of experimental generalizations and physical laws in neuroscientific explanations, using Hodgkin and Huxley's electrophysiological model from 1952 as a test case. I show that the fact that the model was partly fitted to experimental data did not affect its explanatory status, nor did the false mechanistic assumptions made by Hodgkin and Huxley. The model satisfies two important criteria of explanatory status: it contains invariant generalizations and it is modular (both in James Woodward's sense). Further, I argue that there is a sense in which the explanatory heteronomy thesis holds true for this case.

Type
Where Neuroscience Meets Physics: Laws, Explanation, and the Hodgkin-Huxley Model of the Action Potential
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 75 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2006 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Cristina Bicchieri and Jason Alexander , December 2008 , pp. 995 - 1007
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Special thanks to my PSA 2006 cosymposiasts Carl Craver, Jim Bogen, and Ken Schaffner for stimulating discussions and extensive correspondence, and to Daniel Sirtes for critically reading the manuscript.

References

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