The reward of unification: A realist reading of the predictive processing theory

This paper aims to defend a unificationist account. C & W's endeavour might successfully block the way of some discredited forms of unificationism (such as micro-reductionism and Nagelian model). However, in this paper, I argue that it fails to establish its pluralist reading in the face of the more advanced forms of unificationism that are at issue in the contemporary philosophy of science (mechanistic accounts or structural realist accounts). After introducing these more sophisticated theories of unification schematically, I refer to the scientific practice to show how the free-energy formulation of PTB (as well as a case that has been mentioned by C & W as evidence for pluralistic reading) could be construed along the lines of unificationism. I end the paper with reminding that the reward of unification is realism.