Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Many researchers have argued for a description of nature using multiple levels, or modes of description, as we call them. This paper focuses on a confusion that follows from the multiple-mode approach, a confusion due to the notion of causation between modes. Causation between modes is reinterpreted as ordinary causation but with cause and effect described in different modes. In the first part of the paper the framework of modes of description is presented. In the second part it is applied to examples from cognitive science, which are taken from debates on the mind-brain issue and the dynamical systems approach to cognition.