Majid D. Beni

This chapter aims to show that the problem of metaphysical underdetermination, which has been introduced in the context of modern physics in the previous chapter, also arises in the field of philosophy of cognitive science. To be more precise, I show that the theoretical diversity that haunts neuroscientific accounts of the self leads to rival philosophical accounts of the self, for example, eliminativism and pluralism. The scientifically informed accounts of the self defy substantivalism. I argue that to defend a realist theory of the self, we must overcome the problem of metaphysical underdetermination, preferably without smuggling in substantivalism through the backdoor.

There are different accounts of the phenomenal aspects of the self. This chapter reviews three important accounts of the self. These are the Integrated Information Theory of consciousness (IIT), the resting-state-based theory of consciousness, and the Free Energy Principle (FEP)-based theory of (self-)consciousness. Firstly, I argue that all of these theories can be construed along the lines of SR. Moreover, I argue that because these theories could be related together in a meaningful way, together they form a comprehensive structural account of consciousness. I also present a structural account of intentionality. In this way, the chapter indicates that phenomenal aspects of the self could be construed along the lines of structural realism and in harmony with the structural realist theory of the self.

This chapter outlines some important stages in the history of the evolution of the philosophical conception of the self. It overviews the philosophical theories of Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, and Kant about notions of the mind, perception, cognition, and the self. In this chapter, I also introduce some important ideas of the book, for example, substantivalism about the self and structuralism. I show that the theories of Aristotle and Descartes line up with substantivalism, whereas views of Hume and Kant border on what is called a structural realist theory of the self in this book. The chapter also alludes to some scientific breakthroughs in psychology in the two last centuries and argues that the development of cognitive sciences occasions a break from the orthodox substantivalism about the self. I suggest that to give structure to the confusing pluralism that is caused by the divergence from substantivalism in scientific psychology, we may advocate a form of structural realism.

The chapter accounts for social and moral aspects of the self along structural terms. There are already fine neuroscientific theories that account for the embodiment of the relational self in the manifold of interpersonal relations. Vittorio Gallese has developed such a theory. Gallese’s theory indicates that the structure of the social self is based on the mirror neuron system’s information processing. In this chapter, I outline a comprehensive theory of structural self on the basis of a synthesis between Gallese’s relational self that is embodied in the web of social relations and structural realist theory of the self (SRS) which—according to what I said in previous chapters—thus far takes care of reflective and phenomenal aspects of the self. To consolidate the synthesis I draw attention to the integration (via dynamical interconnection) between the mirror neuron system, which embodies the social aspects of the self, and the Default Mode Network, which realises the reflective aspects of the self-structure. The chapter also deals with the moral aspects of the structural self. Firstly, I argue that recent findings in moral neuroscience can support a structural account of the moral aspects of the self. Then, by drawing on Peter Railton’s work, I argue that the SRS provides a chance for finding a middle ground between egotism and alienation, so as to develop a viable theory of moral judgements.

This chapter surveys the evolution of structural realism (SR), as a modified version of scientific realism. The problem of underdetermination of metaphysics by diverse theories of physics wreaks havoc with standard scientific realism. SR aims to overcome the problem of metaphysical underdetermination in a way that remains beyond the reach of object-oriented scientific realism. The chapter also outlines some important approaches to SR, for example, informational SR, and it elaborates on structural realists’ use of mathematical structures to regiment the representational content of the theories. Finally, I argue that because the theoretical diversity of the cognitive sciences distracts from realism about psychological phenomena, the projection of SR to the field of cognitive sciences as a strategy to reinforce realism about the self would be in order.

The chapter spells out the structural realist theory of the self (SRS). It builds upon what I said in Chaps. 10.1007/978-3-030-31102-5_2 and 10.1007/978-3-030-31102-5_3 to suggest that SRS can account for the issue of underdetermination of metaphysics of selfhood by the diversity of neuroscientific theories, without succumbing to the orthodox substantivalist theory of the self. SRS enables us to reconcile conflicting philosophical implications of diverse theories of the self. Thus SRS defends a modest form of realism about the self.

This chapter concludes the enterprise of this book. It briefly overviews some of the themes that are unfolded in the book. For example, it highlights the unificatory vocation of CSR, as a theory which seeks to reconcile structural realism to the cognitive models of science approach. This chapter also clarifies the ontological commitments of CSR. It asserts that CSR makes ontological commitments to embodied informational structures. These informational structures could be identified in terms of information processing in the biological, cognitive systems. Owing to the embodied nature of these mechanisms and their reciprocal dynamical interactions with the environment, they could be assumed to be entwined with the causal structure of the world. Finally, the chapter offers a comprehensive entropy-based informational framework for comprising the informational structure of CSR.

This chapter unfolds the background of Cognitive Structural Realism (CSR) and its account of scientific representation. This overviews the pursuit of the idea of the underlying structure of scientific theories in the history of the philosophy of science and elaborates on some of the central themes of this book, e.g., unification, the underlying structure, and scientific representation. It also canvasses two blooming theories of the philosophy of science. These are structural realism and Cognitive Models of Science Approach. These two theories have usually been understood as rivals. But CSR emerges as a synthesis between these two theories. By being unified, structural realism and the cognitive models of science approach amend one another’s shortcomings.

