Unity of Science and Pluralism: Cognitive Neurosciences of Racial Prejudice as a Case Study

Abstract

A consideration of the recent history of philosophy reveals that when thinking about unity of science, philosophers have mainly been thinking of unity through reduction of higher level theories to lower level theories. In other words, if unity was to be achieved it was through intertheoretic reduction. Lately, though, some philosophers (Darden and Maull, Philos Sci 44:43–64, 1977; McCauley and Bechtel, Theory Psychol 11:736–760, 2001; Mitchell and Dietrich, Am Nat 168:S73–S79, 2006) have started to question this exclusive focus on intertheoretic reduction in the discussions concerning the unity of science. These philosophers have also come to reject the global project of unification for more modest and local forms of unification: This is the area of pluralism. Pluralism complicates tremendously our understanding of the relations between theories. In fact, pluralism suggests that we are facing two distinct tasks: (1) Developing a typology of the intertheoretic relations; (2) Understanding on a case-by-case basis the relation between specific theories or specific frameworks. I believe that progress has been made with respect to (1), but I want to improve on the current understanding of the typology of intertheoretic relations. I take (2) to be essential: Many scientists have failed to understand what pluralism entails. They view their theories to be simply inconsistent with each other (when sometimes, they are not). It is important to understand the relations between actual sciences and between actual theories in order to avoid futile arguments and to develop better theories. In this paper, I will present Sandra Mitchell’s typology of inter-theoretic relations. I will then focus on a case study—the relations between the neurosciences and social cognitive psychology of racial prejudice. What will emerge is that the pluralism proposed by Mitchell should be enriched further to understand the real nature of the unity proposed in certain fields of science.