William Bechtel's Publications

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BOOKS:

EDITED BOOKS:

RECENT JOURNAL ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS:

Bechtel, W. and Abrahamsen, A. (2008). From reduction back to higher levels. Proceedings of the 30 th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Bechtel, W. (in press). Mechanisms in cognitive psychology: What are the operations? Philosophy of Science, 75

Bechtel, W. and Herschbach, M. (in press). Philosophy of the cognitive sciences. In Fritz Allhoff (Ed.) Philosophy of the special sciences. Albany, NY: SUNY Press

Bechtel, W. (in press). Molecules, systems, and behavior: Another view of memory consolidation. In Bickle, J. (Editor),
Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience.

Bechtel, W. and Wright, C. (in press). What is psychological explanation? In P. Calvo and J. Symons (ed.) Routledge companion to philosophy of psychology. London: Routledge.

Bechtel, W. and Abrahamsen, A. (2007). Explaining human freedom and dignity mechanistically: From receptive to active mechanisms. The Journal of Philosophical Research, 32, 43-66

Bechtel, W. and Abrahamsen, A. (2007). Mental mechanisms, autonomous systems, and moral agency. Proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society.

Bechtel, W. (in press). Explanation: Mechanism, modularity, and situated cognition. In P. Robbins and M. Aydede (Eds.). Cambridge handbook of situated cognition . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Craver, C. F. and Bechtel, W. (2007). Top-down causation without top-down causes. Biology and Philosophy, 22, 547-563.

Bechtel, W. (2007). Reducing psychology while maintaining its autonomy via mechanistic explanation. In M. Schouten and H. Looren de Jong (Eds.). The Matter of the Mind: Philosophical Essays on Psychology, Neuroscience and Reduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bechtel, W. (2007). Biological mechanisms: Organized to maintain autonomy. In F. Boogerd, et al., Systems Biology; Philosophical Foundations. New York: Elsevier.

Bechtel, W. and Abrahamsen, A (2007). In search of mitochondrial mechanisms: Interfield excursions between cell biology and biochemistry. Journal of the History of Biology, 40, 1-33.

Wright, C. and Bechtel, W. (2007). Mechanisms and psychological explanation. In P. Thagard (ed.), Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science (Volume 4 of the Handbook of the Philosophy of Science). New York: Elsevier.

Bechtel, W. and Hamilton, A. (2007). Reductionism, integration, and the unity of the sciences. T. Kuipers (ed.), Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues (Volume 1 of the Handbook of the Philosophy of Science). New York: Elsevier.

Abrahamsen, A., & Bechtel, W. (2006). Phenomena and mechanisms: Putting the symbolic, connectionist, and dynamical systems debate in broader perspective. In R. Stainton (Ed.), Contemporary debates in cognitive science. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bechtel, William (in press). The epistemology of evidence in cognitive neuroscience. 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.

Craver, C. F. and Bechtel, W. (2006), Mechanism. In S. Sarkar & J. Pfeifer (eds.), Philosophy of science: an encyclopedia (pp. 469-478) . New York: Routledge.

Bechtel, W. (2005). The challenge of characterizing operations in the mechanisms underlying behavior. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 84, 313-325 .

Bechtel, W. (2005). Mental mechanisms: What are the operations? Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 208-213.

Bechtel, W. and Abrahamsen, A. (2005). Explanation: A Mechanistic Alternative. Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences , 36, 421-441.

Bechtel, W. and Abrahamsen, A. (2005). Mechanistic explanation and the nature-nuture controversy. Bulletin d'Histoire et d'Epistémologie des Sciences de la Vie

Weiskopf, D. and Bechtel, W. (2004) Remarks on Fodor on Having Concepts, Mind and Language, 19, 48-56

Zawidzki, T. and Bechtel, W. (2004). Gall's Legacy Revisited Decomposition and Localization in Cognitive Neuroscience.  In C. E. Erneling and D. M. Johnson (eds.), Mind as a Scientific Object: Between Brain and Culture. Oxford, Oxford University Press.  For an early conference version of this paper, click here.

Bechtel, W. (2003). Modules, brain parts, and evolutionary psychology. In S. J. Scher and F. Rauscher (eds.) Evolutionary psychology: Alternative approaches. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Bechtel, W. (2002). Decomposing the brain: A long term pursuit. Brain and Mind, 3, 229-242.

Bechtel, W. (2002). Aligning multiple research techniques in cognitive neuroscience: Why is it important?Philosophy of Science, 69, S48-S58.

Bechtel, W. (2001). The compatibility of complex systems and reduction: A case analysis of memory research. Minds and Machines, 11, 483-502.

McCauley, R. N. and Bechtel, W. (2001). Explanatory pluralism and the heuristic identity theory. Theory and Psychology, 11: 736-760

Bechtel, W. (2001).  Cognitive Neuroscience: Relating Neural Mechanisms and Cognition.  In P. Machamer, P. McLaughlin and R. Grush (eds). Philosophical Reflections on the Methods of Neuroscience. Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press.

