Explanation in Neurobiology

Abstract

This chapter employs an interventionist framework to elucidate some issues having to do with explanation in neurobiology. I argue that this framework can be used to distinguish theories and models that are explanatory from those that are merely descriptive. This framework can also be used to characterize a notion of a mechanistic explanation, according to which mechanistic explanations are those that meet interventionist criteria for successful explanation and certain additional constraints as well. However, from an interventionist perspective, although mechanistic theories have a number of virtues, it is a mistake to think that such models are the only legitimate kind of explanation in neuroscience and psychology. In particular, some (but not all) dynamical systems models in neuroscience are explanatory as are many models, such as the Hodgkin-Huxley model, that abstract away from mechanistically relevant low-level detail.