The Scaling-Up Problem from a Mechanistic Point of View

Abstract This paper argues that the so-called scaling-up problem (representation-hunger problem) can be resolved within the mechanistic framework of explanation. Emphasising the problem’s character as an empirical challenge for non-representationalists to provide explanations of cognitive phenomena involving sensitivity to the abstract and absent, the paper surveys and rejects prominent non-representationalist answers. An important epistemic aspect of the problem is identified: the need for general heuristics for formulating non-representational explanations of representation-hungry phenomena. In response, a strategy based on the idea of mechanistic compositionality is introduced. Mechanistic compositionality means that the phenomenon exhibited by a mechanism depends solely on the component entities, activities, and the way they are organised. This strategy is shown to provide an important heuristic for formulating candidate mechanistic explanations for representation-hungry phenomena, and thus to resolve the epistemic aspect of the scaling-up problem. Parallels are drawn to the way in which representationalist theories of cognition resolve their version of the scaling-up problem by invoking semantic compositionality. Nevertheless, it is argued that mechanistic compositionality differs from semantic compositionality and relying on mechanistic compositionality to resolve the scaling-up problem does not imply acceptance of representationalism.