their irrationality. If we really could succeed in ‘reducing’ rational behaviour simply to molecular or cellular causation then we would no longer be able meaningfully to express the truth of what we had succeeded in doing. But, thankfully, no such reduction is conceivable. We know what it is to be rational, and what it is to lose that capacity. That knowledge has nothing to do with the question whether there exist specific and causally sufficient neural states and interactions while I am writing this review, for example. Of course they do. And, if we can discover them, they may well provide a complete explanation for the mechanisms of my brain while thinking and writing. The main claim of anti-reductionism in science is that such a complete explanation of mechanisms at one level does not necessarily explain what exists and happens at higher levels. Indeed we may need to know about the higher levels in order to explain the lower-level data that form an input to the mechanisms involved (which is what must be the case in writing this review! – one of the inputs was my reading this book, but the book is not thereby ‘inside’ my brain).
The most spectacular case of this need for higher-level understanding in modern biology is, of course, the genome, whose sequences will only be understood eventually in terms of higher-level function (genes don’t come with functional names attached – nor do neurones!).
I started my life in physiological research as a fully paid-up member of the reductionist club. In the 1960s you couldn’t get much more reductionist than to discover ion channels in excitable cells and then to simulate their activity in a bottom-up approach. I did for heart cells what Hodgkin & Huxley did for nerve cells. It is through trying to extend this approach to higher physiological levels that I have come to see the conceptual and computational problems that arise in practice. I have written elsewhere on the impossibility of a completely bottom-up reconstruction of living systems.2
Concurrently I also interacted extensively with professional philosophers (of different schools of thought – including those who would support the reductionist agenda). Coming to adopt an integrationist agenda was not an easy road, either scientifically or philosophically. But it is a far richer position. The integrationist does not deny the validity or immense achievements of successful reduction. For some reason ( political, social, philosophical? ) reductionists seem to need to claim universality for their approach. This book will give them some cause to re-think that position – or so I would hope.
Notes
1 1 See, for example, D. Noble, ‘What do intentions do?’, in A. Montefiore and D. Noble (eds), Goals, No Goals and Own Goals ( Unwin Hyman, London, 1989) and D. Noble, ‘Biological explanation and intentional behaviour’, in W. H. Newton-Smith and K. Wilkes (eds), Modelling the Mind ( Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991).
2 2 D. Noble, ‘Biological computation’, in Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, http://www.els.net ( Nature Publishing Group, London, 2002); D. Noble, ‘The rise of computational biology’, Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, 3 (2002), pp. 460–3. See also Novartis Foundation, In Silico Simulation of Biological Processes, Novartis Foundation Symposium, vol. 247 ( John Wiley, London, 2002).
Denis Noble CBE FRS hon FRCP
Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology at Oxford University
Secretary-General, International Union of Physiological Sciences (1993–2001)
Acknowledgements to the Second Edition
In the course of writing this expanded second edition, we have benefited greatly from the advice and constructive suggestions of many friends and colleagues. We are grateful to Hanoch Ben-Yami, Anthony Kenny, Parashkev Nachev, Hans Oberdieck, Juan Pascual, Herman Philipse and Gabriele Taylor. They all read one or more of the new chapters or sections and gave us their helpful comments for which we are much indebted.
M. R. B.
P. M. S. H.
Acknowledgements to the First Edition
Many people have assisted us in writing this book, and we have benefited from their advice, critical comments and constructive suggestions. We are grateful to Dr Hanoch Benyami, Professor Jonathan Dancy, Professor John Dupré, Dr Hanjo Glock, Professor Oswald Hanfling, Professor Paul Harris, Dr Tim Horder, Professor Andrew Parker, Professor Herman Philipse, Dr John Richardson, Wolfram Schmitt and Professor Stuart Shanker for their helpful comments on one or more (sometimes many more) chapters of the book. We are especially indebted to Dr John Hyman and Professor Hans Oberdiek, who read and commented constructively on the whole text. We thank Sir Anthony Kenny, Professor Sir Peter Strawson and Professor Georg Henrik von Wright for their encouragement and moral support throughout the writing of this book. We are grateful to Jean van Altena for copy-editing our typescript with her characteristic skill, tact and good humour.
Chapters 1 and 2 are a rewritten version of a review article entitled ‘The motor system in neuroscience: a history and analysis of conceptual developments’, published in Progress in Neurobiology, 67 (2002), pp. 1–52. Parts of chapters 3, 4 and 5 were published in an article entitled ‘Perception and memory in neuroscience: a conceptual analysis’, in Progress in Neurobiology, 65 (2001), pp. 499–543. Parts of chapter 10 were published in an article by Hacker entitled ‘Is there anything it is like to be a bat?’ in Philosophy, 77 (2002), pp. 153– 70. We thank the editors of these journals for permission to republish this work.
M. R. Bennett, University of Sydney
P. M. S. Hacker, St John’s College, Oxford
Introduction to the First Edition
Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience presents the fruits of a cooperative project between a neuroscientist and a philosopher. It is concerned with the conceptual foundations of cognitive neuroscience – foundations constituted by the structural relationships among the psychological concepts involved in investigations into the neural underpinnings of human cognitive, affective and volitional capacities. Investigating logical relations among concepts is a philosophical task. Guiding that investigation down pathways that will illuminate brain research is a neuroscientific one. Hence our joint venture.
If we are to understand the neural structures and dynamics that make perception, thought, memory, emotion and intentional behaviour possible, clarity about these concepts and categories is essential. Both authors, coming to this investigation from very different directions, found themselves puzzled by, and sometimes uneasy with, the use of psychological concepts in contemporary neuroscience. The puzzlement was often over what might be meant by a given neuroscientist’ s claims concerning the brain and the mind, or over why a neuroscientist thought that the experiments he had undertaken illuminated the psychological capacity being studied, or over the conceptual presuppositions of the questions asked. The unease was produced by a suspicion that in some cases concepts were misconstrued, or misapplied, or stretched beyond their defining conditions of application. And the more we probed, the more convinced we became that, despite the impressive advances in cognitive neuroscience, not all was well with the general theorizing.
Empirical
