This course explores the distinctive use of functional and
mechanistic explanations in the life sciences, from molecular
genetics through cell biology and the neurosciences, to cognitive
science.  Through an investigation of specific examples of
scientific explanation that invoke functional and mechanistic
notions we will approach basic philosophical questions such as What
is a function?  What is a mechanism? and What is an explanation?  In
the course of pursuing answers to these questions we will encounter
topics as the uniqueness of patterns of explanation in biology, the
(dis)unity of science and the autonomy of the special sciences, the
varieties of reductionism, and the relationships between models and
laws in scientific explanations.