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How Computation Explains

Richmond, Andrew (2022) How Computation Explains. [Preprint]

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Abstract

I discuss the monumental shift in our understanding of the brain triggered by the project of computational cognitive science: the use of tools, concepts, and strategies from the computer sciences to investigate the brain. Philosophers have typically understood this project, and the computational explanations it provides, to assume that the brain is a computer, in a sense to be specified by the metaphysics of computation. That metaphysics, by revealing what exactly we attribute to the brain when we say it computes, is supposed to show how and why computational explanations work, and in doing so to provide a philosophical foundation for them. In contrast, I give an account of computational explanation that focuses on the resources computational explanations bring to bear on the study of the brain. I argue that computational explanations help cognitive scientists build perspicuous models that capture precisely the kinds of causal structures they seek, and that no metaphysics of computation is required to understand how they do this.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Richmond, Andrewarichmo8@uwo.ca0000-0001-7824-7474
Keywords: Computation, Scientific Explanation, Deflationism, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Neuroscience > Cognitive Neuroscience
Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science
Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Computation
General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User: Andrew Richmond
Date Deposited: 22 Mar 2024 03:20
Last Modified: 22 Mar 2024 03:20
Item ID: 23214
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Neuroscience > Cognitive Neuroscience
Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science
Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Computation
General Issues > Explanation
Date: 2022
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23214

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