Explaining the Brain [Hardcover]

What distinguishes good explanations in neuroscience from bad? Carl F. Craver constructs and defends standards for evaluating neuroscientific explanations that are grounded in a systematic view of what neuroscientific explanations are: descriptions of multilevel mechanisms. In developing this approach, he draws on a wide range of examples in the history of neuroscience (e.g. Hodgkin and Huxleys model of the action potential and LTP as a putative explanation for different kinds of memory), as well as recent philosophical work on the nature of scientific explanation. Readers in neuroscience, psychology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of science will find much to provoke and stimulate them in this book.

Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction: Starting With Neuroscience
1. Introduction
2. Explanations in Neuroscience Describe Mechanisms.
3. Explanations in Neuroscience are Multilevel
4. Explanations in Neuroscience Integrate Multiple Fields
5. Criteria of Adequacy for an Account of Explanation
Chapter 2. Explanation and Causal Relevance
1. Introduction
2. How Calcium Explains Neurotransmitter Release
3. Explanation and Representation
4. The Covering-Law Model
5. The Unification Model
6. But What About the Hodgkin and Huxley Model?
7. Conclusion
Chapter 3. Causal Relevance and Manipulation
1. Introduction
2. The Mechanism of Long-Term Potentiation
3. Causation as Transmission
3.1. Transmission and Causal Relevance
3.2. Omission and Prevention
4. Causation and Mechanical Connection
5. Manipulation and Causation
5.1. Ideal Interventions
5.2. Invariance, Fragility, and Contingency
5.3. Manipulation and Criteria for Explanation
5.4. Manipulation, Omission, and Prevention
6. Conclusion
Chapter 4. The Norms of Mechanistic Explanation
1. Introduction
2. Two Normative Distinctions
3. Explaining the Action Potential
4. The Explanandum Phenomenon
5. Components
6. ActivlÓJ