Poetic justice: A commentary on Joseph B. McCaffrey's "The brain’s heterogeneous landscape" Cover Image

Poetic justice: A commentary on Joseph B. McCaffrey's "The brain’s heterogeneous landscape"
Poetic justice: A commentary on Joseph B. McCaffrey's "The brain’s heterogeneous landscape"

Author(s): Witold M. Hensel
Subject(s): Neuropsychology
Published by: Ośrodek Badań Filozoficznych
Keywords: cognitive neuroscience;brain pluripotency/multifunctionality;structure-function mapping strategies;functional cognitive ontology;kinds of multifunctionality;cognitive ontology revision;systematic mapp

Summary/Abstract: The paper is a commentary on McCaffrey (2015). I begin by arguing that the two views on brain pluripotency that McCaffrey intends to reconcile, namely those of Price and Friston (2005) and Klein (2012), are not really in conflict. The alleged disagreement between them stems from two interpretative failures: first on the part of Klein, who has misrepresented the views of Price and Friston, and second on the part of McCaffrey, who has misconstrued Klein’s position. I then take issue with McCaffrey’s claim that each of the structurefunction mapping strategies he discusses allows researchers to discover a different kind of pluripotency: (1) where each subregion of a pluripotent brain area performs a specific function, (2) where a brain area performs a single function in multiple mechanisms (networks), and (3) where a brain area performs multiple functions in multiple mechanisms (networks).

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 2-3
  • Page Range: 79-84
  • Page Count: 6
  • Language: English