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This volume establishes the conceptual foundation for sustained
investigation into tool development in neuroscience. Neuroscience
relies on diverse and sophisticated experimental tools, and its
ultimate explanatory target-our brains and hence the organ driving
our behaviors-catapults the investigation of these research tools
into a philosophical spotlight. The chapters in this volume
integrate the currently scattered work on tool development in
neuroscience into the broader philosophy of science community. They
also present an accessible compendium for neuroscientists
interested in the broader theoretical dimensions of their
experimental practices. The chapters are divided into five thematic
sections. Section 1 discusses the development of revolutionary
research tools across neuroscience's history and argues to various
conclusions concerning the relationship between new research tools
and theory progress in neuroscience. Section 2 shows how a focus on
research tools and their development in neuroscience transforms
some traditional epistemological issues and questions about
knowledge production in philosophy of science. Section 3 speaks to
the most general questions about the way we characterize the nature
of the portion of the world that this science addresses. Section 4
discusses hybrid research tools that integrate laboratory and
computational methods in exciting new ways. Finally, Section 5
extends research on tool development to the related science of
genetics. The Tools of Neuroscience Experiment will be of interest
to philosophers and philosophically minded scientists working at
the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience.
Neuroscientists investigate the mechanisms of spatial memory.
Molecular biologists study the mechanisms of protein synthesis and
the myriad mechanisms of gene regulation. Ecologists study nutrient
cycling mechanisms and their devastating imbalances in estuaries
such as the Chesapeake Bay. In fact, much of biology and its
history involves biologists constructing, evaluating, and revising
their understanding of mechanisms. With In Search of Mechanisms,
Carl F. Craver and Lindley Darden offer both a descriptive and an
instructional account of how biologists discover mechanisms.
Drawing on examples from across the life sciences and through the
centuries, Craver and Darden compile an impressive toolbox of
strategies that biologists have used and will use again to reveal
the mechanisms that produce, underlie, or maintain the phenomena
characteristic of living things. They discuss the questions that
figure in the search for mechanisms, characterizing the
experimental, observational, and conceptual considerations used to
answer them, all the while providing examples from the history of
biology to highlight the kinds of evidence and reasoning strategies
employed to assess mechanisms. At a deeper level, Craver and Darden
pose a systematic view of what biology is, of how biology makes
progress, of how biological discoveries are and might be made, and
of why knowledge of biological mechanisms is important for the
future of the human species.
What distinguishes good explanations in neuroscience from bad? Carl
F. Craver constructs and defends standards for evaluating
neuroscientific explanations that are grounded in a systematic view
of what neuroscientific explanations are: descriptions of
multilevel mechanisms. In developing this approach, he draws on a
wide range of examples in the history of neuroscience (e.g. Hodgkin
and Huxleys model of the action potential and LTP as a putative
explanation for different kinds of memory), as well as recent
philosophical work on the nature of scientific explanation. Readers
in neuroscience, psychology, the philosophy of mind, and the
philosophy of science will find much to provoke and stimulate them
in this book.
What distinguishes good explanations in neuroscience from bad? Carl
F. Craver constructs and defends standards for evaluating
neuroscientific explanations that are grounded in a systematic view
of what neuroscientific explanations are: descriptions of
multilevel mechanisms. In developing this approach, he draws on a
wide range of examples in the history of neuroscience (e.g. Hodgkin
and Huxley's model of the action potential and LTP as a putative
explanation for different kinds of memory), as well as recent
philosophical work on the nature of scientific explanation. Readers
in neuroscience, psychology, the philosophy of mind, and the
philosophy of science will find much to provoke and stimulate them
in this book.
Neuroscientists investigate the mechanisms of spatial memory.
Molecular biologists study the mechanisms of protein synthesis and
the myriad mechanisms of gene regulation. Ecologists study nutrient
cycling mechanisms and their devastating imbalances in estuaries
such as the Chesapeake Bay. In fact, much of biology and its
history involves biologists constructing, evaluating, and revising
their understanding of mechanisms. With In Search of Mechanisms,
Carl F. Craver and Lindley Darden offer both a descriptive and an
instructional account of how biologists discover mechanisms.
Drawing on examples from across the life sciences and through the
centuries, Craver and Darden compile an impressive toolbox of
strategies that biologists have used and will use again to reveal
the mechanisms that produce, underlie, or maintain the phenomena
characteristic of living things. They discuss the questions that
figure in the search for mechanisms, characterizing the
experimental, observational, and conceptual considerations used to
answer them, all the while providing examples from the history of
biology to highlight the kinds of evidence and reasoning strategies
employed to assess mechanisms. At a deeper level, Craver and Darden
pose a systematic view of what biology is, of how biology makes
progress, of how biological discoveries are and might be made, and
of why knowledge of biological mechanisms is important for the
future of the human species.
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