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It seems unproblematic to describe and explain the world that we live in at quite different levels: We can theorize about an agentʼs beliefs and desires, about the computational processing going on in the agentʼs cognitive system, about certain biological functions of the human brain, about neurochemical processes, or about microphysical structures in the brain. Relatedly, we have theories that appear to explain the world at different levels, such as folk psychology, cognitive psychology, biology, chemistry, or physics, to name only a few.
Given this, how are the different levels of explanation / the different theories related to one another? In this class, we will investigate competing answers to this question, their motivations, and their problems. One answer is provided by reductionist views: the higher levels of explanation are reducible to, or can be fully accounted for in terms of the lower levels of explanation. Correspondingly, higher-level scientific theories are reducible to lower-level theories (and eventually to microphysics). A different answer is provided by emergentist views. According to them, there are emergent properties at higher levels of explanation which arise in virtue of what is going on at the lower levels, but are nonetheless novel and not reducible with respect to them. Nor are higher-level theories reducible to lower-level theories.
The main focus of the class will be on issues in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, but we will also deal with more general issues of scientific theory reduction and micro-reductionism.
Note that this class will be held in English.
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