Models and mechanisms in psychological explanation

Mechanistic explanation has an impressive track record of advancing our understanding of complex, hierarchically organized physical systems, particularly biological and neural systems. But not every complex system can be understood mechanistically.Psychological capacities are often understood by pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Synthese (Dordrecht) 2011-12, Vol.183 (3), p.313-338
Main Author: Weiskopf, Daniel A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive models
Cognitive psychology
Complexity
Computer simulation
Continuum mechanics
Education
Epistemology
Experimental psychology
Functional analysis
Logic
Memory
Mental stimulation
Metaphysics
Modeling
Neurosciences
Normativity
Object recognition
Philosophy
Philosophy of Language
Philosophy of Science
Psychology
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Summary:Mechanistic explanation has an impressive track record of advancing our understanding of complex, hierarchically organized physical systems, particularly biological and neural systems. But not every complex system can be understood mechanistically.Psychological capacities are often understood by providing cognitive models of the systems that underlie them. I argue that these models, while superficially similar to mechanistic models, in fact have a substantially more complex relation to the real underlying system. They are typically constructed using a range of techniques for abstracting the functional properties of the system, which may not coincide with its mechanistic organization. I describe these techniques and show that despite being non-mechanistic, these cognitive models can satisfy the normative constraints on good explanations.
ISSN:0039-7857
1573-0964
DOI:10.1007/s11229-011-9958-9