In this chapter, I survey an embodied, ecological, enactivist construal of PPT. Let us call this the embodied construal for short. Unlike the inferentialist construal of PPT that has been mentioned in the previous chapter, the embodied construal of PPT can accommodate direct realism. In this chapter, I argue that the embodied construal can be recruited by CSR, and it can be used to deal with the strong version of the problem of representation in a fundamental way. Given the possibility of associating the embodied construal of PPT with direct realism, CSR could rely on this construal of PPT to face the threat of the strong version of the problem of representation in a radical way. This is because the embodied, enactivist, and ecological construal does not recognise the existence of an inferential veil that could distort the relation between cognitive models on the one hand and their target in the world on the other. Hence the problem of representation could be suppressed fundamentally.

The chapter articulates weak and strong versions of the problem of representation. It also argues that enhancing the expressive power of logical systems does not result in a conclusive solution to the problem of representation. I examine structural realists’ reliance on ‘partial isomorphisms’ and ‘pragmatic truth’ to substantiate the message of this chapter. The message is that the set/model-theoretic framework cannot account for the biologically explicable relationship between the structure of the scientific theories and reality.

The chapter launches a new attempt at addressing the problem of representation. In this chapter, I shall argue that to deal with the problem, we may specify the underlying structure of scientific theories in terms of cognitive structures. To introduce the desirable cognitive structures, I shall rely on the preceding work of Churchland and construe it as a new version of structural realism. My construal of Churchland’s work paves the way for a synthesis between CMSA and SR. The chapter outlines a rudimentary version of Cognitive SR and its solution to the problem of representation. A more advanced version that includes further details regarding the underpinning neurological mechanisms and their biological viability will be presented in the next chapters of this book.

This chapter surveys a different version of SR that does not rely on set/model-theoretic structures. Ladyman J, Ross D, Collier J, Spurrett D (Every thing must go. Oxford University Press, Oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276196.001.0001, 2007) version of Informational SR (ISR) (ISR is usually used to refer to Floridi’s version of Informational Structural Realism. Here, I extend the term to also include Ladyman and Ross’ version.) offers an information-theoretic account of the underlying structure of scientific theories. At times it seems that Ladyman and Ross’ version of ISR relies on John Collier’s development of the notion of physical information. This may facilitate connecting the underlying informational structures to the physical world. However, as I will discuss in this chapter, despite its promising approach, Ladyman and Ross’ version of ISR cannot tell us a full story about grounding the representational relation between theories and the world. I shall argue that this version of Informational SR cannot address the problem of representation satisfactory either.

The book aims to provide a radically naturalistic account of scientific representation in the field of philosophy of science and within the context of structural realism. The book’s account of scientific representation is presented within the context of a new (Cognitive) version of Structural Realism. This new theory, i.e., Cognitive Structural Realism (or CSR), is inspired by two rival approaches in the contemporary philosophy of science. These are (orthodox) Structural Realism and Cognitive Models of Science Approach. Also, CSR draws on resources of computational neuroscience, theoretical biology, as well as embodied and enactivist interpretations of theories of cognitive psychology, to provide a fresh theory of scientific representation and defend a naturalistically plausible and down-to-earth version of structural realism.

In this chapter, I draw on the resources of contemporary computational neuroscience to provide an updated version of CSR. I shall argue that the resources of the Predictive Processing Theory (PPT) can be used to account for both structuralist and realist components of CSR. I argue that PPT provides the necessary inferential links for accounting for CSR’s notion of scientific representation. Since the implemented Bayesian framework that PPT invokes has a natural propensity for being grounded, this version of CSR provides a solution to the problem of representation. But I will conclude the chapter by pointing out that the inferential nature of the invoked inferential links could still harbour the strong version of the problem of representation.

We critically examine the intersection of developmental bioelectricity within the context of the Peircean philosophy of science. We address the criticism of Peirce’s objective idealism and synechism, contest the conflation of semiotic and physical laws, and scrutinise Peirce’s recovery of physical from psychological laws. The upshot is a nonmechanistic, nonreductive interpretation of the evolution of cognition in the bioengineering realm. The work of Kull and others is leveraged to demarcate semiotics and physics, emphasising the irreducibility of bioelectric phenomena to mechanistic explanations. Our paper advocates for methodological synechism in evolutionary biology, highlighting the heightened roles of bioelectricity in morphogenesis and basal cognition. We propose the free-energy principle as a unifying arbiter that sets an explanatory pathway toward integrated cognition and meaning in developmental bioelectricity.

We critically examine the intersection of developmental bioelectricity within the context of the Peircean philosophy of science. We address the criticism of Peirce’s objective idealism and synechism, contest the conflation of semiotic and physical laws, and scrutinise Peirce’s recovery of physical from psychological laws. The upshot is a nonmechanistic, nonreductive interpretation of the evolution of cognition in the bioengineering realm. The work of Kull and others is leveraged to demarcate semiotics and physics, emphasising the irreducibility of bioelectric phenomena to mechanistic explanations. Our paper advocates for methodological synechism in evolutionary biology, highlighting the heightened roles of bioelectricity in morphogenesis and basal cognition. We propose the free-energy principle as a unifying arbiter that sets an explanatory pathway toward integrated cognition and meaning in developmental bioelectricity.

