A common quest among theoretical psychologists is the transformation of psychology to accommodate human agency and meaning. Several strong experimental methods are used in cognitive neuroscience but are based almost entirely upon a mechanistic ontology. A step toward rapprochement is proposed using precise and powerful experimental methods that are holistic, individualized, and compatible with an agentive ontology. Such methods must be applicable to all aspects of human experience, the subjective and agentive aspects, as well as the behavioural and the (...) neurophysiological Multivariate methods are capable of expressing and capturing the holistic isomorphism among multiple aspects of human existence and might even help provide insight into the mind-body problem. Results from a cognitive neuroscience study are used to illustrate this approach. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Introduction -- Historical essays -- The humanist brain : Alberti, Vitruvius, and Leonardo -- The enlightened brain : Perrault, Laugier, and Le Roy -- The sensational brain : Burke, Price, and Knight -- The transcendental brain : Kant and Schopenhauer -- The animate brain : Schinkel, Bötticher, and Semper -- The empathetic brain : Vischer, Wölfflin, and Göller -- The gestalt brain : the dynamics of the sensory field -- The neurological brain : Hayek, Hebb, and Neutra -- The phenomenal (...) brain : Merleau-Ponty, Rasmussen, and Pallasmaa -- Neuroscience and architecture -- Anatomy : architecture of the brain -- Ambiguity : architecture of vision -- Metaphor : architecture of embodiment -- Hapticity : architecture of the senses -- Epilogue: The architect's brain. (shrink)

This volume explores how conceptions of pragmatism set forth in American philosophy serve as orienting perspectives in psychotherapy. Drawing on the influential contributions of William James and John Dewey, the author demonstrates how realistic, comparative approaches to understanding strengthen everyday therapeutic practice. He also examines recent developments in neuroscience that shape training and practice in the broader field of psychotherapy, encompassing psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive and humanistic traditions. By following a clinical pragmatism, psychotherapy can be viewed as an instrumental (...) project that is governed by _results_ rather than a commitment to particular theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, or technical strategies. Through a variety of case studies, this volume emphasizes the crucial role of experiential learning in change and growth, and the recognition of the person as an individual. (shrink)

A theory of the neural bases of aesthetic experience across the arts, which draws on the tools of both cognitive neuroscience and traditional humanist inquiry.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience is a state-of-the-art collection of interdisciplinary research spanning philosophy (of science, mind, and ethics) and current neuroscience. Containing chapters written by some of the most prominent philosophers working in this area, and in some cases co-authored with neuroscientists, this volume reflects both the breadth and depth of current work in this exciting field. Topics include the nature of explanation in neuroscience; whether and how current neuroscience is reductionistic; consequences of (...) current research on the neurobiology of learning and memory, perception and sensation, neurocomputational modeling, and neuroanatomy; the burgeoning field of neuroethics and the neurobiology of motivation that increasingly informs it; implications from neurology and clinical neuropsychology, especially in light of some bizarre symptoms involving misrepresentations of self; the extent and consequences of multiple realization in actual neuroscience; the new field of neuroeudamonia; and the neurophilosophy of subjectivity. This volume will interest philosophers working in numerous fields who wish to see how current neuroscience is being brought to bear directly on philosophical issues. It will also be of interest to neuroscientists who wish to learn how the research programs of some of their colleagues are being enriched by interaction with philosophers, and finally to those working in any interdisciplinary field who wish to see how two seemingly disparate disciplines--one traditional and humanistic, the other new and scientific--are being brought together to both disciplines' mutual benefit. (shrink)

In this chapter, I first review and assess evidence regarding brain damage or neural abnormalities associated with some psychopathologies and cognitive deficits, such as hemispatial neglect, agnosias, amnesia, somatoparaphrenia, and others. It becomes clear just how closely normal mental functioning and consciousness depend upon normal brain functioning as well as how some very specific mental changes occur when, and only when, very specific brain damage occurs. I then explore the metaphysical implications of these results with respect to the nature of (...) mind and consciousness. In particular, I examine the plausibility of materialism, roughly the view that mental processes are brain processes, in light of the evidence discussed and in contrast to a dualist conception of the mind (whereby mental states are not physical in some sense). I also explore the prospects for a conscious afterlife based both on the brain damage evidence adduced and the metaphysical implications discussed. (shrink)

These two books on fictional narratives and neuroscience adopt cultural constructivist perspectives that reject the idea of evolved human motives and emotions. Both books contain information that could be integrated with other research in a comprehensive and empirically grounded theory of narrative, but they both fail to construct any such theory. In order to avoid subordinating the humanities to the sciences, Comer and Taggart avoid integrating their separate disciplines: neuroscience (Comer) and narrative theory (Tag­gart). They draw no significant (...) conclusions from the research they summarize. Armstrong subordinates neuroscience to the paradoxes of phenomenology and 4E cognition. His prose develops not by consecutive reasoning but by the repetitive intonation of paradoxical formulas. The failures in theoretical construction displayed by these two books run parallel with weaknesses in the interpretive criticism with which they illustrate their ideas. The different ways in which the books fail are sometimes comical but nonetheless instructive. The failures inadvertently point toward the radical changes in humanist thinking that would be necessary for success in integrating neuroscience and narrative theory. (shrink)

Drawing on insights from evolutionary psychology and modern neuroscience, this paper highlights propositions about human nature that have far reaching consequences, when applied to leadership. We specifically examine the main factors of human survival and extend them to a model for leadership in the twenty-first century. The discussion concludes with an outlook on the organizational and structural conditions that would allow for better and more balanced leadership.

