WHERE NEUROSCIENCE GETS THINGS WRONG (AND RIGHT)

Alex Rosenberg's book How History Gets Things Wrong holds that our attachment to history as a vehicle for understanding has a long evolutionary pedigree and a genetic basis, but this vehicle involves a defective theory of human nature because it involves a defective theory of the brain as shown by neuroscience. Reviewing his arguments, I argue that our attachment (if any) to history as a vehicle of understanding is not an inherited characteristic as evolutionary theory, if relevant, would require, but is developed culturally. I also argue that an evolutionary basis for a cognitive capacity does not undermine its reliability as a vehicle of knowledge or understanding. Moreover, evolutionary theory and neuroscience are separable theories, and neuroscience is misused and misunderstood by Rosenberg. Rosenberg holds that neuroscience provides a better theory of mind than does the "theory of mind" used by historians (as he understands them), where the latter is assumed by him to involve explaining by reference to beliefs and desires. However, Rosenberg illegitimately adopts what philosophers of mind call "theory-theory" to characterize historians' assumptions and does not recognize that neuroscience need not be conceived as a rival theory of explanation of action. He wrongly supposes that historical narratives are essentially explanations of individual action. A better use of neuroscience is to learn that "imagining the past" and "imagining the future" use the same brain processes, and just as imagining the future has no causal chain linking the relevant brain states directly to reality, so we have no reason to think that "imagining the past" does. Getting our imaginings correct requires sound historiographical expertise.