Bechtel, W, Mandik, P., and Mundale, J. Philosophy meets the Neurosciences (2001).  In W. Bechtel, P. Mandik, J. Mundale, and R. S. Stufflebeam (eds.), Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader.  Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bechtel W. & Stufflebeam, R. S. (2001). Epistemic Issues in Procuring Evidence about the Brain:  The Importance of  Research Instruments and Techniques. In W. Bechtel, P. Mandik, J. Mundale, and R. S. Stufflebeam (eds.), Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader.  Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bechtel, W. (2001). Linking Cognition and Brain: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Language.  In W. Bechtel, P. Mandik, J. Mundale, and R. S. Stufflebeam (eds.), Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader.  Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bechtel, W. (2001). Decomposing and Localizing Vision: An Exemplar for Cognitive Neuroscience. In W. Bechtel, P. Mandik, J. Mundale, and R. S. Stufflebeam (eds.), Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader.  Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bechtel, W. (2001). Representations: From neural systems to cognitive systems.  In W. Bechtel, P. Mandik, J. Mundale, and R. S. Stufflebeam (eds.), Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader.  Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bechtel, W. (2000). From imaging to believing: Epistemic issue in generating biological data. In R. Creath and J. Maienschein (Eds.), Epistemology and Biology, pp. 138-163. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Bechtel, W. and McCauley, Robert N. (1999). Heuristic Identity Theory (or Back to the Future):   The Mind-Body Problem Against the Background of Research Strategies in Cognitive Neuroscience. In M Hahn and S. C. Stoness (eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 67-72.  Mahwah, NJ:  Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bechtel, W. and Mundale, J. (1999). Multiple realizability revisited: Linking cognitive and neural states. Philosophy of Science, 66, 175-207.

Bechtel, W. (1999).  Unity of ScienceMIT encyclopedia of cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Waskan, J. and Bechtel, W. (1998). The scope of cognitive science: A critical notice of Paul Thagard's Introduction to cognitive science, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 28,

Bechtel, W. (1998). Representations and cognitive explanations: Assessing the dynamicist challenge in cognitive scienceCognitive Science, 22, 295-318.

Bechtel, W., Graham, G. and Abrahamsen, A. (1998). The life of cognitive science.  In W. Bechtel and G. Graham (Eds.), A Companion to Cognitive Science. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bechtel, W. and Zawidzki, T. (1998). Selective biographies of major contributors to cognitive science. In W. Bechtel and G. Graham (Eds.), A Companion to Cognitive Science.  Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bechtel, W. and Mundale, J. (1997). Multiple Realizability Revisited. Proceedings of theAustralasian Cognitive Science Society. This is a much shorter version of Bechtel and Mundale (in press).

Bechtel, W. (1997). Dynamics and decomposition: Are they compatible? Proceedings of theAustralasian Cognitive Science Society.

Stufflebeam, R. S. and Bechtel, W. (1997). PET: Exploring the myth and the method. Philosophy of Science: Supplement.

Waskan, J. and Bechtel, W. (1997). Directions in Connectionist Research: Tractable Computations without Syntactically Structured Representations, Metaphilosophy. (This is available as a pdf file.)

Bechtel, W. (1997). Embodied Connectionism. In D. Johnson and C. E. Erneling, The future of  the cognitive revolution, pp. 187-208. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (This is available as a postscript file.)

Mundale, J. and Bechtel, W. (1996). Integrating Neuroscience, Psychology, and Evolutionary Biology Through a Teleological Conception of Function, Minds and Machines, 6, 481-505. (This is available as a pdf file.)

Bechtel, W. (1996). What knowledge must be in the head in order to acquire language. In B. Velichkovsky and D. M. Rumbaugh, eds., Communicating meaning: The evolution and development of langauge. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. (This is available as a pdf file.)

Bechtel, W. (1996). What should a connectionist philosophy of science look like? In R. N. McCauley, ed., The Churchlands and their critics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. (This is available as a pdf file.)

Bechtel, W. (1996). Responsibility and decision making in the era of neural networks. Social Philosophy and Policy.

Bechtel, W. (1995). Biological and Social Constraints on Cognitive Processes: The need for dynamical interactions between levels of organization. Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume 20, pp. 133-164.

Bechtel, W. (1995). Consciousness: Perspectives from Symbolic and Connectionist AI. Neuropsychologia, 33, 1075-1086 (This is available as a pdf file.)

Bechtel, W. (1995). Deciding on the data. Epistemological Problems Surrounding Instruments and Research Techniques in Cell Biology. In PSA 1994, Volume 2.

Bechtel, W. (1994). Levels of descriptions and explanation in cognitive science. Minds and Machines, 4, 1-25.

Bechtel, W. (1994). Natural deduction in connectionist systems. Synthese 101, 433-463. (This is available as a pdf file.)

Bechtel, W. (1993). Decomposing intentionality: Perspectives on intentionality drawn from language research with two species of chimpanzees. Biology and Philosophy, 8, 1-32.

Bechtel, W. (1993). Knowing how to use language: Developing a rapprochement between two theoretical traditions. In H. Roitblat, L. Herman, & P. Nachtigall (Eds.), Language and communication: Comparative perspective, pp. 65-83. Hillsdale, NJ: E rlbaum.

Bechtel, W. (1993). Integrating disciplines by creating new disciplines: The Case of cell biology. Biology and Philosophy, 8, 277-29

Bechtel, W. & Abrahamsen, A. A. (1993). Connectionism and the future of folk psychology. In R. Burton (Ed.) Minds: Natural and Artificial, pp. 69-100. Albany, NY: SUNY University Press. Reprinted in S. Christensen and D. Turner (Eds.), Fol k psychology: Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1993, pp. 340-367.

Bechtel, W. (1993). Currents in connectionism. Minds and Machines, 3, 125-153.

Bechtel, W. (1993). The case for connectionism. Philosophical Studies, 71, 119-154

Bechtel, W. & Richardson, R. C. (1992). Emergent phenomena and complex systems. In A. Beckermann, H. Flohr, & J. Kim (Eds.) Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the prospects of nonreductive physicalism, pp. 257-288. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Ver lag.