Responses to critics

Abstract

In response to points raised by our critics in this book symposium, we offer some clarifications about how to understand the role of science in assessing the multiple realization thesis. We also consider the connection between functionalism and multiple realization in the contexts of both psychological and biological sciences.

Keywords:

• Autonomy of psychology
• functionalism
• multiple realizability
• multiple realization
• neuroscience
• realization

Notes

1. If more explanation is needed, we can say that we are naturalists in the sense of Penelope’s Maddy’s so-called Second Philosopher (2007), that is, we hold that there is only one kind of epistemic procedure, that it is the one that is systematized in a distinctive way by the sciences, and that metaphysical knowledge is subject to the very same epistemic standard. Arguments for naturalism are beyond the scope of this paper.

2. Janssen, Klein, and Slors (2017) distinguish between nomenclature, domain, and category uses of the expression “cognitive ontology” so it seems to have the same ambiguity as “taxonomy” after all.

3. Remember that the paper in which Putnam first advances the multiple realization argument against the mind–brain identity theory and behaviorism, “The Nature of Mental States,” was originally published under the title, “Psychological Predicates” (1967).

4. As naturalists, we are puzzled by the idea that there is any other route to ontology.