Hostname: page-component-6898cfcb55-cbk24 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-11T05:41:13.731Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Macro- versus Micro-Determinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

R. W. Sperry
R. W. Sperry*
Affiliation:
Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most readers will agree with the starting assumptions of Klee (1984) that contemporary science and philosophy assume a primarily micro-deterministic view of nature–and that this has long been the case, or was at least until the 1970s. (As I will explain later, I think such an assumption has been open to question since the mid-1970s.) Defending a strict micro-determinism, Klee argues that concepts of emergence that seemingly are opposed to micro-determinist doctrine can be shown, on analysis, to be ultimately consistent with a thoroughgoing philosophy of micro-determinism. An exception is made, however, in the case of my own view, labeled “direct macro-determinism,” which he describes as “ultimately more troublesome” but then disposes of as being based on “simplistic analogies” and “metaphors” and “too weak to be conclusive.”

Information

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 1986, pp. 265 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

†

I thank Dr. William A. Rottscheafer for calling my attention to the Klee article in his letter of August 29, 1984, and Dr. Jenny Yates-Hammett for helpful suggestions regarding earlier drafts of the manuscript.

References

Baskin, Y., and Sperry, R. W. (1983), Interview, “Roger Sperry”, The Omni Interviews. New York: Ticknor and Fields.Google Scholar
Hilgard, E. R. (1980), “Consciousness in Contemporary Psychology”, Annual Review of Psychology 31: 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klee, R. L. (1984), “Micro-Determinism and Concepts of Emergence”, Philosophy of Science 51: 44–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKay, D. M. (1966), “Conscious Control of Action”, in Brain and Conscious Experience, Eccles, J. C. (ed.). New York: Springer-Verlag, Inc.Google Scholar
MacKay, D. M. (1980), Brains, Machines and Persons. London: Collins.Google Scholar
Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1973), “What the Mind's Eye Tells the Mind's Brain: A Critique of Mental Imagery”, Psychological Bulletin 80: 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperry, R. W. (1964), “Problems Outstanding in the Evolution of Brain Function”, James Arthur Lecture. New York: American Museum of Natural History.Google Scholar
Sperry, R. W. (1965), “Mind, Brain and Humanist Values”, in New Views of the Nature of Man, Platt, John R. (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Condensed in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 22: 2–6.)Google Scholar
Sperry, R. W. (1969), “A Modified Concept of Consciousness”, Psychological Review 76: 532–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperry, R. W. (1970), “Perception in the Absence of the Neocortical Commissures”, Perception and its Disorders, Research Publication A.R.N.M.D., 48: 123–38.Google ScholarPubMed
Sperry, R. W. (1983), “Changed Concepts of Brain and Consciousness: Some Value Implications”, Perkins Journal 36: 21–32. (Reprinted in Zygon 20.)Google Scholar