Background Neuroscientific approaches have historically triggered changes in the conception of creativity and artistic experience, which can be revealed by noting the intersection of these fields of study in terms of variables such as global trends, methodologies, objects of study, or application of new technologies; however, these neuroscientific approaches are still often considered as disciplines detached from the arts and humanities. In this light, the question arises as to what evidence the history of neurotechnologies provides at the intersection of creativity (...) and aesthetic experience. Methods We conducted a century-long bibliometric analysis of key parameters in multidisciplinary studies published in the Scopus database. Screening techniques based on the PRISMA method and advanced data analysis techniques were applied to 3612 documents metadata from the years 1922 to 2022. We made graphical representations of the results applying algorithmic and clusterization processes to keywords and authors relationships. Results From the analyses, we found a) a shift from a personality-focus quantitative analysis to a field-focus qualitative approach, considering topics such as art, perception, aesthetics and beauty; b) The locus of interest in fMRI-supported neuroanatomy has been shifting toward EEG technologies and models based on machine learning and deep learning in recent years; c) four main clusters were identified in the study approaches: humanistic, creative, neuroaesthetic and medical; d) the neuroaesthetics cluster is the most central and relevant, mediating between creativity and neuroscience; e) neuroaesthetics and neuroethics are two of the neologism that better characterizes the challenges that this convergence of studies will have in the next years. Conclusions Through a longitudinal analysis, we evidenced the great influence that neuroscience is having on the thematic direction of the arts and humanities. The perspective presented shows how this field is being consolidated and helps to define it as a new opportunity of great potential for future researchers. (shrink)

Neuroscience has been described as a revolutionary force that will transform our understanding of common morality and of ethics as a discipline. To such strong naturalistic claims, critiques have responded with an arsenal of antinaturalistic arguments, often negating any contribution of neuroscience. In this paper, I review the terms of the debate between strong naturalists and anti-naturalists and offer a moderate naturalistic approach as a constructive middle-ground position. Inspired by Dewey’s moral philosophy, I offer an alternate account of (...) how neuroscience broadens our understanding of ethics and moral situations and thus supports a deliberative and iterative process of wisdom-generation. (shrink)

This edited volume presents perspectives from computer science, information theory, neuroscience and brain imaging, aesthetics, social sciences, psychiatry, and philosophy to answer frontier questions related to artificial intelligence and human experience. Can a machine think, believe, aspire and be purposeful as a human? What is the place in the machine world for hope, meaning and transformative enlightenment that inspires human existence? How, or are, the minds of machines different from that of humans and other species? These questions are responded (...) to along with questions in the intersection of health, intelligence and the brain. It highlights the place of consciousness by attempting to respond to questions with the help of fundamental reflections on human existence, its life-purposes and machine intelligence. The volume is a must-read for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary researchers in humanities and social sciences and philosophy of science who wish to understand the future of AI and society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedAquinas on Being. By Anthony Kenny. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. Pp. x + 212. Price not given.Before and after Avicenna: Proceedings of the First Conference of the Avicenna Study Group. Edited by David C. Reisman, with the assistance of Ahmed H. al Rahim. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Pp. xix + 302. Price not given.Beside Still Waters: Jews, Christians, and the Way of the Buddha. Edited by Harold Kasimow, John (...) P. Keenan, and Linda Klepinger Keenan. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. 284. Paper $14.95.The Buddhist Unconscious: The ālaya-vijñāna in the Context of Indian Buddhist Thought. By William S. Waldron. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Pp. xvi + 269. Price not given.Comparative Political Philosophy: Studies under the Upas Tree. Edited by Anthony J. Parel and Ronald C. Keith. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2003. Pp. xxxviii + 260. Paper $26.95.The Confucian Quest for Order: The Origin and Formation of the Political Thought of Xun Zi. By Masayuki Sato. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Pp. xviii + 500. Price not given.Gathering the Meanings: The Compendium of Categories: The Arthaviniścaya Sūtra and Its Commentary Nibandhana. Translated from the Sanskrit by N. H. Samtani. Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 2002. Pp. xxxiv + 390. Price not given.I Have Arrived, I Am Home: Celebrating Twenty Years of Plum Village Life. By Thich Nhat Hanh. Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2003. Pp. 253. Paper $25.00.Identity and the Moral Life. By Mrinal Miri. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xvii + 132. Hardcover Rs 645.00.Indian Philosophers and Postmodern Thinkers: Dialogues on the Margins of Culture. By Carl Olson. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 331. Hardcover Rs 950.00.Islamic Humanism. By Lenn E. Goodman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii + 273. Price not given.Letting Go: The Story of Zen Master Tōsui. Translated by Peter Haskel. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001. Pp. xv + 167. Hardcover $45.00. Paper $16.95.A Life Journey to the East: Sinological Studies in Memory of Giuliano Bertuccioli (1923-2001). Edited by Antonino Forte and Federico Masini. Kyoto: Scuola Italiana di Studi sull'Asia Orientale, 2002. Pp. xxxv + 280. Price not given.The Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility and Mystery. By David E. Cooper. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 372. Price not given. [End Page 277]Mencius, Hume and the Foundations of Ethics. By Xiusheng Liu. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2003. Pp. vii + 204. Price not given.Monks and Monarchs, Kinship and Kingship: Tanqian in Sui Buddhism and Politics. By Chen Jinhua. Kyoto: Scuola Italiana di Studi sull'Asia Orientale, 2002. Pp. xiii + 310. Price not given.Music in the Sky: The Life, Art, and Teachings of the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje. By Michele Martin. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 2003. Pp. 351. Paper $18.95, U.K. £12.95.New Confucianism: A Critical Examination. Edited by John Makeham. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Pp. 262. Hardcover $55.00.On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abū Hāmid Al-Ghāzalī's Faysal al-Tafriqa Bayna al-Islām wa al-Zandaqa. By Sherman A. Jackson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 156. Hardcover Rs 295.00.Pandita Ramabai's American Encounter: The Peoples of the United States (1889). By Pandita Ramabai and translated and edited by Meera Kosambi. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 284. Hardcover $59.95. Paper $29.95.Parmenides of Elea: A Verse Translation with Interpretative Essays and Commentary to the Text. By Martin J. Henn. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2003. Pp. 147. Hardcover $59.95.Philosophes taoïstes, tome II: Huainan Zi, texte traduit, présenté et annoté sous la direction de Charles le Blanc et de Rémi Mathieu. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2003. Pp. lxxxiii + 1182. Hardcover €56,90.The Philosophy and Ethics of the Vīraśaiva Community. By Dan A. Chekki. Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003. Pp. xxv + 287. Hardcover $119.95.Poems of Hanshan. Translated by Peter Hobson with introduction by T. H. Barrett. Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 151. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $19.95.Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: An Unfolding Dialogue. Edited by Jeremy D. Safran. Boston... (shrink)

