L’agenda ontologica della neuroscienza cognitiva: le neuroscienze come “arbitro” delle categorie psicologiche (e viceversa)

Marco Viola

Abstract


Riassunto: Questo articolo ambisce a fornire una ricostruzione razionale dell’ontologia della neuroscienza cognitiva. Questa dovrebbe soddisfare tre desiderata: (a) un’ontologia delle funzioni cognitive che descriva tutte le operazioni della mente; (b) un’ontologia delle strutture neurali che descriva tutte le parti del cervello; (c) una corrispondenza biunivoca tra ogni funzione cognitiva e una corrispettiva struttura neurale. Saranno brevemente esaminati i presupposti che stanno alla base di questi desiderata, nonché alcune critiche mosse dagli scettici. Dopo aver vagliato alcune possibili contro-obiezioni agli argomenti scettici, si noterà come tuttavia la migliore difesa di quest’agenda di ricerca passi dal successo empirico delle euristiche che prescrive: di conseguenza, saranno descritte le strategie euristiche attraverso cui psicologia e neuroscienze, vincolandosi reciprocamente, forniscono dei criteri per selezionare (e integrare) funzioni cognitive e strutture neurali.

Parole chiave: Filosofia delle scienze cognitive; Filosofia delle neuroscienze; Filosofia della mente; Storia delle scienze cognitive; Ontologia cognitiva

 

The Ontological Agenda of Cognitive Neuroscience: Neuroscience as an “Arbiter” for Psychological Categories (and viceversa)

Abstract: This article aims at providing a rational reconstruction of the ontology of Cognitive Neuroscience. That should satisfy three desiderata: (a) an ontology of cognitive functions describing any operation of the mind; (b) an ontology of neural structure describing any part of the brain; (c) a one-to-one correspondence between each cognitive function and a given neural structure. The assumptions sustaining these desiderata will be examined, as well as some skeptical arguments against them. Then, after having surveyed some possible counterarguments to the skeptical objections, it will be argued that the strongest defense of this research agenda is the empirical success of the heuristics that it prescribes. Thus, such heuristics will be described, showing how the mutual constraints of psychology and cognitive neuroscience provides some criteria for choosing (and integrating) cognitive functions and neural structures.

Keywords: Philosophy of Cognitive Science; Philosophy of Neuroscience; Philosophy of Mind; History of Cognitive Science; Cognitive Ontology


Parole chiave


Filosofia delle scienze cognitive; Filosofia delle neuroscienze; Filosofia della mente; Storia delle scienze cognitive; Ontologia cognitiva

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Riferimenti bibliografici


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.4453/rifp.2016.0017

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