Abstract
This chapter investigates the approach that can be considered directly opposed to the main ideas of the isolationist approach, arguing that, contrariwise, neuroscience has a lot to contribute to philosophy, as long as the second is updated to a method that can incorporates empirical knowledge. The “Reductive Approach” (RA) seeks, first of all, to be an “application of neuroscientific discoveries to traditional questions of Philosophy” (Bickle, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience. Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 4). The aim is to reformulate the philosophical work that has been considered, until then, as a work of conceptual analysis based on a priori methodologies, by a methodology that incorporates the data of science and can use them to solve the traditional problems of the philosophy of mind. However, (RA) is much more radical than this quote: at its basis is the fundamental thesis that philosophical concepts should tend to be replaced by neuroscientific concepts. We will analyse in detail the basic principles and the metaphilosophical assumptions of this approach. To this end, we will analyse two proponents, in different versions, of (RA): Patricia Churchland and John Bickle.
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Notes
- 1.
Original quote: “Ein Gegenstand (oder Begriff) heißt auf einen oder mehrere andere Gegenstände ‘zurückführbar’, wenn alle Aussage über ihn sich umformen lassen in Aussagen über diese anderen Gegenstände” (Carnap, 1928, p. 1).
- 2.
McCloskey (1983) investigated empirically that many people with less knowledge or information believe in a physical theory of intuition and are, therefore, more Aristotelian than Newtonians in relation to movement.
- 3.
- 4.
We can, of course, answer that stagnation is a sign that it is correct and effective and that, precisely for that reason, it does not need to be changed. Or, like Hacker, that there is no progress because only (real) theories can make progress and (FP) is not a theory, as we will see in the criticisms.
- 5.
- 6.
A defence of a specific kind of introspection will be presented in the next chapter (Neurophenomenological Approach).
- 7.
Some authors reject that Bickle was successful. For example, João Fonseca states that “[Bickle] is unable to] provide an effective procedure that locates an arbitrary reduction in the spectrum in an absolute way. This location can only be established in a parochial and internal way and not in an absolute and external way” (Fonseca, 2006, pp. 129–130).
- 8.
Specifically, the Reductionist Approach will make use of a “replacement naturalism”, as we will see in Chap. 5.
- 9.
This passage is derived from the German original: “Und trotzdem gibt es Philosophen, welche sich weigern, die wissenschaftliche Philosophie als Philosophie anzuerkennen und sie lieber in das Einleitungskapitel eines wissenschaftlichen Lehrbuchs verweisen möchten; Philosophen, welche immer noch behaupten, daß es eine unabhängige Philosophie gibt, die nichts mit wissenschaftlicher Forschung zu tun hat, sondern ihren eigenen Zugang zur Wahrheit besitzt. Solche Ansprüche offenbaren meiner Ansicht nach das Fehlen jeder Kritik. Diejenigen, welche die Fehler der traditionellen Philosophie nicht erkennen, wollen natürlich ihre Ergebnisse und Methoden nicht aufgeben und ziehen es vor, auf einem Pfad weiterzugehen, den die wissenschaftliche Philosophie längst verlassen hat. Sie reservieren den Namen Philosophie für ihre mit Fehlschlüssen durchsetzten Versuche, eine überwissenschaftliche Erkenntnis aufzufinden, und weigern sich, eine Methode als philosophisch zu bezeichnen, die sich die wissenschaftliche Forschung zum Muster angenommen hat. Wer einer wissenschaftlichen Philosophie gerecht werden will, muß seine philosophischen Wünsche und Ziele revidieren” (Reichenbach, 1968, p. 305).
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Gouveia, S.S. (2022). Reductive Neurophilosophy. In: Philosophy and Neuroscience. New Directions in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95369-0_3
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