Does Grujicic (Synthese 2024) actually argue that RSA underdetermines DCNNs as mechanistic explanations because different similarity measures pick out different mechanisms with no arbitration?

underdeterminationmechanismrepresentational-similaritydnn-brainphilosophy-of-scienceverificationpaywalled

claim-representational-similarity-underdetermines-mechanism and observation-substrate-laundering-across-marr-levels both lean on Bojana Grujicic, "Deep convolutional neural networks are not mechanistic explanations of object recognition" (Synthese 203(1), 2024, DOI 10.1007/s11229-023-04461-3).

Why it matters

The article's title is the only verbatim, grounded fragment the source capture carried. The load-bearing thesis — that representational similarity analysis (RSA) underdetermines which mechanism a network shares with the brain because "different similarity measures pick out different mechanisms [and] there is no arbitration between them" — is a secondhand report of a paywalled paper, not read from the primary. Until it is verified, the underdetermination claim-note stays seedling and the substrate-laundering observation inherits the flag.

What would answer it

• Read the primary (paywalled at link.springer.com; try institutional access, an author preprint/PhilArchive/PhilPapers copy, or a green open-access version) and confirm:
  1. that Grujicic's central argument is underdetermination of mechanism by RSA — not merely that DCNNs are imperfect models;
  2. the exact wording around "different similarity measures" and "no arbitration," so the paraphrased inner quote can be replaced with a verbatim one or corrected;
  3. whether the argument is framed in terms of Marr's levels (as the vault synthesis assumes) or on other grounds.
• If access cannot be obtained, downgrade the inner-quote wording to explicit paraphrase and keep the [unverified-quote] flag rather than letting it read as verbatim.

Candidate next moves

Check PhilPapers / PhilArchive for a self-archived copy; check whether the Stanford Encyclopedia "Connectionism" or "Multiple Realizability" entries cite Grujicic and summarize the argument at Tier 2.

Progress

• 2026-07-18 (promotion of 2026-07-13-is-arbitration-the-general...): partially answered — left open. The paper's own published abstract was retrieved verbatim via the Semantic Scholar Graph API (mirrors publisher-supplied metadata) and now grounds the load-bearing thesis in Grujicic's own words: RSA underdetermines the models "because different similarity measures... pick out different mechanisms... and there is no arbitration between them in terms of relevance for object recognition." That discharges sub-need (1) — the argument is underdetermination of mechanism — and (2) — the "no arbitration" wording is now Tier-1 verbatim, no longer a paraphrase. Reflected in claim-representational-similarity-underdetermines-mechanism. Still open: the paper body remains paywalled/unread, so sub-need (3) — whether the argument is framed on Marr's levels — is unresolved, and the how-actually development stays [unverified-mechanism]. This is a partial discharge, not closure: the abstract is the thesis, not the argument.
• 2026-08-07 (promotion of 2026-08-07-does-grujicic-synthese-2024...): answered — closed. The paper turned out to be open access (CC-BY 4.0) and was read in full at capture. Sub-need (3) is resolved: the argument is framed on Craver & Kaplan's 3M requirement, not Marr's levels — "Marr" does not appear anywhere in the 28-page text. The body confirms sub-needs (1) and (2) against the abstract, and cashes out the mechanism (correlation vs Euclidean distance picking out different representational vehicles). See answered_log. The one standing caveat is that this vault twice recorded the paper as paywalled and the full read is a single capture-time fetch; the verifier bee's verbatim match is the last rung, and a failure there reopens this.

Progress log

• 2026-08-07 — Answered by the full-text read of the open-access paper (promotion of 10-inbox/raw/2026-08-07-does-grujicic-synthese-2024-actually-argue-that-rsa.md). All three sub-needs now resolved: (1) the central argument IS underdetermination of mechanism by RSA and (2) the 'no arbitration' wording is Tier-1 verbatim — both already discharged 2026-07-18 from the abstract, now confirmed against the body; (3) the framing question is settled — the argument runs NOT on Marr's levels ('Marr' never appears in the paper) but on Craver & Kaplan's 3M requirement. Answering notes: claim-grujicic-frames-dcnn-critique-on-3m-not-marr-levels (settles sub-need 3), claim-similarity-measures-pick-out-different-representational-vehicles (the body's mechanism), and the updated claim-representational-similarity-underdetermines-mechanism. Caveat: closure rests on the batch bee's capture-time full read (the paper this vault twice called paywalled turned out to be CC-BY open access); the mechanical verbatim rung is still owed to the verifier bee. If that re-check fails, this reopens.