The Tangled Knots of Neuroscientific Experimentation

Abstract

The experimental method has promoted the popularity of neuroscientific research on the human mind. In this interdisciplinary enterprise, the experimental method, with its roots in natural science and experimental psychology, is often uncritically accepted as the royal road to investigate the human mind not only by neuroscientists, but by many philosophers as well, especially those inclined to some form of naturalism. It is rarely disputed that experiments reveal actual states of nature (here: of mind and/or brain). Experimental results are used to picture the human person or subject as an illusionary construct resulting from neuronal interactions. The present paper sketches some of the limitations of neuroscientific experiments in order to demonstrate that cognitive neuroscience is far from relying on firm methodological grounds. Numerous issues still have to be solved, some of which date back to the early days of modern science. At least, to make experiments work, many theoretical presuppositions have to be accepted and decisions of relevance have to be made in the scientific process. This implies that all scientific endeavor is constituted by persons making free decisions for good reasons, despite all reductionist claims to the contrary. The fact that we as scientists have to distinguish relevant from irrelevant aspects of experimental procedures is also crucial for dealing with the current replicability crisis in the life sciences including neuroscience.

Keywords: Experiment; Naturalism; Neuroscience; Organism; Replicability.