The Importance of Disturbances of the Personality in Mental Disorders

1914 ◽  
Vol 60 (249) ◽  
pp. 192-224
Author(s):  
R. G. Rows
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Scientific Journals ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

It is interesting at the present time to notice that disorders of the mind are being considered from a broader point of view. No longer is it reckoned sufficient to enumerate the psychic symptoms and to label the case accordingly. In the scientific journals it is not unusual to find the statement that a certain case does not fit into any division of our present-day classification. It is recognised that to describe a case as an atypical example of a disease is equivalent to saying that some factor has escaped our notice, or is one we cannot explain; that ætiology, from the psychogenic as well as the pathogenic point of view, must be considered, and that bodily and nervous symptoms may be as much a part of the illness as are the psychic; in fact, these last are often merely a symbol expressing some change in the function of an organ outside the brain.

Еnactivist Criticism of the Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness

2021 ◽  
pp. 76-80
Author(s):  
Anastasia O. Shabalina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Science Methods ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Neural Substrate ◽  
Critical Revision ◽  
Concept Of Information ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Person Experience

The article considers the main arguments against the neurobiological theory of consciousness from the point of view of the enactivist approach within the philosophy of mind. The neurobiological theory of consciousness, which reduces consciousness to neural activity, is currently the dominant approach to the mind-body problem. The neurobiological theory emerged as a result of advances in research on the phenomena of consciousness and through the development of technologies for visualizing the internal processes of mind. However, at the very heart of this theory, there is a number of logical contradictions. The non-reductive enactivist approach to consciousness, introduced in this article, contributes to the existing argumentation against the reduction of consciousness to neural processes with remonstrations that take into account the modern neuroscientific data. The article analyzes the argumentation of the sensorimotor enactivism developed by A. Noe and offers the account of the teleosemantic approach to the concept of information provided by R. Cao. The key problems of the neurobiological theory of consciousness are highlighted, and the objections emerging within the framework of the enactivist approach are analyzed. Since the main concepts on which the neural theory is based are the concepts of neural substrate, cognition as representation, and information as a unit of cognition, the author of the article presents three key enactivist ideas that oppose them. First, the enactivist concept of cognition as action allows us to consider the first-person experience as a mode of action, and not as a state of the brain substrate. Second, the article deals with the “explanatory externalism” argument proposed by Noe, who refutes the image of cognition as a representation in the brain. Finally, in order to critically revise the concept of information as a unit of cognition, the author analyzes Cao’s idea, which represents a teleosemantic approach, but is in line with the general enactivist argumentation. Cao shows that the application of the concept “information” to neural processes is problematic: no naturalized information is found in the brain as a physical substrate. A critical revision of beliefs associated with the neural theory of consciousness leads us to recognize that there are not enough grounds for reducing consciousness to processes that take place in the brain. That is why Noe calls expectations that the visualization of processes taking place in the brain with the help of the modern equipment will be able to depict the experience of consciousness the “new phrenology”, thus indicating the naive character of neural reduction. The article concludes that natural science methods are insufficient for the study of consciousness.

Moral Responsibility

1875 ◽  
Vol 21 (94) ◽  
pp. 251-266
Author(s):  
S. Messenger Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Mental Process ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
Physico Chemical ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Positive Knowledge ◽  
The Brain

Moral Responsibility, although often treated from a metaphysical point of view, has seldom been regarded from a physical or physiological side, and yet it is from this source alone that we are at present able to gain any accurate information respecting the working of the mind, and it is chiefly from this basis that I purpose here regarding it. The means of observation which metaphysicians employ have been known to, and employed by, philosophers for the last two thousand years, and yet it must be admitted with but a poor result. Until physiology came to their aid, they had not arrived at a knowledge of the fact that the grey cortical matter of the brain is the seat of the mind, and that intellectual action involves definite physico-chemical changes which we are to some extent capable of estimating. The psychologists, indeed, fixing their attention solely upon subjective phenomena, resemble those fatuous fakirs, who, intent upon a particular point in their own bodies, come to believe that the umbilicus is the seat of wisdom; or, rather, they resemble the horse in a threshing floor, which, however rapidly it may seem to advance, only retraces its steps in one small unending circle. It is a simple fact that, whatever positive knowledge we possess of the mental process has been obtained by the aid of physiology, and it is equally certain that all the knowledge we are likely to attain for a long time, if not always, must be derived from the same source.

Moral Responsibility

1875 ◽  
Vol 21 (94) ◽  
pp. 251-266
Author(s):  
S. Messenger Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Mental Process ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
Physico Chemical ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Positive Knowledge ◽  
The Brain

Moral Responsibility, although often treated from a metaphysical point of view, has seldom been regarded from a physical or physiological side, and yet it is from this source alone that we are at present able to gain any accurate information respecting the working of the mind, and it is chiefly from this basis that I purpose here regarding it. The means of observation which metaphysicians employ have been known to, and employed by, philosophers for the last two thousand years, and yet it must be admitted with but a poor result. Until physiology came to their aid, they had not arrived at a knowledge of the fact that the grey cortical matter of the brain is the seat of the mind, and that intellectual action involves definite physico-chemical changes which we are to some extent capable of estimating. The psychologists, indeed, fixing their attention solely upon subjective phenomena, resemble those fatuous fakirs, who, intent upon a particular point in their own bodies, come to believe that the umbilicus is the seat of wisdom; or, rather, they resemble the horse in a threshing floor, which, however rapidly it may seem to advance, only retraces its steps in one small unending circle. It is a simple fact that, whatever positive knowledge we possess of the mental process has been obtained by the aid of physiology, and it is equally certain that all the knowledge we are likely to attain for a long time, if not always, must be derived from the same source.

