Against Neuropsychoanalysis: Why a Dialogue With Neuroscience Is Neither Necessary nor Sufficient for Psychoanalysis

The author argues against neuropsychoanalysis by focusing on the metaphysical issues. Neuropsychoanalysts argue that the philosophical theories of dual aspect monism (DAM) and anomalous monism support their position. The author contends that not only do DAM and anomalous monism not offer support for neuropsychoanalysis; they are also inconsistent with its claims. The conceptual distinction between the mental and the physical — the so-called “epistemological dualism” cited by neuropsychoanalysis—stands as an insurmountable barrier to the project of neuropsychoanalysis. By way of example, the author offers an analogy with artworks. The author concludes the paper by arguing that neuropsychoanalysis deflects from the real project of psychoanalysis, which is the study of persons, not so-called “mindbrains.”

PERCEIVING THINGS IN THEMSELVES: ABŪ L-BARAKĀT AL-BAĠDĀDĪ’S CRITIQUE OF REPRESENTATIONALISM

What are the proper objects of perception? Two famous responses to this question hold that they are either the images of extramental objects, that is, the way in which they appear to us (representationalism), or they are the objects themselves (direct realism). In this paper, I present an analysis of this issue by Abū l-Barakāt al-Baġdādī (d. 1164/65), a post-Avicennian scholar whose impact on the history of Islamic philosophy has been largely neglected. Abū l-Barakāt argued against the traditional Aristotelian-Avicennian epistemological dualism, which distinguishes between the sense-perception of material particulars and the conception of immaterial universals in terms of the perceiver and/or the structure of perception. In Abū l-Barakāt's own theory, all epistemic acts have the unified structure of direct relation between one and the same perceiver (immaterial soul) and the objects themselves – both material and immaterial. His main thesis is that having corporeal organs is not necessary for sense-perception. In the final section of the paper, I show that Abū l-Barakāt's critique of the Aristotelian-Avicennian tradition was received as a breakthrough in epistemology. It may have also determined the epistemological theories of two of the most important post-Avicennian Islamic philosophers: Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210) and Šihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191).

Understanding Mind through Indian Psychology

Mind is a subject widely studied under various discipline, yet, failed to come up with a definition which we could comprehend. These studies had unravelled a number of questions regarding the nature of the mind and leads to serious debates on its composition, i.e., whether it consists only of higher intellectual functions such as memory and reasoning, its activities i.e.; what is the relationship of mind and body, is dualism or monism?, is it accessible to study or only an endeavour of first person and finally, who possess a mind?; do all beings have a mind or only human beings could possess it?, and so on. With two simple models, ‘the Epistemological dualism’ and the model of ‘Mind-Spirit; dichotomy Vs coexistence’ based on the concepts in Indian Psychology, the paper throws more light in to the subject mind and its faculty.

Representations and scientific realism

When it is spoken of scientific representations it is often understood that science can offer "only" representations but does not enable us to know reality. This tenet is the inheritance of a gratuitous and inconsistent presupposition that affected modern philosophy during almost two centuries, according to which we know our representations and not things, and we have to find warranties in order to believe that such representations correspond to reality (epistemological dualism). The present paper analyzes this presupposition, shows its inconsistency and, through a discourse regarding the relations between thought and ontology, between sense and reference of the intellectual constructions, between abstract encoding of properties and concrete exemplification of the same by means of operational criteria of reference, justifies the cognitive purport of scientific representations, including the mathematical representations of physical phenomena.