Function-Theoretic Explanation and the Search for Neural Mechanisms

Abstract

A common kind of explanation in cognitive science might be called function-theoretic: with some target cognitive capacity in view, the theorist hypothesizes that the system computes a well-defined function (in the mathematical sense) and explains how computing this function contributes to the exercise of the cognitive capacity. Recently, proponents of the so-called “new mechanist” approach in philosophy of science have argued that a model of a cognitive capacity is explanatory only to the extent that it reveals the causal structure of the mechanism underlying the capacity. If they are right, then a cognitive model that resists a transparent mapping to known neural mechanisms—as many function-theoretic models do—fails to be explanatory. I argue that a function-theoretic characterization of a cognitive capacity can be genuinely explanatory even absent an account of how the capacity is realized in neural hardware.