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Mechanisms and Model-Based Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Mark Povich
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Abstract

Mechanistic explanations satisfy widely held norms of explanation: the ability to manipulate and answer counterfactual questions about the explanandum phenomenon. A currently debated issue is whether any nonmechanistic explanations can satisfy these explanatory norms. Weiskopf argues that the models of object recognition and categorization, JIM, SUSTAIN, and ALCOVE, are not mechanistic yet satisfy these norms of explanation. In this article I argue that these models are mechanism sketches. My argument applies recent research using model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging, a novel neuroimaging method whose significance for current debates on psychological models and mechanistic explanation has yet to be explored.

Type
Cognitive Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 1035 - 1046
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I thank Carl Craver, Ron Mallon, Gualtiero Piccinini, and Dan Weiskopf for invaluable comments.

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