Explaining the Brain

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ISBN: 9780199299317 | 0199299315
Cover: Hardcover
Copyright: 8/2/2007

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Carl Craver investigates what we are doing when we sue neuroscience to explain what's going on in the brain. When does an explanation succeed and when does it fail? Craver offers explicit standards for successful explanation of the workings of the brain, on the basis of a systematic view about what neuroscientific explanations are: they are descriptions of mechanisms.

Preface
Introduction: Starting With Neuroscience
Introduction
Explanations in Neuroscience Describe Mechanisms.
Explanations in Neuroscience are Multilevel
Explanations in Neuroscience Integrate Multiple Fields
Criteria of Adequacy for an Account of Explanation
Explanation and Causal Relevance
Introduction
How Calcium Explains Neurotransmitter Release
Explanation and Representation
The Covering-Law Model
The Unification Model
But What About the Hodgkin and Huxley Model?
Conclusion
Causal Relevance and Manipulation
Introduction
The Mechanism of Long-Term Potentiation
Causation as Transmission
Transmission and Causal Relevance
Omission and Prevention
Causation and Mechanical Connection
Manipulation and Causation
Ideal Interventions
Invariance, Fragility, and Contingency
Manipulation and Criteria for Explanation
Manipulation, Omission, and Prevention
Conclusion
The Norms of Mechanistic Explanation
Introduction
Two Normative Distinctions
Explaining the Action Potential
The Explanandum Phenomenon
Components
Activities
Organization
Constitutive Relevance
Relevance and the Boundaries of Mechanisms
Interlevel Experiments and Constitutive Relevance
Interference Experiments
Stimulation Experiments
Activation Experiments
Constitutive Relevance as Mutual Manipulability
Conclusion
A Field-Guide to Levels
Introduction
Levels of Spatial Memory
A Field-Guide to Levels
Levels of Science (Units and Products)
Levels of Nature
Causal Levels (Processing and Control)
Levels of Size
Levels of Composition
Levels of Mereology
Levels of Aggregativity
Levels of Mere Material/Spatial Containment
Levels of Mechanisms
Conclusion

Introduction
Causal Relevance and Making a Difference
Contrasts and Switch-Points
Causal Powers at Higher Levels of Mechanisms
Causal Relevance among Realized Properties
Conclusion
The Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience
Introduction
Reduction and the History of Neuroscience
LTP's Origins: Not a Top-Down Search but Intralevel Integration
The Mechanistic Shift
Mechanism as a Working Hypothesis
Intralevel Integration and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience
The Space of Possible Mechanisms
Specific Constraints on the Space of Possible Mechanisms
Componency Constraints
Spatial Constraints
Temporal Constraints
Active Constraints
Reduction and the Intralevel Integration of Fields
Interlevel Integration and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience
What is Interlevel Integration?
Constraints on Interlevel Integration
Accommodative Constraints
Spatial and Temporal Interlevel Constraints
Interlevel Manipulabil
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Explaining the Brain

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Table of Contents

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