Abstract
The structuralist program has developed a useful metascientific resource: ontological reductive links (ORLs) between the constituents of the potential models of reduced and reducing theories. This resource was developed initially to overcome an objection to structuralist “global” ac counts of the intertheoretic reduction relation. But it also illuminates the way that concepts at a higher level of scientific investigation (e.g., cognitive psychology) become “structured through reduction” to lower-level investigations (e.g., cellular/molecular neuroscience). After (briefly) explaining this structuralist background, I demonstrate how this resource illuminates an actual, emerging scientific example: the link between the psychological concept of a “consolidation switch” from short-term to long-term memory and the cellular/molecular mechanisms of the transition from early- to late-phases of long-term potentiation (LTP) (an important type of synaptic plasticity in mammalian hippocampus and cortex).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Balzer, W., C. U. Moulines and J. D. Sneed: 1987, An Architectonic for Science, Dordrecht, D. Reidel.
Bickle, J.: 1998, Psychoneural Reduction, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Bickle, J.: 2003, Philosophy and Neuroscience: A Ruthlessly Reductive Account, Dordrecht, Kluwer.
Kandel, E., J. Schwartz and T. Jessell (eds.): 2000, Principles of Neural Science, 4th edn. New York, McGraw-Hill.
Lewin, B.: 1999, Genes VII, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Mayr, D.: 1976, ‘Investigations of the Concept of Reduction I’, Erkenntnis 10, 275–294.
Mormann, T.: 1988, ‘Structuralist Reduction Concepts as Structure-Preserving Maps’, Synthese 77, 215–250.
Moulines, C. U.: 1984, ‘Ontological Reduction in the Natural Sciences’, in W. Balzer, D. Pearce and H. J. Schmidt (eds.), Reduction in Science, Dordrecht, D. Reidel, pp. 51–70.
Moulines, C. U.: 1996, ‘Structuralism: The Basic Ideas’, in W Balzer and C. U. Moulines (eds.), Structuralist Theory of Science, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 1–13.
Schaffner, K.: 1967, ‘Approaches to Reduction’, Philosophy of Science 34, 137–147.
Squire, L.: 1987, Memory and Brain, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Squire, L. and E. Kandel: 1999, Memory: From Mind to Molecules, New York, Scientific American Library.
Stegmüller, W.: 1976, The Structure and Dynamics of Theories, Berlin, Springer-Verlag.
Suppes, P.: 1956, Introduction to Logic, Princeton, NJ, van Nostrand.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bickle, J. (2009). Concepts Structured through Reduction: A Structuralist Resource Illuminates the Consolidation-Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) Link. In: Rahman, S., Symons, J., Gabbay, D.M., Bendegem, J.P.v. (eds) Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science. Logic, Epistemology, And The Unity Of Science, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2808-3_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2808-3_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-2486-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-2808-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive