Table Of ContentThe Tools of Neuroscience
Experiment
This volume establishes the conceptual foundation for sustained inves-
tigation into tool development in neuroscience. Neuroscience relies on
diverse and sophisticated experimental tools, and its ultimate explanatory
target—our brains and hence the organ driving our behaviors—catapults
the investigation of these research tools into a philosophical spotlight.
The chapters in this volume integrate the currently scattered work on
tool development in neuroscience into the broader philosophy of science
community. They also present an accessible compendium for neurosci-
entists interested in the broader theoretical dimensions of their experi-
mental practices. The chapters are divided into five thematic sections.
Section 1 discusses the development of revolutionary research tools
across neuroscience’s history and argues to various conclusions concern-
ing the relationship between new research tools and theory progress in
neuroscience. Section 2 shows how a focus on research tools and their
development in neuroscience transforms some traditional epistemolog-
ical issues and questions about knowledge production in philosophy of
science. Section 3 speaks to the most general questions about the way we
characterize the nature of the portion of the world that this science ad-
dresses. Section 4 discusses hybrid research tools that integrate labora-
tory and computational methods in exciting new ways. Finally, Section 5
extends research on tool development to the related science of genetics.
The Tools of Neuroscience Experiment will be of interest to philoso-
phers and philosophically minded scientists working at the intersection
of philosophy and neuroscience.
John Bickle is Professor of Philosophy and Shackouls Honors College
Faculty at Mississippi State University and Affiliated Faculty in the
Department of Neurobiology and Anatomical Sciences at the Univer-
sity of Mississippi Medical Center. He is author of four academic books
and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience
(2009).
Carl F. Craver is a Professor in the Philosophy Department and the
Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program at Washington University
in St. Louis. He specializes in the Philosophy of Science and has con-
tinuing research activity in the neuropsychology of memory. He is the
author of Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of
Neuroscience and (with Lindley Darden) In Search of Mechanisms: Dis-
coveries across the Life Sciences.
Ann-Sophie Barwich is Assistant Professor at Indiana University Bloom-
ington (Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine;
Cognitive Science). She specializes in olfaction as a model for theories of
mind and brain. Barwich is the author of Smellosophy: What the Nose
Tells the Mind (2020).
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Understanding Perspectivism
Scientific Challenges and Methodological Prospects
Edited by Michela Massimi and Casey D. McCoy
The Aesthetics of Science
Beauty, Imagination and Understanding
Edited by Steven French and Milena Ivanova
Structure, Evidence, and Heuristic
Evolutionary Biology, Economics, and the Philosophy of Their
Relationship
Armin W. Schulz
Scientific Challenges to Common Sense Philosophy
Edited by Rik Peels, Jeroen de Ridder, and René van Woudenberg
Science, Freedom, Democracy
Edited by Péter Hartl and Adam Tamas Tuboly
Logical Empiricism and the Physical Sciences
From Philosophy of Nature to Philosophy of Physics
Edited by Sebastian Lutz and Adam Tamas Tuboly
The Explanatory Autonomy of the Biological Sciences
Wei Fang
The Tools of Neuroscience Experiment
Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives
Edited by John Bickle, Carl F. Craver, and Ann-Sophie Barwich
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
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The Tools of Neuroscience
Experiment
Philosophical and Scientific
Perspectives
Edited by
John Bickle, Carl F. Craver,
and Ann-Sophie Barwich
First published 2022
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, John Bickle, Carl F.
Craver, and Ann-Sophie Barwich; individual chapters, the
contributors
The right of John Bickle, Carl F. Craver, and Ann-Sophie
Barwich to be identified as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-032-12799-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-17011-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-25139-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003251392
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Contents
Foreword xi
Editors’ Introduction 1
JOHN BICKLE, CARL CRAVER AND ANN-SOPHIE BARWICH
SECTION 1
Research Tools in Relation to Theories 11
1 Tinkering in the Lab 13
JOHN BICKLE
2 Tools, Experiments, and Theories: An Examination of
the Role of Experiment Tools 37
GREGORY JOHNSON
3 Science in Practice in Neuroscience: Cincinnati Water
Maze in the Making 56
NINA A. ATANASOVA, MICHAEL T. WILLIAMS AND
CHARLES V. VORHEES
4 Where Molecular Science Meets Perfumery: A Behind-
the-Scenes Look at SCAPE Microscopy and Its
Theoretical Impact on Current Olfaction 83
ANN-SOPHIE BARWICH AND LU XU
5 A Different Role for Tinkering: Brain Fog, COVID-19,
and the Accidental Nature of Neurobiological Theory
Development 117
VALERIE GRAY HARDCASTLE AND C. MATTHEW STEWART
viii Contents
SECTION 2
Research Tools and Epistemology 135
6 Dissemination and Adaptiveness as Key Variables in
Tools That Fuel Scientific Revolutions 137
ALCINO J. SILVA
7 Toward an Epistemology of Intervention: Optogenetics
and Maker’s Knowledge 152
CARL F. CRAVER
8 Triangulating Tools in the Messiness of Cognitive
Neuroscience 176
ANTONELLA TRAMACERE
9 Prediction, Explanation, and the “Toolbox” Problem 195
MARCO J. NATHAN
SECTION 3
Research Tools, Integration, Circuits, and Ontology 219
10 How Do Tools Obstruct (and Facilitate)
Integration in Neuroscience? 221
DAVID J. COLAÇO
11 Understanding Brain Circuits: Do New Experimental
Tools Need to Address New Concepts? 239
DAVID PARKER
12 Cognitive Ontologies, Task Ontologies, and Explanation
in Cognitive Neuroscience 259
DANIEL C. BURNSTON
SECTION 4
Tools and Integrative Pluralism 285
13 “It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right”:
The Coevolution of Technological and Mathematical
Tools in Neuroscience 287
LUIS H. FAVELA
Contents ix
14 Hybrid Brains: Interfacing Living Neurons and Circuits
with Computational Models 305
ASTRID A. PRINZ
SECTION 5
Tool Use and Development Beyond Neuroscience 319
15 Beyond Actual Difference Making: Causal Selections in
Genetics 321
JANELLA BAXTER
List of Contributors 339
Index 345
