Potential questions of metapsychiatry

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 109-119
Author(s):  
Petar Opalic
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Main Issue ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Cartesian Dualism ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
Neutral Monism ◽  
Psychiatric Theory ◽  
Mental Contents

The introduction presents different contents and historical aspects of the relation between philosophy and psychiatry, with the issues of metapsychiatry among the most general ones. Subsequently, several problems of metapsychiatry are addressed, as problematizing of psychiatric theory and practice. The questions to which metapsychiatry, alone or together with other sciences could provide answers, are briefly addressed. Those are primarily the issues of singularity and consistency of a particular psychiatric entity, the issue of causality in psychiatry, the reality of psychiatric categories, the issue of the relation of psychiatry and common sense, of modular or holistic organization of mental contents, the relation between practicism and intellectualism in psychiatry, of the Cartesian dilemma in psychiatry and the issue of autonomy of the contents of spiritual life. The main issue that metapsychiatry ought to provide an answer to is the relation between physical and psychic substantiality in psychiatry, solved until now, as e already said, from the viewpoints of idealistic nomism. materialism, neutral monism ontological epiphenomenalism, and Cartesian dualism. As a conclusion, the author points to certain advantages offered by metapsychiatric analyses, i.e. defragmenting the relation between philosophy and psychiatry.

The Case for Mach’s Neutral Monism

2021 ◽  
pp. 258-279
Author(s):  
Erik C. Banks
Keyword(s):  
Neutral Monism

Act/Content/Object, Act/Object, or Just Object?

2021 ◽  
pp. 215-248
Author(s):  
Mark Textor
Keyword(s):  
Neutral Monism ◽  
Content Object

Thus chapter revolves around the act/content/object distinction. Russell characterized Austrian Psychology, Cambridge Realism, Idealism, and Neutral Monism with respect to their different treatments of this distinction. The Cambridge Realists like Russell and Moore argued that the distinction between act and object is given introspectively, but that there is no distinction between content and object. The Neutral Monists (American Realists) like James argued that there is no act/object distinction and that, consequently, there is no intrinsic distinction between the mental and physical. Russell changed tack by arguing for the existence of the distinction on the basis of ‘hypotheses’. He held a hybrid position: there is no act/object distinction in sensation, but the full act/content/object distinction in thought. The chapter assesses arguments in favour of the act/object distinction and against the act/content/object distinction.

Mach, Ernst (1838–1916)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
Atomic Theory ◽  
Scientific Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Neutral Monism ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Scientific Laws ◽  
Limiting Case

Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. Though not one of the great philosophers, he was tremendously influential in the development of ‘scientific philosophy’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A vigorous opponent of ‘metaphysics’, he was celebrated as a progenitor of logical positivism. His work is regarded as a limiting case of pure empiricism; he stands between the empiricism of Hume and J.S. Mill, and that of the Vienna Circle. Mach’s positivist conception of science saw its aims as descriptive and predictive; explanation is downgraded. Scientific laws and theories are economical means of describing phenomena. Theories that refer to unobservable entities – including atomic theory – may impede inquiry. They should be eliminated where possible in favour of theories involving ‘direct descriptions’ of phenomena. Mach claimed to be a scientist, not a philosopher, but the ‘Machian philosophy’ was ‘neutral monism’. Close to phenomenalism, it saw the world as functionally related complexes of sensations, and aspired to anti-metaphysical neutrality.

Two Sides of the Same Coin? Neutral Monism as an Attempt to Reconcile Subjectivity and Objectivity in Personal Identity

Metaphysica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-149
Author(s):  
Nils-Frederic Wagner ◽  
Iva Apostolova
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Psychological Continuity ◽  
Neutral Monism ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
Over Time

AbstractStandard views of personal identity over time often hover uneasily between the subjective, first-person dimension (e. g. psychological continuity), and the objective, third-person dimension (e. g. biological continuity) of a person’s life. Since both dimensions capture something integral to personal identity, we show that neither can successfully be discarded in favor of the other. The apparent need to reconcile subjectivity and objectivity, however, presents standard views with problems both in seeking an ontological footing of, as well as epistemic evidence for, personal identity. We contend that a fresh look at neutral monism offers a novel way to tackle these problems; counting on the most fundamental building blocks of reality to be ontologically neutral with regards to subjectivity and objectivity of personal identity. If the basic units of reality are, in fact, ontologically neutral – but can give rise to mental as well as physical events – these basic units of reality might account for both subjectivity and objectivity in personal identity. If this were true, it would turn out that subjectivity and objectivity are not conflictive dimensions of personal identity but rather two sides of the same coin.

scholarly journals A Quantum Approach to the Psychosomatic Phenomenon: Co-Emergence and Time Entanglement of Mind and Matter

KronoScope ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Uzan
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Neutral Monism ◽  
Quantum Approach ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThis paper explores the philosophy of neutral monism within the framework of a generalized version of quantum theory where all references to the physical world have been relaxed. Psychic and somatic features of the individual are conceived of as co-emergent, complementary properties of an underlying, psychophysical level of reality. It is shown that their entanglement can be interpreted in terms of non-causal correlations and parameterized by time, which thus plays the role of psychophysical interface.

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