The essays collected in this volume try to assess the reflection on the mind starting from the genius of Leonardo da Vinci up to the new frontiers of science and technology. Imagining the "future of the mind" also means asking about the features and limits of human nature, the mind-body relationship, the relationship between natural and artificial intelligence and the impact of technology on our relationship with the world.

Our lives are dominated by technology. We live with and through the achievements of technology. What is true of the rest of life is of course true of medicine. Many of us owe our existence and our continued vigour to some achievement of medical technology. And what is true in a major way of general medicine is to a significant degree true of psychiatry. Prozac has long since arrived, and in its wake an ever-growing armamentarium of new psychotropics; beyond that, (...) neuroscience promises ever more technological advances for the field. -/- However, the effect of technology on the field of psychiatry remains highly ambiguous. On the one hand there are the achievements, both in the science and practice of psychiatry; on the other hand technology's influence on the field threatens its identity as a humanistic practice. In this ambiguity psychiatry is not unique - major thinkers have for a long time been highly ambivalent and concerned about the technological order that now defines modern society. For the future, the danger is that the psychiatrically real becomes that which can be seen, the symptom, and especially that which can be measured. Disorders and treatments might become reduced to what can be defined by diagnostic criteria and what can be mapped out on a scale. -/- This book exams how technology has come to influence and drive psychiatry forward, and considers at just what cost these developments have been made. It includes a range of stimulating and thought-provoking chapters from a range of psychiatrists and philosophers. (shrink)

Being human while trying to scientifically study human nature confronts us with our most vexing problem. Efforts to explicate the human mind are thwarted by our cultural biases and entrenched infirmities; our first-person experiences as practical agents convince us that we have capacities beyond the reach of scientific explanation. What we need to move forward in our understanding of human agency, Paul Sheldon Davies argues, is a reform in the way we study ourselves and a long overdue break with traditional (...) humanist thinking. Davies locates a model for change in the rhetorical strategies employed by Charles Darwin in _On the Origin of Species_. Darwin worked hard to anticipate and diminish the anxieties and biases that his radically historical view of life was bound to provoke. Likewise, Davies draws from the history of science and contemporary psychology and neuroscience to build a framework for the study of human agency that identifies and diminishes outdated and limiting biases. The result is a heady, philosophically wide-ranging argument in favor of recognizing that humans are, like everything else, subjects of the natural world—an acknowledgement that may free us to see the world the way it actually is. (shrink)

