The aim of this paper is to show that Freud’s Conception of aphasia is the first step towards the framing of a doctrine of representation whose main features remain unchanged throughout the further developments of his work. The right comprehension of such a doctrine is a fundamental requirement in the study of Freud’s metapsychology conceived as a naturalistic science of the mind.

Thinking psychoanalytically about the nature of social exclusion involves a self-questioning on the part of the interpreter. While we may all have some experiences of having been subject to stereotyping, silencing, discrimination and exclusion, it is also the case that, as social beings, we all, to some extent, participate in upholding these practices, often unconsciously. The book poses the question of how psychoanalysis can be used to think about the invisible and subtle processes of power over symbolic representation, in the (...) context of stereotyping and dehumanization: What forces govern the state of affairs that determine who is an 'I' and who is an 'it' in the public sphere? Thinking in terms of 'containment', a communication which is denied a social space for expression can be said to be actively stripped of meaning. Through its original contribution of attending to, and interpreting material that so far had seemed meaningless, psychoanalysis demonstrates a capacity to reinstall meaning where none was before - but how are such acts performed on a social level? (shrink)

This paper argues that recent work in the 'free energy' program in neuroscience enables us better to understand both consciousness and the Freudian unconscious, including the role of the superego and the id. This work also accords with research in developmental psychology (particularly attachment theory) and with evolutionary considerations bearing on emotional conflict. This argument is carried forward in various ways in the work that follows, including 'Understanding and Healing', 'The Significance of Consilience', 'Psychoanalysis, Philosophical Issues', and 'Kantian Neuroscience and (...) Radical Interpretation', and the discussion of conscious extends that of both 'The Problem of Consciousness and the Innerness of the Mind' and 'Psychoanalysis, Metaphor, and the Concept of Mind'. (shrink)

Three remarks, which are sometimes made about Freud's distiction between Ego and Id are discussed: 1. This distinction would have no analogy in other psychological concepts. 2. The essence of the "I" would be misjudged here. 3. It would be the rest of an atomising psychology, not yet arriving at the modern views of totality. Although the common parlance concerning psychic "parts" has indeed analogies in the old atomistic-psychological conceptions, these instances, as well as the conflicting drives are (...) and have been always considered in psychoanalysis as expressions of which the person himself is the subject. Especially the concept "Id" must be looked at as equivalent to the biological total, to the concept: Person-Stern. The concept I or Ego, as a special structure of "figure" within this whole, means no split-off part, but is equivalent to what is called elsewhere "durchstrukturiertes Unterganze". Freud entitles a certain intern organisation with the word "Ich". He that thinks the essence of "the" I herewith misjudged, confuses word and concept -- the word I contains a lot of equivocations. That there are conflicts within the person is a basic matter of fact, which is not to be pushed aside in favour of totalitarian dogmatics, this conflict must be expressed in our terminology in some way or other. Terms, by way of comparison borrowed from material situations cannot always be avoided, and need not give any inconvenience, provided reflecting over the import of the terms is practised sufficiently. (shrink)

The study “Psychoanalysis—its image and its public” intimates that common sense is increasingly informed by science. But common sense asserts its autonomy and, in turn, may affect the trajectory of science. This is a process that leads to many differentiations—in common sense, in scientific innovation and in political and regulatory structures. Bauer and Gaskell's toblerone model of triangles of mediation provided a distillation of their reading of “La Psychanalyse.” Here it was argued that representations are multi-modal phenomena necessitating the use (...) of multiple methodologies .In this paper we briefly summarise these arguments and elaborate ways in which social representation theory can be considered a progressive research programme. “Progressive” because as the theory has developed it has extended the range and depth of its conceptual basis; it provides a new synthesis for the social scientific understanding of the phenomena of common sense and of representation; it acts as an antidote to the reductionism of public opinion and, finally, it is a stimulus to depart from disciplinary silos. However, there remain unresolved issues: how to segment the relevant social milieus and how to close the feedback loop from common sense to science? (shrink)

