Ross Don, Spurrett David
Department of Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1260, USA.
Behav Brain Sci. 2004 Oct;27(5):603-27; discussion 627-47. doi: 10.1017/s0140525x04000147.
A wave of recent work in metaphysics seeks to undermine the anti-reductionist, functionalist consensus of the past few decades in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. That consensus apparently legitimated a focus on what systems do, without necessarily and always requiring attention to the details of how systems are constituted. The new metaphysical challenge contends that many states and processes referred to by functionalist cognitive scientists are epiphenomenal. It further contends that the problem lies in functionalism itself, and that, to save the causal significance of mind, it is necessary to re-embrace reductionism. We argue that the prescribed return to reductionism would be disastrous for the cognitive and behavioral sciences, requiring the dismantling of most existing achievements and placing intolerable restrictions on further work. However, this argument fails to answer the metaphysical challenge on its own terms. We meet that challenge by going on to argue that the new metaphysical skepticism about functionalist cognitive science depends on reifying two distinct notions of causality (one primarily scientific, the other metaphysical), then equivocating between them. When the different notions of causality are properly distinguished, it is clear that functionalism is in no serious philosophical trouble, and that we need not choose between reducing minds or finding them causally impotent. The metaphysical challenge to functionalism relies, in particular, on a naïve and inaccurate conception of the practice of physics, and the relationship between physics and metaphysics.
近期形而上学领域的一系列研究试图打破过去几十年来认知科学和心灵哲学中反还原论、功能主义的共识。这种共识显然使人们将重点放在系统的功能上，而不一定总是要求关注系统的构成细节。新的形而上学挑战认为，功能主义认知科学家所提及的许多状态和过程是副现象的。它进一步认为问题在于功能主义本身，并且为了挽救心灵的因果重要性，有必要重新接受还原论。我们认为，规定回归还原论对认知科学和行为科学将是灾难性的，这需要拆解大多数现有成果，并对未来的研究施加难以承受的限制。然而，这一论点未能从其自身角度回应形而上学的挑战。我们通过进一步论证来应对这一挑战，即对功能主义认知科学的新形而上学怀疑论依赖于将两种不同的因果概念（一种主要是科学的，另一种是形而上学的）具体化，然后在它们之间 equivocating。当正确区分不同的因果概念时，很明显功能主义不存在严重的哲学问题，而且我们不必在还原心灵或认为其因果无效之间做出选择。对功能主义的形而上学挑战尤其依赖于对物理学实践以及物理学与形而上学关系的幼稚和不准确的概念。 （注：原文中“equivocating”未翻译完整，推测可能是“equivocating between them”，表示在两者之间含糊其辞，因不确定准确内容，故保留英文）
