Significance Testing in Neuroimagery

Abstract

Progress in psychology and neuroscience has often influenced the philosophy of mind. Fodor’s (1968) defence of intellectualist explanations of behavioural and cognitive capacities was inspired by the explanatory role of flow charts and computer simulations in the cognitive psychology of the 1960s, and his (1974) defence of non-reductionist physicalism rested in part on the promises of computer models in cognitive psychology. As he put it, ‘the classical formulation of the unity of science is at the mercy of progress in the field of computer simulation. […] The unity of science was intended to be an empirical hypothesis, defeasible by possible scientific findings. But no one had it in mind that it should be defeated by Newell, Shaw and Simon’ (Fodor 1974, 106). The development of connectionist models of cognition in the 1980s led Ramsey, Stich and Garon (1990) to argue for the elimination of propositional attitudes. Contemporary philosophers of mind frequently appeal to findings obtained by brain-imagery techniques (primarily, fMRI). To give only two examples, Byrne (2011) appeals to fMRI results to substantiate claims about the difference between inner and outer speech, which plays an important role in his theory of self-knowledge, while Block’s recent discussion of phenomenal consciousness (2007) appeals extensively to results in neuroimagery.