I demonstrate that analogies, both explicit and implicit, between Wittgenstein’s discussion of rituals, aesthetics, and psychoanalysis (and, indeed, his own philosophical methodology) suggest that he entertained the idea that Freud’s psychoanalytic project, when understood correctly—that is, as a descriptive project rather than an explanatory-hypothetical one—provides a “surveyable representation” (übersichtliche Darstellung) of certain psychological facts (as opposed to psychological concepts). The consequences of this account are that it offers an explanation of Wittgenstein’s admiration for and self-perceived affinity to Freud, (...) as well as of his apparent “know-nothing approach” to empirical psychology. (shrink)

The contemporary tendency in United States culture to substitute a discourse of psychology for political and social analysis is especially evident in treatments of the Shoah. Drawing on postmodernist techniques, Art Spiegelman's“Holocaust commix”, Maus, dramatizes not historical reality but the effort of representing the memory of trauma. In the absence of symbolic authority, suffering from rivalry with his father and haunted by the real of the father's voice, the son becomes the subject of the narration. Like Maus, the Holocaust Museum (...) in Washington, D.C. and the criticism of Dominick LaCapra focus on the psychological processes of the private individual. (shrink)

Psychoanalysis is often divided into two parts: the clinical theory and the metapsychology. Recent historical and philosophical work has led some psychoanalysts to argue that the metapsychology is a cryptic biology and not a psychological theory at all. Evidence for this view is largely that metapsychological concepts can be traced to Freud's "Project for a Scientific Psychology", in which he seems to argue that systems of neurons perform both psychological and neuro-physiological functions. The conclusion these writers have drawn (...) is that Freud's metapsychology represents an attempt to unify two putatively incommensurable conceptual frameworks: the psychological and the physiological. ;In the first chapter I review the dispute between Wernicke and Freud on the issue of aphasia and place it in the context of 19th century psychological explanatory traditions. One of these traditions, developed by Franz Joseph Gall, predominates in Wernicke's work. The other tradition, associationism as developed by John Stuart Mill and Alexander Bain, predominates in Freud's critique of Wernicke. I suggest that Wernicke's cerebral localization strategy amounts to a type-type identity theory, and that Freud presented both empirical and conceptual reasons for rejecting this commitment. ;In the second chapter I explicate Freud's "Project" and chapter VII of The Interpretation of Dreams. In the latter, I argue, Freud develops a version of functionalism. His break with his neurological background is exemplified by his insistence that psychology is autonomous. ;In the third chapter I evaluate critically the arguments presented by Merton Gill, George Klein, and Roy Schaffer that purport to show Freud's metapsychology is not a psychology at all, but a neuro-biology. Against this view I suggest that Freud describes mental structures that serve various design functions. These structures, attributed to persons by the metapsychology of infantile wishes and regression, are cognitively impenetiable. The notion that the design or functional architecture of a system is cognitively impenetiable is used to account for the protracted nature, perhaps interminability, of psychoanalytic therapy. Freud's therapeutic pessimism has its roots in theory rather than therapeutic failure. (shrink)

: Fodor was passionately unwilling to compromise. Of his several commitments, I focus here on informational atomism. Fodor staunchly rejected semantic holism for two conspiring reasons. He took it to threaten his commitment to the nomic character of psychological explanation. He also took it to pave the way towards relativism, which he found deeply offensive. In this paper, I reconstruct the strands of Fodor’s commitment to the computational version of the representational theory of mind that led him to (...) informational atomism. I take issue with three features of informational atomism. First, I argue that it deprives content from its expected causal role in psychological explanation. Secondly, I take issue with Fodor’s claim that only informational atomism can meet the requirements of the principle of compositionality. Finally, I argue that informational atomism yields a bloated or unwieldy category of nomic properties. Keywords: Informational Atomism; Representational Theory of Mind; Psychological Explanation; Principle of Compositionality; Jerry A. Fodor Fare i conti con l’atomismo informazionale: uno dei lasciti di Jerry Fodor Riassunto : Fodor è stato fortemente maldisposto al compromesso. Tra le molte cose di cui si è occupato, intendo qui concentrarmi sull’atomismo informazionale. Fodor ha coerentemente rifiutato l’olismo semantico per due ragioni convergenti. Lo vedeva come minaccia per il suo impegno verso il carattere nomico della spiegazione psicologica e come porta aperta verso il relativismo, cosa che considerava profondamente minacciosa. In questo lavoro, intendo riprendere le fila dell’impegno di Fodor verso la versione computazionale della teoria rappresentazionale della mente che lo ha portato all’atomismo informazionale, chiarendo tuttavia che non sono d’accordo con tre aspetti dell’atomismo informazionale. In primo luogo, mostrerò come questo sottragga al contenuto il suo ruolo causale nella spiegazione psicologica. In secondo luogo, non sono d’accordo con l’affermazione di Fodor per cui solo l’atomismo informazionale possa soddisfare i requisiti del principio di composizionalità. Illustrerò infine come l’atomismo informazionale ceda il passo a un insieme di proprietà nomiche ampio o difficile da gestire. Parole chiave: Atomismo informazionale; Teoria rappresentazionale della mente; Spiegazione psicologica; Principio di composizionalità; Jerry A. Fodor. (shrink)

