文档介绍：To appear in In R. Skipper Jr., C. Allen, R. A. Ankeny, C. F. Craver, L. Darden, G. Mikkelson, and R. Richardson (eds.),
Philosophy and the Life Sciences: A Reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
The Epistemology of Evidence in Cognitive Neuroscience1
William Bechtel
Department of Philosophy and Science Studies
University of California, San Diego
1. The Epistemology of Evidence
It is no secret that scientists argue. They argue about theories. But even more, they argue about
the evidence for theories. Is the evidence itself trustworthy? This is a bit surprising from the
perspective of traditional empiricist accounts of scientific methodology according to which the
evidence for scientific theories stems from observation, especially observation with the naked
eye. These accounts portray the testing of scientific theories as a matter paring the
predictions of the theory with the data generated by these observations, which are taken to
provide an objective link to reality.
One lesson philosophers of science have learned in the last 40 years is that even observation with
the naked eye is not as epistemically straightforward as was once assumed. What one is able to
see depends upon one’s training: a novice looking through a microscope may fail to recognize
the neuron and its processes (Hanson, 1958; Kuhn, 1962/1970).2 But a second lesson is only
beginning to be appreciated: evidence in science is often not procured through simple
observations with the naked eye, but observations mediated plex instruments and
sophisticated research techniques. What is most important, epistemically, about these techniques
is that they often radically alter the phenomena under investigation. Moreover, the exact nature
of this alteration is frequently poorly understood. Golgi staining is an extreme, but illustrative
example—100 years after the introduction by Camillo Golgi of the silver nitrate stain, we still do