by Sabrina D. MisirHiralall
Kenneth Aizawa works in the philosophy of psychology and philosophy of science. Dr. Aizawa has worked at some very different institutions such as a regional state university in rural Michigan, a small Southern liberal arts college, and an urban Research I university.
What would your childhood self say if someone told you that you would grow up to be a philosopher?
“What’s a philosopher?”
What’s your most treasured memory?
When I was a boy, our family used to go boating. My brother and I had a small rubber raft and my dad would circle the boat around us making waves. Think shipwreck of the S. S. Minnow. I’m fond of that because it was just us having fun together; there was none of the competitiveness that has haunted me since high school.
You’re stuck on a desert island and you can only have one recreational activity. What is it?
Stuck on a desert island, like Gilligan’s Island? Can it be snorkeling? I like being outside and swimming. And you can make it a little competitive by seeing how long you can stay under water. See how that works with me?
What 3 items would you take to a desert island other than food and water?
Mask, fins, and snorkel.
What do you like to do outside work?
I’m a reasonably avid cyclist. I’ve gotten to ride some of the great climbs of the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia. Cycling helps me channel my competitiveness into healthful habits.
What excites you about philosophy?
I’m not really quick on the uptake of ideas. It often takes me months or years of grappling with various papers before I think I “see” what is going on. It was that way with systematicity, with extended cognition, and with multiple realization. I enjoy the struggle of coming to figure out what is going on, but I get excited when I think I’ve finally gotten a grip on the issues. After that, things are a lot easier. When I read new work, I can slot it into a framework.
What is your favorite thing that you’ve written?
Glad you asked. I have this idea that I wish received more attention. It’s what I call “orthogonal realization”. The idea is that A realizes B, but variations in A do not lead to variations in B. That seems to be a possibility that others have overlooked or doubted. One might have thought that if B depends on A, then changes in A would have to lead to changes in B. I explain why this does not need to happen and give some examples of where it seems to occur. I initially discussed it in The autonomy of psychology in the age of neuroscience. I like the idea because it seems to me original, but also not entirely obvious. Sometimes I have been lucky enough to come to some ideas first (more competition), but someone else got them even without me. I’m not sure that “orthogonal realization” is like that. I don’t think anyone has gotten on to this yet.
What are you working on right now?
I’m working on a book on multiple realization. It draws together a lot of the material that I have worked on with Carl Gillett in recent years. Much of that, I think, has tried to characterize what we call “realization” and “multiple realization” and show that a lot of scientific theory is pretty clearly described by this. That is a relatively narrow focus. In the book, I will try to address what seem to me to be misunderstandings of the view and to fit the view into a broader philosophical context. The book will discuss physicalism, reductionism, the autonomy of the special sciences, and other approaches to realization and multiple realization that are out there. Unfortunately, it’s pretty sketchy at this point, but I will have a sabbatical in the Spring of 2019 and I hope to have a rough draft by September.
I’ve also been thinking a fair amount about what the New Mechanists in the philosophy of science have called “constitutive relevance.” A central question here is methodological, “How do scientists know what features of parts are relevant to certain features of wholes?” The most commonly explored sort of account focuses on so-called “interlevel interventions”. So, for example, scientists show a subject an image, then measure changes in blood oxygenation. Or, they use transcranial magnetic stimulation to change brain activity, and then measure how this changes subject performance. It seems to me that, if one takes a longer term view of how scientists determine constitutive relevance — looking at years or decades of research, rather than individual experiments — one finds that such interlevel interventions are relatively “late stage” methods. They are methods scientists use once they already have the broad outlines of the correct account and are then nailing down the details, so to speak. I could say more, of course, but I don’t want to give the competition a leg up.
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Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
