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Problems in the Development of Cognitive Neuroscience Effective Communication between Scientific Domains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Edward Manier
Edward Manier*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
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Extract

Could anything provide a philosophically convincing mark of the mental in simple organisms (Lloyd 1984)? Individual organisms’ capacities to modify behavior adaptively as a result of past encounters with the environment might mark the first step in the phylogeny of minds. The simplest examples of mental representation are likely to be found in the simplest forms of animal learning.

The most scientifically rigorous test case of “bottom- up” strategies in cognitive neuroscience is provided by current studies of the cellular and molecular biology of associative learning in higher invertebrates, but particularly gastropod molluscs, snails or slugs (Quinn 1984). For the relevant neurobiological research community (Farley and Alkon 1985; Hawkins, Clark, and Kandel 1986), “Bottom-up” does not just mean letting one’s study of the properties of the nervous system control one’s analyses of animal behavior or cognition.

Type
Part III. Psychology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1986 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1986 , 1986 , pp. 183 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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Footnotes

1

The research for this paper was conducted while I was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, the guest of Dr. Walter Bock, Department of Life Sciences, Columbia University, a student in several courses offered by the Columbia Center for Molecular Neurobiology and Behavior, and a student in the Summer Course in Cellular and Molecular Biology of Behavior at Cold Spring Harbor, during a sabbatical year supported by my University and my mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. F.V. Manier. During that year I enjoyed the conversation of Eric Kandel, Irving Kupferman, Vince Castellucci, Ruth Colwill, Hillel Chiel, James Schwartz, Arthur Danto, Herbert Roitblat, and Herbert Terrace. More recently, I have had the opportunity to discuss my findings with Dudley Shapere, whose views concerning the development of scientific domains (1984J , have influenced this formulation of my results. The paper is dedicated to my father’s memory.

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