Neuro-philosophy meets psychology: Reduction, autonomy, and physiological constraints

Connectionism and the Philosophy of Mind

“…3). 5 I don't consider the eliminativist position here because I fmd it to be decidedly implausible; my reasons for this judgment have been expressed elsewhere (Hatfield, 1988a). 436-7), in this paper I employ the term "rule" according to the technical usage current in the literature of cognitive science (and related philosophical literature), while suggesting an added distinction within that usage.…”

“…As several authors have observed, neurophysiological investigation, once it moves above the level of the single neuron, depends on a functional characterization of the systems it studies in order to proceed (Hatfield, 1988a;Mehler, Morton, & Jusczyk, 1984; see also Julesz, 1978, pp. Any envisioned extension of neurocomputational explanation to spatial vision will be affected by scientific study that proceeds in both directions, that is, from neurons up and from systems-functions down.…”

Social Neuroscience: The Footprints of Phineas Gage

“…Hatfield (2000), a philosopher trained in experimental psychology, surveyed a number of different areas, including sensation and perception as well as memory, and concluded that, in each case, psychology led and constrained neurophysiology rather than the reverse, and went so far as to argue, based on abstract principles, that psychology must provide the functional vocabulary for describing much of the brain's activity" (p. S396) and that "psychology leads the way in brain science" (p. S397; see also Hatfield, 1988). Coltheart, a cognitive scientist who has effectively used behavioral data from neuropsychological cases to develop a theory of reading (e.g., Coltheart, 2006a), while leaving open the theoretical possibility that neuroscientific data might be decisive in the future, considered more than a dozen purported examples where neurophysiological (particular functional neuroimaging) data constrained psychological theory, and found each case unpersuasive (Coltheart, 2006b, c; see also Uttal, 2009).…”

Protein- and carbohydrate-specific cravings: Neuroscience and sociology

“…Thus, neither the brain nor any other part of human biology will be understood IIl1less research also takes on board the realities of both the mental processes llI'galli:t.ingthe observed neural and bodily functioning and the cultural processl:s 10 whkh human brains and bodies become socialized as the individual person dl'vdops (Booth, 1987a(Booth, , 1988Hatfield, 1988), Thr sdentific understanding of appetite cannot advance without sociological, psyrhologkal, and physiological analyses of the processes organizing ingestive Iwhuviol'.…”