scholarly journals Construct Stabilization and the Unity of the Mind-Brain Sciences

2016 ◽  
Vol 83 (5) ◽  
pp. 662-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Anne Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Brain Sciences ◽  
The Mind

Coda

2018 ◽  
pp. 277-280
Author(s):  
Erika Lorraine Milam
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Ongoing Study ◽  
Human History ◽  
The Public ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind

This concluding chapter reflects on the lessons presented by this volume as a whole and considers the ongoing study into the origins of humanity in the post-1970s era. In the decades after, readers have not lost their passion for epic evolutionary dramas in which the entirety of human history unfolds before their eyes. Yet when students today respond to the question “What makes us human?” they are far more likely to invoke neurological facts than paleontological ones. The public battlefield over violence and cooperation has since shifted to new ground in the mind and brain sciences. Despite the apparent polarization of scientists writing about human nature into culture- and biology-oriented positions, the intellectual landscape defined by scientists working on the interaction between culture and biology has continued to flourish.

scholarly journals ‘It’s All Done With Mirrors’: V.S. Ramachandran and the Material Culture of Phantom Limb Research

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
Phantom Limb ◽  
Mirror Therapy ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
Mirror Box ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Dualistic Ontology ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Phantom Limbs

This article examines the material culture of neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran’s research into phantom limbs. In the 1990s Ramachandran used a ‘mirror box’ to ‘resurrect’ phantom limbs and thus to treat the pain that often accompanied them. The experimental success of his mirror therapy led Ramachandran to see mirrors as a useful model of brain function, a tendency that explains his attraction to work on ‘mirror neurons’. I argue that Ramachandran’s fascination with and repeated appeal to the mirror can be explained by the way it allowed him to confront a perennial problem in the mind and brain sciences, that of the relationship between a supposedly immaterial mind and a material brain. By producing what Ramachandran called a ‘virtual reality’, relating in varied and complex ways to the material world, the mirror reproduced a form of psycho-physical parallelism and dualistic ontology, while conforming to the materialist norms of neuroscience today.

Reduction, Explanatory Extension, and the Mind/Brain Sciences

1992 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 408-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Gray Hardcastle
Keyword(s):  
Brain Sciences ◽  
The Mind

scholarly journals Must Psychoanalysis be Scientific?

1984 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 152-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. King
Keyword(s):  
Cell Membranes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biological Approach ◽  
Receptor Sites ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
True Knowledge ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

In spite of the vast strides forward made by the brain sciences this century, the gap between our understanding of the brain and our understanding of the mind remains uncomfortably wide. At one end of the scale, physical scientists scratch patiently away at the chemistry of receptor sites on cell membranes, at the other, clinicians make brilliant deductions by sheer intuition, and in between is a hazy land. As the pendulum now swings back towards a biological approach to psychiatry, we hear again the old assertion that the only true knowledge can be obtained by objective observation; subjective intuition must therefore be suspect, an unreliable and intangible entity. What validity is there in this argument?

What is really wrong with a priori claims of universality? Sampling, validity, process level, and the irresistible drive to reduce

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 107-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Rochat
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Measuring Instruments ◽  
Levels Of Processing ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Process Level

AbstractCatchy acronyms such as “WEIRD population” are good mnemonics. However, they carry the danger of distracting us from deeper issues: how to sample populations, the validity of measuring instruments, the levels of processing involved. These need to be considered when assessing claims of universality regarding how the mind works “in general” – a dominant and highly rewarded drive in the behavioral and brain sciences.

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