The dynamics of inquiry in cognitive neuroscience

In my thesis I pursue the question of how it is that we learn about the mind from the brain. My approach is to look at the practices within cognitive neuroscience, the science that studies cognition using neuroscientific tools and data. I argue that the main epistemic link between neuroscience and psychology is evidential. Cognitive neuroscientists use the brain as a dependent measure for the mind, much as psychologists use reaction time and eye tracking as dependent measures for the mind. I develop a view of scientific inquiry and cognitive neuroscience on which evidence plays a more central and diverse role than is usually thought. A long tradition in the philosophy of science holds that evidence plays a role only in relation to hypotheses: the role of evidence is to confirm or disconfirm hypotheses. I argue that data can be used to generate and refine hypotheses as well as to confirm them. I substantiate this view with both historical and contemporary examples of cognitive neuroscience. My approach contrasts with traditional reductionist and antireductionist approaches to the mind-brain relation. These views typically take the most developed parts of science, such as theories and explanations, as the best candidates for understanding how we learn about the mind from the brain. I argue that it is that evidential relations can be found between the brain and the mind, even in the absence of definitive explanations, laws, or theories. Traditionally both reductionism and antireductionism have acknowledged only a highly limited role for evidence. Findings from neuroscience can constrain psychology, or be heuristically suggestive, and not much more can be said. But cognitive neuroscience is a young and dynamic discipline. Generating suggestive data is not a mere peripheral function; it is a core task of the science. My thesis argues that there is much more to say about how this occurs, and show how this data can be used to bootstrap a science of the mind-brain relationship