Barbara Stafford is at the forefront of a growing movement that calls for the humanities to confront the brain’s material realities. In Echo Objects she argues that humanists should seize upon the exciting neuroscientific discoveries that are illuminating the underpinnings of cultural objects. In turn, she contends, brain scientists could enrich their investigations of mental activity by incorporating phenomenological considerations—particularly the intricate ways that images focus intentional behavior and allow us to feel thought. This, then, is a book for both (...) sides of the aisle, a stunningly broad exploration of how complex images—or patterns that compress space and time—make visible the invisible ordering of human consciousness. Stafford demonstrates, for example, how the compound formats of emblems, symbols, collage, and electronic media reveal the brain’s grappling to construct mental objects that are redoubled by prior associations. On the other hand, she compellingly shows that findings in evolutionary biology and the neurosciences are providing profound opportunities for understanding aesthetic conundrums as old and deep-seated as the human urge to imitate, the mapping of inner space, and the role of narrative and nonnarrative representation. As precise in her discussions of firing neurons as she is about the coordinating dynamics of image making, Stafford locates these major transdisciplinary issues at the intersection of art, science, philosophy, and technology. Ultimately, she makes an impassioned plea for a common purpose—for the acknowledgement that, at the most basic level, these separate projects belong to a single investigation. (shrink)

Science starts out with the idea of a person as billions of neurons housed in a body that is a cloud of particles. Common sense starts out with the idea of a person having capacities belonging to a single individual. The common sense person does not have parts. Our objectifying science slowly takes over the person as it tends toward physical materialism. Where will it end? What is being gradually pushed out of the world? If science had already taken over, (...) if the categories of neuroscience were complete, then it would be possible to speculate about its relation to earlier stages of thought. However, that is not the situation. The categories of science have yet to emerge. The puzzling character of new scientific objects reveals that we are on the threshold of profound conceptual change. The Humanities are at a crossroad. Do the Humanities scoff at the encroachment of science and risk the fate of those who resisted the Copernican revolution? Do they embrace the changes only to be burned at the stake like those who accepted the Copernican revolution? I suggest that the Humanities mobilize their collective power to create the categories in terms of which science will explicate the very idea of a person. Over the last fifty years, philosophers in the Kantian tradition have offered strategies for developing the new categories in humanistic terms. One approach follows “color” and “consciousness” through their passage from a common sense image of the world to a developing scientific image. It is a journey that illustrates the problems and the puzzles ahead. It indicates the perils of the next recategorization of the world. (shrink)

Barbara Maria Stafford is at the forefront of a growing movement that calls for the humanities to confront the brain’s material realities. In _Echo Objects,_ she argues that humanists should seize upon the exciting neuroscientific discoveries that are illuminating the underpinnings of cultural objects. In turn, she contends, brain scientists could enrich their investigations of mental activity by incorporating phenomenological considerations—particularly the intricate ways that images focus intentional behavior and allow us to feel thought. As a result, _Echo Objects_ is (...) a stunningly broad exploration of how complex images—or patterns that compress space and time—make visible the invisible ordering of human consciousness. Stafford demonstrates, for example, how the compound formats of emblems, symbols, collage, and electronic media reveal the brain’s grappling to construct mental objects that are redoubled by prior associations. In contrast, she shows that findings in evolutionary biology and the neurosciences are providing profound opportunities for understanding aesthetic conundrums such as the human urge to imitate and the role of narrative and nonnarrative representation. Ultimately, she makes an impassioned plea for a common purpose—for the acknowledgement that, at the most basic level, these separate projects belong to a single investigation. “Heroic.... The larger message of Stafford’s intense, propulsive prose is unassailable. If we are to get much further in the great puzzle of ‘binding’—how the perception of an image, the will to act on intention, or the forging of consciousness is assembled from the tens of thousands of neurons firing at any one moment in time—then there needs to be action on all fronts.”—_Science_. (shrink)

The present contribution is mainly intended to illustrate how some recent discoveries in the field of neurosciences have revolutionized our ideas about perception, action and cognition, and how these new neuro-scientific perspectives can shed light on the human relationship to art and aesthetics, in the frame of an approach known as "experimental aesthetics". Experimental aesthetics addresses the problem of artistic images by investigating the brain-body physiological correlates of the aesthetic experience and human creativity, providing a perspective that is complementary, and (...) not in opposition, to the humanistic one on the arts and the aesthetic. (shrink)

At the turn of the twentieth century, William James was America's most widely read philosopher. In addition to being one of the founders of pragmatism, however, he was also a leading psychologist and author of the seminal work, The Principles of Psychology. While scholars argue that James withdrew from the study of psychology after 1890, Eugene Taylor demonstrates convincingly that James remained preeminently a psychologist until his death in 1910.Taylor details James's contributions to experimental psychopathology, psychical research, and the psychology (...) of religion. Moreover, Taylor's work shows that out of his scientific study of consciousness, James formulated a sophisticated metaphysics of radical empiricism. In light of historical developments in psychology, as well as the current philosophic implications of the neuroscience revolution related to the biology of consciousness, Taylor argues that both the subject matter of James's investigations and his metaphysics of radical empiricism are just as important for psychology today as James believed they were in his own time.This book represents a major new contribution both to James scholarship and to the history of American psychology. Although philosophers have analyzed radical empiricism, this book is the first to trace the development of radical empiricism as a metaphysics addressed to psychologists. It is also the first to show James's involvement in depth-psychology and psychotherapeutics and to trace historical continuity between James's work on consciousness and subsequent developments in psychoanalysis, personality theory, and humanistic psychology. (shrink)

