CFP Scientific Realism in Cognitive Neuroscience Topical Collection Synthese
ISHPSS
From: Inês Hipolito <hipoli...@GMAIL.COM>
Scientific Realism in Cognitive Neuroscience
Topical Collection Synthese
Guest editors
Inês Hipólito - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Philosophische Fakultät, Institut für Philosophie & Berlin School of Mind and Brain --- University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, Psychology Department
Thomas van Es - University of Antwerp, Philosophy Department.
Guilherme Sanches Oliveira - Technische Universität Berlin, Psychology and Ergonomics Department.
Matteo Colombo - Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Department of Philosophy
Topical Collection Description
Debates about scientific realism concern the nature and scope of scientific knowledge. While these debateshave metaphysical and semantic dimensions, they typically centre around different theses about how weshould understand the epistemic achievements and aims of scientific practices, and more generally thecharacter of scientific change.
The scientific realism debate has traditionally focused on successful theories and models in physics. Lessattention has been paid to how this debate should play out in the sciences of mind and brain. To be sure,cognitive scientists and philosophers often make claims about, for example, the “reality” of mentalrepresentations, or of other entities, processes, structures or architectures ascribed to the mind or brain based on the results of connectionist, dynamical or other kinds of computational models. Still, these claims are rarely informed by existing arguments and conceptual resources from the realism debate in the philosophy of science; and, conversely, work in the science of mind and brain has rarely been brought to bear on this debate either. This neglect and lack of pollination across fields in philosophy are unfortunate, since different researchers in the cognitive sciences arguing about the “reality” of some structure in the mind or brain, or about a “realistic view” towards some models, risk talking past each other, or making confused or unjustified claims.
The proposed topical collection aims to remedy this situation, by explicitly focusing on, critically assessing, and discussing the relationship between traditional arguments and ideas from the scientific realism debate and modelling and theorising in computational cognitive neuroscience.
Appropriate Topics for Submission include, among others
Do we have adequate grounds for believing that our best models and theories in cognitive neuroscience (CN) are true or approximately true with respect to what they say about unobservable entities and processes?
What are the main epistemic aims of CN?
Is theoretical change in CN incompatible with scientific realism?
How does idealized modelling in CN bear on the realism debate?
How do traditional arguments like the no miracle argument, the pessimistic induction, the problem of unconceived alternatives, or arguments based on the underdetermination of theory by data, play out in CN?
What are the main epistemic achievements of CN? How can we explain the success of CN, specifically the predictive success of our best models given that they may be false?
How do tools or properties of CN models, such as rules of functional and structural interactions,(teleo)functions, causal topologies or (generative models relate to the phenomena studied? Does scientific realism require us to ascribe these properties to the phenomena themselves?
What general lessons about general scientific realism can be distilled from case studies in the sciences of mind and brain?
Does instrumentalism have explanatory value without at least some form of isomorphic relations between the model and observed cognitive behaviour?
From an anti-representational standpoint (e.g. embodied, enactive, ecological cognitive science and/or Dynamical Systems Theory), is the problem with CN that it does not live up to realist expectations? Or would the problem with CN models be better framed in instrumentalist terms?
And, in either case, what accounts for the popularity of CN models?
The contributions in our topical collection will clarify, explore or resolve these and other questions. They will advance several ongoing debates in the intersection of the philosophy and epistemology of science, and the philosophy of the cognitive sciences.
The deadline for submissions is 5th January 2023
Submissions via: https://www.editorialmanager.com/synt/default.aspx
For further information, please contact the guest editors: Inês Hipólito: ines.h...@hu-berlin.de, Thomas van Es: thomas...@uantwerpen.be, Guilherme Sanches de Oliveira: sanches...@tu-berlin.de, Matteo Colombo: M.Co...@tilburguniversity.edu
Dr Inês HipólitoLecturer /Postdoctoral researcher Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Department of Philosophy & Berlin School of Mind and Brain
Developmental Psychology
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
University of Amsterdam
Affiliate of the Theoretical Neurobiology Group Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging University College London United Kingdom