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Neuroscience and the Multiple Realization of Cognitive Functions
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Neuroscience and the Multiple Realization of Cognitive Functions

Carrie Figdor
Philosophy of science, Vol.77(3), pp.419-456
07/2010
DOI: 10.1086/652964

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Abstract

Many empirically minded philosophers have used neuroscientific data to argue against the multiple realization of cognitive functions in existing biological organisms. I argue that neuroscientists themselves have proposed a biologically based concept of multiple realization as an alternative to interpreting empirical findings in terms of one-to-one structure-function mappings. I introduce this concept and its associated research framework and also how some of the main neuroscience-based arguments against multiple realization go wrong.

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