Surveillance cameras. Airport security lines. Barred store windows. We see manifestations of societal fears everyday, and daily news reports on the latest household danger or raised terror threat level continually stoke our sense of impending doom. In _A Philosophy of Fear_, Lars Svendsen now explores the underlying ideas and issues behind this powerful emotion, as he investigates how and why fear has insinuated itself into every aspect of modern life. Svendsen delves into science, politics, sociology, and literature to explore the (...) nature of fear. He examines the biology behind the emotion, from the neuroscience underlying our “fight or flight” instinct to how fear induces us to take irrational actions in our attempts to minimize risk. The book then turns to the political and social realms, investigating the role of fear in the philosophies of Machiavelli and Hobbes, the rise of the modern “risk society,” and how fear has eroded social trust. Entertainment such as the television show “Fear Factor,” competition in extreme sports, and the political use of fear in the ongoing “War on Terror” all come under Svendsen’s probing gaze, as he investigates whether we can ever disentangle ourselves from the continual state of alarm that defines our age. Svendsen ultimately argues for the possibility of a brighter, less fearful future that is marked by a triumph of humanist optimism. An incisive and thought-provoking meditation, _A Philosophy of Fear _pulls back the curtain that shrouds dangers imagined and real, forcing us to confront our fears and why we hold to them. (shrink)

By the early part of the twentieth century, academia in the English-speaking world had stabilized (or ossified!) into a set of scientific and humanistic disciplines that still survives at the century’s end. The natural sciences have such disciplines as physics, chemistry, and biology, and the social sciences include economics, psychology, and sociology. These disciplines provide a convenient organizing principle for university departments and professional organizations, but they often bear little relation to cuttingedge research, which can concern topics that cut (...) across or occur at the boundaries of two or more of the established disciplines. When this happens, productive research and teaching must be interdisciplinary. Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind, embracing psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. It is undoubtedly one of the major interdisciplinary successes of the twentieth century, with its own society, journal, and textbooks, and with more than sixty cognitive science programs established at universities in North American and Europe. This paper is an attempt to answer the question: What are the factors contributing to the success of the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science? My discussion is organized around the metaphor of the trading zone, a novel and fertile analogy that Gallison (1997) developed for his rich and detailed discussion of the practices of twentieth-century physics. To understand the diverse groups of December 1, 2006 experimenters and theoreticians, Gallison presents their interactions in terms of the trading zones described by anthropologists: Subcultures trade. Anthropologists have extensively studied how different groups, with radically different ways of dividing up the world and symbolically organizing its parts, can not only exchange goods but also depend essentially on those trades.. (shrink)

Chinese philosophy has long recognized the importance of the body and emotions in extensive and diverse self-cultivation traditions. Philosophical debates about the relationship between mind and body are often described in terms of mind-body dualism and its opposite, monism or some kind of "holism." Monist or holist views agree on the unity of mind and body, but with much debate about what kind, whereas mind-body dualists take body and mind to be metaphysically distinct entities. The question is important for several (...) reasons. Several humanistic and scientific disciplines recognize embodiment as an important dimension of the human condition. One version, the problem of mind-body dualism, is central to the history of both philosophy and religion. Some account of relations between body and mind, spirit or soul is also central to any understanding of the self. Recent work in cognitive and neuroscience underscores the importance of our somatic experience for how we think and feel. (shrink)

With the progress of artificial intelligence, the digitalization of the lifeworld, and the reduction of the mind to neuronal processes, the human being appears more and more as a product of data and algorithms. Thus, we conceive ourselves “in the image of our machines,” and conversely, we elevate our machines and our brains to new subjects. At the same time, demands for an enhancement of human nature culminate in transhumanist visions of taking human evolution to a new stage. Against this (...) self-reification of the human being, the present book defends a humanism of embodiment: our corporeality, vitality, and embodied freedom are the foundations of a self-determined existence, which uses the new technologies only as means instead of submitting to them. The book offers an array of interventions directed against a reductionist naturalism in various areas of science and society. As an alternative, it offers an embodied and enactive account of the human person: we are neither pure minds nor brains, but primarily embodied, living beings in relation with others. This general concept is applied to issues such as artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism and enhancement, virtual reality, neuroscience, embodied freedom, psychiatry, and finally to the accelerating dynamics of current society which lead to an increasing disembodiment of our everyday life. The book thus applies cutting-edge concepts of embodiment and enactivism to current scientific, technological, and cultural tendencies that will crucially influence our society’s development in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In this text, the history of phenomenological research on learning is synthesized and brought forward into the areas of existential learning, the development of enthusiasm about learning (from childhood through adulthood), and paradigmatic creative experience. Original research findings are derived using the Giorgi method of descriptive phenomenological analysis in psychology. The results, structural and eidetic in nature, are then integrated from a holistic developmental viewpoint: that of Existential-Humanistic Self-Development Theory (EHSDT). An evolving developmental partnership between learning and creativity emerges (...) as the proper conceptual frame for considering optimal growth and the relative maturity of situated becoming oneself (i.e., the process of self-cultivation). The resulting perspective is supported by cutting edge trends in neuroscience and related to pedagogy and education. (shrink)