The Integrative Approach to Psychiatry

1990 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. J. Lipowski
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Distinct Advantage ◽  
Practical Consideration ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Distinct Field

From the early days of psychiatry as a distinct field of knowledge and clinical practice two competing approaches to the etiology and treatment of mental disorders have vied for dominance: the somatic and the psychic (“moral”) [l]. We are witnessing the same struggle today. To speak metaphorically, we can opt for either brainless or mindless psychiatry, as Szasz [2] proposed. He failed to consider a third option, however, one that may be called an integrative approach. The latter is neither mindless nor brainless but rather encompasses both the mind and the brain in its theoretical and practical consideration [1,3,4]. I will formulate the integrative approach in this paper and argue that it has a distinct advantage for both the study and treatment of mental disorders.

scholarly journals Attitude as an Expressible Info-Operational Reaction to a Perceived/Purposed Object/Objective

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
External Information ◽  
Psychological Concept ◽  
The Social ◽  
Controversial Problem ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

The definition of the psychological concept of attitude is still a controversial problem, and the scholars have not yet reached a consensus on this important issue. The attitude is defined in various ways, as a mental and emotional “construct” not directly detectable, or as a “psychological tendency expressed by evaluating a particular entity”. However, as attitude is an achievement of the mind during the exploration of reality, it is naturally to approach first of all the nature of mind and the relation with the cognition processes from the informational perspective. Therefore, in this paper it is investigated the concept of attitude from a completely new point of view, starting from the informational nature of consciousness. It is shown that the informational structure of consciousness can be fully described by the activity of seven distinct cognitive centers and the attitude can be defined actually as an informational reactive output with respect to an object/objective either perceived or mentally proposed. The attitude is thus the result of a decisional info-processing of an input internal or external information, expressible by the specific informational center managed by the brain associated with this activity, defined suggestively as I want. It is shown that attitude is consequently a function of all other six centers, which intervene in the decisional process as decisional criteria or as priority contributing components, and these centers can become dominant or inactive. In agreement with some previous studies and with the neuro-connections of specific regions of the brain, it is shown that emotions contribute to attitude, but also the personal state, the inherited predispositions, the social interactions, the life experience and the trust in the objective, if this is a proposed project. Associated with the attitude, behavior is different, depending on all cognitive centers.

A Contribution to the Study of Disorders of Visual Association in Insanity

1905 ◽  
Vol 51 (214) ◽  
pp. 491-507
Author(s):  
Sydney J. Cole
Keyword(s):  
Normal Individual ◽  
Mental Disease ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

The mental processes in relation to vision are disordered in many cases of mental disease, particularly in such as present the symptom of disorientation. The normal individual orientates himself in his environment mainly by the help of definite trains of visual ideas—such, for example, as are aroused in us when we glance round our room, go about the house, or take a walk out of doors. If a patient in an asylum thinks he is in his own home, and mistakes the attendants for his relatives, he is clearly unable to see how the present environment differs in aspect from the former environment in which he imagines himself. While from one point of view such a disability presents itself as a failure of memory, from another it appears as a form of mind-blindness, demonstrable by appropriate tests, and resembling in some ways the mind-blindness resulting from circumscribed coarse damage of the brain.

The Patient

2018 ◽  
pp. 19-37
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Clinical Point ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

This chapter addresses the issue of a stroke's impact on consciousness and the self, from a clinical point of view. We look at how the mind is seen by three experts—a neuroscientist, a brain surgeon, and a neuro-philosopher—and find that, instead of solving the mystery of the mind, they in fact add to it. Indeed, they all agree on the lingering mystery of consciousness, underneath and beyond the brain, as well as on the surprising rapport the self seems to establish to the world and its environment – in ways that are not constitutive to the brain itself. This suggests we might need to call on psychologists and sociologists next, to help us solve the conundrum of the self.

scholarly journals Psychiatry and Neuroscience

2009 ◽  
Vol 54 (8) ◽  
pp. 513-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Paris
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Common Mental Disorders ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Emergent Phenomena ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Objective: To examine the extent to which neuroscience accounts for mental disorders. Method: Relevant literature on this problem was selectively reviewed. Results: Thus far, neuroscience research has contributed more to the understanding of the brain than to determining the causes of mental disorders. Its model is more appropriate to severe than to common mental disorders. A reductionistic approach cannot account for emergent phenomena occurring at the level of the mind. Conclusions: Mental disorders cannot be reduced to abnormalities in neuronal activity; psychiatric symptoms need to be understood at multiple levels.

Lighting Up the Brain to Illuminate the Mind

2004 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 713-716
Author(s):  
Ellen S. Berscheid
Keyword(s):  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain
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