TY - JOUR
T1 - Concepts- not just yardsticks, but also heuristics
T2 - rebutting Hacker and Bennett
AU - Keestra, M.
AU - Cowley, S.
N1 - Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ Copyright Elsevier [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - In their response to our article (), Hacker and Bennett charge us with failing to understand the project of their book Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (PFN; ) and do this by discussing foundationalism, linguistic conservatism and the passivity of perception. In this rebuttal we explore disagreements that explain the alleged errors. First, we reiterate our substantial disagreement with Bennett and Hacker (B&H) regarding their assumption that, even regarding much debated concepts like 'consciousness', we can assume conceptual consensus within a community of competent speakers. Instead, we emphasize variability and divergence between individuals and groups in such contexts. Second, we plead for modesty in conceptual analysis, including the use of conceptual ambiguities as heuristics for the investigation of explanatory mechanisms. Third, we elucidate our proposal by discussing the interdependence of perception and action, which in some cases appear to be problematic for PFN. Fourth, we discuss why our view of conceptual innovation is different from B&H's, as we plead for linking explanatory ingredients with conceptual analysis. We end by repeating our particular agreement with their mereological principle, even though we present different reasons: psychological concepts should not be applied to mere components or operations of explanatory mechanisms, for which another vocabulary should be developed.
AB - In their response to our article (), Hacker and Bennett charge us with failing to understand the project of their book Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (PFN; ) and do this by discussing foundationalism, linguistic conservatism and the passivity of perception. In this rebuttal we explore disagreements that explain the alleged errors. First, we reiterate our substantial disagreement with Bennett and Hacker (B&H) regarding their assumption that, even regarding much debated concepts like 'consciousness', we can assume conceptual consensus within a community of competent speakers. Instead, we emphasize variability and divergence between individuals and groups in such contexts. Second, we plead for modesty in conceptual analysis, including the use of conceptual ambiguities as heuristics for the investigation of explanatory mechanisms. Third, we elucidate our proposal by discussing the interdependence of perception and action, which in some cases appear to be problematic for PFN. Fourth, we discuss why our view of conceptual innovation is different from B&H's, as we plead for linking explanatory ingredients with conceptual analysis. We end by repeating our particular agreement with their mereological principle, even though we present different reasons: psychological concepts should not be applied to mere components or operations of explanatory mechanisms, for which another vocabulary should be developed.
KW - action-perception interdependency
KW - cognitive neuroscience
KW - conceptual analysis
KW - heuristic
KW - mechanistic explanation
KW - philosophy of science
U2 - 10.1016/j.langsci.2011.02.005
DO - 10.1016/j.langsci.2011.02.005
M3 - Article
SN - 0388-0001
VL - 33
SP - 464
EP - 472
JO - Language Sciences
JF - Language Sciences
IS - 3
ER -