Beyond Neurobiological Reductionism

Abstract

This paper examines the neurobiological explanatory trend in psychology, including the related and tacit roles of ontological materialism and reductionism. In addition, the role of Cartesian dualism in both psychology and cognitive neuroscience is explored. In both, the complex relationships between mind/brain and mind/body tend to be conceptualized through the framework of either ontic dualism or attribute dualism, both of which ultimately constrain notions of embodiment. Alternatively, this paper understands the body as the inseparable unity of being-in-the-world from which the Cartesian dichotomy of “mind” and “body” is abstracted. This alternative surpasses the constraints of dualism and reframes embodiment as intentionality incarnate and ultimately as “flesh.” The body, understood phenomenologically, emerges not as a “what” but as a “ what—how”—the manifestation in extension of our intentionality, the flesh of our projects in and of the world. We argue that this understanding is indispensable to a properly psychological perspective on embodiment.

Varieties of embodiment in cognitive science

“…DST appears to be based on a double reductionism of cognitive experience to a group of corporeal mechanisms. This reductionism can also be found in some cognitive development theories (Castorina, 2002) and neurobiological theories of cognition (Garza & Smith, 2009). This dissociative epistemological movement is characteristic of functional explanations that disassemble complex systems to analyse them (de Jong, 2003).…”

The generational brain: Introduction

“…The new route to success outlined for us is through brain intervention. Not only have we, according to Andreasen, steadily recognized that mental illnesses are diseases of the brain (Andreasen, 1997, p. 1586; see also Garza & Fisher Smith, 2009) where it is, therefore, neurochemistry and neurostructure that are responsible for mind. We are also dealing here with cognitive enhancement (Coveney, 2011), that is, with being able to compete more effectively on the open market through an endless project of self-optimization or “brain-based healthism” (Thornton, 2011, p. 2).…”

Which materialism? Questioning the matrix of psychology, neurology, psychoanalysis, and ideology critique

“…Today, the hegemonic paradigm in psychology is neurology (Gergen, 2010). Brain anatomy and brain chemistry are held responsible for cognition, mind, and mental life, both normal and abnormal (Garza & Smith, 2009). The neurosciences, then, provide the essential coordinates and points of reference to which psychological theory and praxis must answer, with the psychological paradigm gradually being replaced by the neurological one within psychology departments.…”