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SUMMARY:Explanation in neuroscience - Zina Ward (Department of History and
  Philosophy of Science)
DTSTART:20130515T160000Z
DTEND:20130515T170000Z
UID:TALK45271@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Toby Bryant
DESCRIPTION:The causal-mechanical accounts of explanation proposed by the 
 New Mechanists are tightly coupled with two kinds of realism: an 'ontic co
 nception' that conceives of explanations as metaphysical entities\, and a 
 traditional scientific realism about the content of scientific theories. I
  argue in this paper that the former is misguided and the latter is option
 al. Accounts of mechanistic explanation can be improved by rejecting the n
 otion of ontic explanation\, since it marks no new metaphysical distinctio
 n and leads to misunderstandings about explanation. Furthermore\, a pragma
 tic account of explanation such as van Fraassen's can incorporate the New 
 Mechanists' insights about mechanistic explanation in the life sciences\, 
 showing that one needn't be a realist to appeal to mechanisms. This conclu
 sion lends further support to the idea that philosophical debates about ex
 planation and realism are largely orthogonal.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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