New applications in medicine, science and technology are changing our lives. The delicate border between clinical trials and conventional diagnostic / treatment methods is becoming more evident. At this border new questions arise that need both rational and humanistic answers and that affect humankind‘s understanding of self: What are our responsibilities towards human subjects in clinical trials? What are our responsibilities towards patients and decisionally impaired psychiatry patients? What are rules about the routine techniques on decisionally incompetent psychiatry patients? (...) What are the economic parameters‘ affecting decisions?Many current research projects are concerned with the ethical problems of clinical trials of newly used medication, clinical trials of newly used measurement techniques, clinical trials proposed as conventional treatment methods, new measuring methods or conventional measuring methods on irrelevant patient groups; all being concerned with clinical trials of EEG and neuroscience. In 2009, the Ministry of Health of Turkey implemented new legislation on ―clinical trials and newly established independent ethics committees ‖. These independent and multidisiplinary IRBs analyze research projects and make recommendations about them. What should be the rationale about psychiatric patients in Turkey in a global setting? (shrink)

Advances in science and technology frequently raise new ethical, legal, and social issues, and developments in neuroscience and neuroimaging technology are no exception. Within the field of neuroethics, leading scientists, ethicists, and humanists are exploring the implications of efforts to image, study, treat, and enhance the human brain.This article focuses on one aspect of neuroethics: the confidentiality and privacy implications of advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging. Following a brief orientation to fMRI and an overview of some of its (...) current and proposed uses, this article highlights key confidentiality and privacy issues raised by fMRI in the contexts of health care, research, employment, insurance, criminal justice, litigation, and cognitive privacy. (shrink)

Advances in science and technology frequently raise new ethical, legal, and social issues, and developments in neuroscience and neuroimaging technology are no exception. Within the field of neuroethics, leading scientists, ethicists, and humanists are exploring the implications of efforts to image, study, treat, and enhance the human brain.This article focuses on one aspect of neuroethics: the confidentiality and privacy implications of advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging. Following a brief orientation to fMRI and an overview of some of its (...) current and proposed uses, this article highlights key confidentiality and privacy issues raised by fMRI in the contexts of health care, research, employment, insurance, criminal justice, litigation, and cognitive privacy. (shrink)

This article is dedicated to methodological questions in ethical regulation of neuroresearch. Neuroethics has emerged recently within the framework of the neuro-trend in modern technoscience; its regulatory capabilities are yet to be discovered. Sciences that study human brain and behavior orient towards existing institutions of ethical regulation, which do not consider the complexity and specificity of the emerging threats and risks. The author examines the circumstances for formation of the research ethics and points of intersection with neuroethics. Research ethics is (...) viewed as a part of bioethics, which not only assessed the potential harm for the examinees, but also the social and anthropological consequences of scientific and technological development. The author provides a “narrow” understanding of research ethics as a system of rules within the framework of particular disciplines, and as a clinical research practice. Based on the historically established ethical regulation of clinical research and the forming beneath our eyes rules of modification of human genome and artificial intelligence, the author demonstrates contradictions and trends of the separate regulatory systems, which should be taken into account to prevent risks in neuroresearch and prediction of social implications of the spread of neurotechnologies. Ethical examination became a part of a complex system of international control of clinical research, which leads to fading of the value component aimed at protection of research subjects. The author underlines two factors that form the types of harm peculiar to neuroresearch: orientation towards technological realization and vulnerability of mental sphere as a subject of research. The conclusion is made on inefficiency of application of the calculation of harm/advantage in ethical assessment of neuroresearch. Leaning on the experience of bioethics, neuroethics requires development of the own systems of rules that would become the institutions of neuroethical regulation. For preventing formalization of ethical control, it is essential to advance extensive socio-humanistic assessment of new achievements in neuroscience, as well as neuroethical education for the scientists. (shrink)