This book draws on advances in computational neuroscience and theoretical biology to provide a clear and accessible agentive account of the nature of causality and scientific explanations. Instead of attempting to establish the elements of scientific explanation, such as causality, in a reality unadulterated by a human perspective, this book relies on scientific facts about cognition to describe the structure of agency at from a distinctly human perspective. The book draws on the Free Energy Principle to reinforce the agency theory of causality and extend it to an account of explanation as well. This principle The FEP not only provides a theoretical account of how self-organising systems engage with the causal structure of the environment, but it also offers a viable notion of agency and is compatible with the projectivist aspects of the agency theory. Scientific Explanation, Causality, and Agency will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in philosophy of science, philosophy of cognitive science, epistemology, computational neuroscience, and theoretical biology.

The paper addresses the issue of theory-ladenness of observation/experimentation. Motivated by a naturalistic reading of Thomas Kuhn's insights into the same topic, I draw on cognitive neuroscience (predictive coding under Free Energy Principle) to scrutinise theory-ladenness. I equate theory-ladenness with the cognitive penetrability of perceptual inferences and argue that strong theory-ladenness prevails only under uncertain circumstances. This understanding of theory-ladenness is in line with Thomas Kuhn's view on the same subject as well as a cognitive version of modest realism rather than downright antirealism.

There are realist and antirealist interpretations of the free energy principle (FEP). This paper aims to chart out a structural realist interpretation of FEP. To do so, it draws on Worrall’s (Dialectica 43(1–2): 99–124, 1989) proposal. The general insight of Worrall’s paper is that there is progress at the level of the structure of theories rather than their content. To enact Worrall’s strategy in the context of FEP, this paper will focus on characterising the formal continuity between fundamental equations of thermodynamics—such as Boltzmann’s equation and Gibbs’s equation—on the one hand, and Friston’s characterisation of FEP on the other. Lack of a universal consensus on the physical character of entities that feature in thermodynamics, information theory and FEP notwithstanding, I argue that there is structural continuity and unity at the level of mathematical equations that regiment entropy, information and free energy. The existence of such structural continuity and unity provides grounds for structural realism about FEP.

This paper proposes to recover the topic of the philosophy of scientific method from its late nineteenth-century roots. The subject matter of scientific method sprouted from key inferential ingredients identified by Charles Peirce. In this paper, the historical path is traversed from the viewpoint of contemporary Cognitive Structural Realism (CSR). Peirce’s semiotic theory of methods and practices of scientific inquiry prefigured CSR’s reliance on embodied informational structures and experimentation upon forms of relations that model generic scientific domains. Three results are shown to follow from this convocation: (i) a naturalization of Peirce’s interconnected abductive, deductive and inductive stages of the logic of science, here characterized de novo in terms of CSR. (ii) a perspective to scientific modeling that incorporates processes of abstraction and generalization as originated from Peirce’s logic of science, and (iii) diagrammatic reasoning as a pivotal method in analyzing scientific reasoning in experimental practices.

This paper draws on the resources of computational neuroscience (an account of active inference under the free energy principle) to address Bas van Fraassen's bad lot objection to the inference to the best explanation (IBE). The general assumption of this paper is that IBE is a finessed form of active inferences that self-organising systems perform to maximise the chance of their survival. Under this assumption, the paper aims to establish the following points: first, the capacity to learn to perform explanatory inferences comes with evolutionary privileges; second, adaptive actions guide beliefs and beliefs are action-oriented; and third, IBE is not inconsistent with (approximate) Bayesianism but plays a heuristic role to it.

This is a short discussion of Janko Nešić’s [2022. “Towards a Neutral-Structuralist Theory of Consciousness and Selfhood.” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 1–17], which conveys a critical review of Beni’s Structural Realist theory of the Self (SRS). Nešić’s critique indicates that there is an incongruity between the structuralist tendency of SRS and its commitment to panpsychism. He argues that Beni can use the notion of internal information to develop a more congenial account of consciousness than panpsychism. In this paper, I defend the panpsychist component of Beni’s theory and explain why I think it’s preferable to Nešić’s proposal.

Richard Levins’s (Am Sci 54(4):421–431, 1966) paper sets a landmark for the significance of scientific model-making in biology. Colombo and Palacios (Biol Philos 36(5):1–26. 10.1007/s10539-021-09818-x, 2021) have recently built their critique of the explanatory power of the Free Energy Principle on Levins’s insight into the relationship between generality, realism, and precision. This paper addresses the issue of the plausibility of biological explanations that are grounded in the Free Energy Principle (FEP) and deals with the question of the realist fortitude of FEP’s theoretical framework. It indicates that what is required for establishing the plausibility of the explanation of a target system given a model of that system is the dosage or the harmony between the generality and accuracy of explanatory models. This would also provide a basis for seeing how scientific realism could be a viable option with respect to FEP.