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person1980s-present

William Bechtel

Disciplines:
philosophy of mind
philosophy of science
cognitive science

Summary

American philosopher of science who has developed the mechanistic account of scientific explanation and applied it to cognitive science and biology.

Core Contribution

Discovering Cell Mechanisms: mechanistic explanation in cell biology — science explains phenomena by identifying the mechanisms that produce them, decomposing them into component parts and operations. Mental Mechanisms: the same framework applied to cognitive science. Contributed to the philosophy of connectionism.

Notable Works & Achievements

Philosophy and the Neurosciences

Discovering Cell Mechanisms

Mental Mechanisms

Historical Influences

Carl Hempel Francis Crick

Intellectual Lineage

Analytic Philosophy of Science

Contemporaries & Peers

Carl CraverPeter Machamer

Minds Influenced

Philosophy of Biology Philosophy of Cognitive Science

Intellectual Posterity

Mechanistic Explanation

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William Bechtel

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