"What one cannot compute, one must poetize." So concludes this remarkable sequence of propositions on the centrality of poetry for what we call cognition. Developed through brief, lucid, and eloquent logical elaborations that are punctuated by incisive readings of a range of poems--Western and non-Western, low culture and high--Poetry and Mind offers to theorists and practitioners of literature, together with logicians and cognitive scientists, a more sophisticated account of the extraordinary regimes of human mental experience. Poetry grants us the ability (...) to move "beyond the limits of thought" and to explore the beyond of cognition. It teaches us to think differently. An elliptic response to Wittgenstein's point of arrival in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, this book is first and foremost an interdisciplinary study of poetry, drawing on literary, philosophical, and scientific traditions. The work conducted on minds and brains over the last decades in psychology, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience cannot be ignored if, as humanists, we are interested in the way we think. Dubreuil thus calls for a constant dialogue with the positive examination of cognition to better situate the normal regimes of thought, as well as to underline the other mental possibilities that literature opens up. Poetry and Mind shows that poetry--a widespread and perhaps universal phenomenon among humans--arises through syntactic structures, cognitive binding, and mental regulations, but that, in going through them, it also exceeds them. The best poems, then, are not only thought experiments but actual thinking experiments for the unthinkable. They expand the usual semantics of natural languages, and singularly deploy the rhetorical armature of speech. Made of iterations and linguistic reorganizations, they exceed their own algorithms and, often, they become reflexive, strange, and cognitively dissonant. They provide detachable, movable, and livable significations to our selves. The literary scope of this book is more than "global": it is uniquely broad and comparative, encompassing dozens of different traditions, oral or written, from all continents, from Ancient times to the contemporary era, with some thirty specific readings of texts, ranging from Sophocles to Gertrude Stein, from Wang Wei to Aimé Césaire, and from cuneiform tablet to rap music. Together, Dubreuil's readings and elaborations offer a major reappraisal of the relations between creation, language and our embodied brains."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

N. Katherine Hayles is known for breaking new ground at the intersection of the sciences and the humanities. In Unthought, she once again bridges disciplines by revealing how we think without thinking—how we use cognitive processes that are inaccessible to consciousness yet necessary for it to function. Marshalling fresh insights from neuroscience, cognitive science, cognitive biology, and literature, Hayles expands our understanding of cognition and demonstrates that it involves more than consciousness alone. Cognition, as Hayles defines it, is applicable (...) not only to nonconscious processes in humans but to all forms of life, including unicellular organisms and plants. Startlingly, she also shows that cognition operates in the sophisticated information-processing abilities of technical systems: when humans and cognitive technical systems interact, they form “cognitive assemblages”—as found in urban traffic control, drones, and the trading algorithms of finance capital, for instance—and these assemblages are transforming life on earth. The result is what Hayles calls a “planetary cognitive ecology,” which includes both human and technical actors and which poses urgent questions to humanists and social scientists alike. At a time when scientific and technological advances are bringing far-reaching aspects of cognition into the public eye, Unthought reflects deeply on our contemporary situation and moves us toward a more sustainable and flourishing environment for all beings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE: VIOLENCE DEFERRED OR VIOLENCE DENIED? Eric Gans University ofCalifornia—Los Angeles ~P ecently I was asked to review applicants at UCLA for a XVpostdoctoral fellowship. The competition was based, along with the usual CV and recommendation letters, on a project proposal relevant to this year's topic: the sacred. There were some sixty applicants working in the modern period since 1800; these new PhD's included literary scholars, (...) philosophers, historians, a few anthropologists, even a musicologist. I was taken aback to discover that not a single one ofthese projects made reference to the name or ideas of René Girard. When I remarked on this to the director ofthe program, a professor ofEnglish with a solid background in philosophy and literary theory, he offered the explanation that these ideas had had a vogue twenty years ago, but were no longer in fashion today. However exaggerated and shortsighted it may be, I take this judgment on the part ofan astute and reasonably unbiased observer as a call to action. Like it or not, the academic world, the university, is the center of American intellectual life. The ideas that motivate COV&R emerged from the university and, however powerful they may become and remain outside it, it is important for their survival that they retain their visibility within it. Thus it is important that we put aside any differences that may divide us in the pursuit ofthis goal that I know we all share. I will return to this point at the end of my talk. What is the origin of language? This question is not only one of formulating hypotheses about the origin, but ofdeciding what it is that we mean by the question itself. Recent advances in neuroscience, cognitive 2 Eric Gans science, speech physiology, paleontology, primatology, linguistics, and related fields make this question both easier and harder to answer than when I wrote The Origin ofLanguage over twenty years ago. I can say at the outset that nothing I have learned in the course of my research dissuades me as a humanist from venturing into an area in which the dominant voices are no longer those of linguists and prehistorians, but those of neuroscientists. As they have always done, scientific advances permit those concerned with the human, "anthropologists" in the broadest sense of the term, to redraw the boundaries of the domain within which anthropological reflection truly belongs. This position is not one widely held by the scientists themselves, who generally share an Enlightenment view for which all thinking not subject to scientific method, particularly that of religion, is a primitive survival condemned to, and deserving of, the fate of alchemy and Aristotelian cosmology. In this view, my—I think I can say, "our"—kind ofanthropology is not a respectable field of inquiry at all. The hypothetical attribution of an originary function to an event or scene considered memorable in itself is not-yet-understood as a necessary methodological tool in the human sciences. Yet a scientific method expanded to include events would not have to put religion within brackets as an expression of the irrational or explain it by an ad hoc theory of psychological expediency, but would begin to integrate within itself the understanding of the human that it has been the historical function of religion to provide. I do not think we need accept the Enlightenment vision ofhistory as the story ofthe continued advance ofscience into domains progressively vacated by unscientific thought. No doubt we no longer rely on religion to supply the basis for cosmology or for natural science in general. And as our knowledge ofthe brain continues to progress, it may no longer be necessary to rely on metaphysical philosophy in order to understand the processes of language and thought. But human culture is not centrally concerned with natural phenomena or even with logic or linguistic structure. It is concerned with the regulation ofhuman interaction, with ethics, and however much science can help provide ethical thought with options, it can never usurp its central cultural function. This last point is usually expressed by the old saw that you can't get to "ought" from "is." Science tells us how it is, not how... (shrink)

From the observation that global education systems are failing to produce beaming adults, this article questions the meaning of the words generally used to discuss education and new teaching methods. Sidestepping the panacea of technology as the holy grail, it suggests ideas for exploring other possible educational forms, such as those guided by the renewal of humanism or neurosciences. Then, this article presents a model of understanding of man and his activities, leading to the conception of a work system that (...) makes the most of the evolution of contemporary sciences, such as transdisciplinary thinking and transpersonal psychology. It gives an example of a concrete organization in vocational training for future teachers and proposes an evaluation of five years of practices that have encouraged transformations towards individual and collective achievement. (shrink)

The present work introduces the neuropsychological paradigm as a new approach to studying ancient literature. In the first part of the article, an epistemological framework for the proper use of neuropsychology in relation to ancient literature is presented. The article then discusses neuropsychological methods of studying different human experiences and dimensions already addressed by ancient literatures. The experiences of human encounters with gods among ancient cultures are first considered, through the contributions of Julian Jaynes and Eric R. Dodds. The concepts (...) of right and left in the Bible, and that of soul are then discussed. Ecstatic experience in Paul of Tarsus is also presented, with a particular focus on glossolalia. Neuroscientific differences between mindful and unitive meditative practices are then described referring to ancient Buddhist literature, and finally a brief description of dreams in ancient Greek literature is proposed. Neuropsychology variously enables a more profound understanding of themes characterizing human experiences that ancient literature has already explored; these investigations prove that the collaboration of neuroscience and humanistic studies can return fruitful and interesting results. (shrink)

In this article, I assess the current state of evolutionary aesthetics by reviewing four recent books by scholars in art history, literary studies, and psychology. Each book is humanistic in a broad sense. They all address evolutionary themes and share a commitment to understanding aesthetic experience via methodological pluralism, but they differ substantially in perspective and tone. That of Cupchik, a psychologist, expansively discusses the aesthetics of emotion. That of Rampley, an art historian, is the most polemical, with a (...) strong critique of the encroachment of biology into questions of cultural history. Those of Hogan and Aldama, both literary scholars, deal primarily with literature and are the most personal and ultimately the most thought-provoking. The collective humanistic perspective is a departure from more neuroscience-intensive recent volumes, and it highlights the importance of themes like the emergence of aesthetics from the interaction between nature and culture—potentially in different ways at different times throughout the phylogenetic history of our species. (shrink)

Recent brain imaging studies support sociobiology’s earlier claims about morality, altruism, and religion being rooted in evolved brain function. Despite these insights, however, neuroscience and sociobiology, like theology, provide incomplete answers to persistent what and why questions regarding the metaphysical aspects of human behavior. This essay addresses some unsettled issues along these lines by combining a priori economics principles with the standard consilience of natural science and moral philosophy.

In nearly ninety A-Z entries, Transcendence provides a multilayered look at the accelerating advances in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, genomics, information technology, nanotechnology, neuroscience, space exploration, synthetic biology, robotics, and virtual worlds that are making transhumanism a reality. Entries range from Cloning and Cyborg Feminism to Designer Babies and Memory-Editing Drugs. In addition, the book notes historical predecessors and personalities, both in mythology and history--ranging from Timothy Leary to Ray Kurzweil. It also introduces the culture around transhumanism, covering all (...) the geeky obsessions of the transhumanist movement"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one's self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. However, empirical research tends to discount the importance of such social and epistemic outcomes of art engagement, instead focusing on individuals' preferences, judgments of beauty, pleasure, or other emotional appraisals as the primary outcomes of (...) art appreciation. Here, we argue that a systematic neuroscientific study of art appreciation must move beyond understanding aesthetics alone, and toward investigating the social importance of art appreciation. We make our argument for such a shift in focus first, by situating art appreciation as an active social practice. We follow by reviewing the available psychological and cognitive neuroscientific evidence that art appreciation cultivates socio-epistemic skills such as self- and other-understanding, and discuss philosophical frameworks which suggest a more comprehensive empirical investigation. Finally, we argue that focusing on the socio-epistemic values of art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives. Empirical research on art appreciation can thus be used to show that engagement with art has specific social and personal value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities. (shrink)

Humanism offers students a clear and lucid introductory guide to the complexities of Humanism, one of the most contentious and divisive of artistic or literary concepts. Showing how the concept has evolved since the Renaissance period, Davies discusses humanism in the context of the rise of Fascism, the onset of World War II, the Holocaust, and their aftermath. Humanism provides basic definitions and concepts, a critique of the religion of humanity, and necessary background on religious, sexual and political themes of (...) modern life and thought, while enlightening the debate between humanism, modernism and antihumanism through the writings and works of such key figures as Pico Erasmus, Milton, Nietzsche, and Foucault. (shrink)