In _The Prisonhouse of Psychoanalysis_, Arnold Goldberg trains a searching, critical eye on his own profession. His subject matter is the system of interlocking constraints - theoretical, institutional, educational - that imprisons psychoanalysis and the psychoanalyst. His agenda is to sketch the shape analysis might take in the absence of these constraints. What emerges from these twin endeavors is a penetrating critique of psychoanalysis from the inside - from the vantage point of a senior analyst who has labored for many (...) years within the prisonhouse that he now criticizes. In proffering an alternative vision of psychoanalysis, Goldberg ventures into recent literature in epistemology, philosophy of science, cognitive psychology, and the neurosciences, so that one valuable byproduct of his work is a brilliant application of insights culled from these fields to the question of what analysis is, and what it may yet become. His examination of "psychoanalysis without foundations" challenges the ability of infancy research data and neurological findings, respectively, to provide an empirical rock bottom from which psychoanalytic theory-building can proceed. His chapter on "psychoanalysis without representations" reviews the analytic literature on the latter concept, only to show how recent theories of brain processing, including connectionism, provides a basis for understanding mental phenomena without any intermediary representations. Finally, his vision of "psychoanalysis without a subject" assesses recent findings about the nature of memory, insights of contemporary philosophy, and Kohut's notion of the selfobject as converging tributaries that make possible an analysis that dispenses with the conventional dichotomy of subject and object. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between thought and language by considering the views of Kant and the later Wittgenstein along with many strands of contemporary debate in the area of mental content. Building on an analysis of the nature of concepts and conceptions of objects, Gillett provides an account of psychological explanation and the subject of experience, offers a novel perspective on mental representation and linguistic meaning, looks at the difficult topics of cognitive roles and singular thought, and concludes (...) with an outline of certain considerations relevant to skeptical arguments and the nature of perception. The resulting synthesis demonstrates interesting correlations with current work in cognitive and developmental psychology, and is directly relevant to continuing work in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophical psychology. (shrink)

For all our knowledge of psychopathology and sociopathology--and despite endless examinations of abuse and torture, mass murder and genocide--we still don't have a real handle on why evil exists, where it derives from, or why it is so ubiquitous. A compelling synthesis of diverse schools of thought, Psychoanalysis of Evil identifies the mental infrastructure of evil and deciphers its path from vile intent to malignant deeds. Evil is defined as manufactured in the psyche: the acting out of repressed wishes stemming (...) from a toxic mix of harmful early experiences such as abuse and neglect, profound anger, negative personality factors, and mechanisms such as projection. This analysis brings startling clarity to seemingly familiar territory, that is, persons and events widely perceived as evil. Strongly implied in this far-reaching understanding is a call for more accurate forms of intervention and prevention as the author: Reviews representations of evil from theological, philosophical, and psychoanalytic sources. Locates the construction of evil in psychodynamic aspects of the psyche. Translates vague abstractions of evil into recognizable concepts. Exemplifies this theory with the lives and atrocities of Hitler and Stalin. Applies psychoanalytic perspective to the genocides in Turkey, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Rwanda. Revisits Hannah Arendt's concept of "the banality of evil." Psychoanalysis of Evil holds a unique position in the literature and will gather considerable interest among readers in social psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, and political anthropology. Historians of mass conflict should find it instructive as well. (shrink)

In his paper on 'The Science of Psychoanalysis,' Lacewing helpfully distinguishes a central psychodynamic model of the mind, elaborated in the clinical theory of psychoanalysis, from certain of its metapsychological and etiological theories. Critics who view psychoanalysis as unscientific have tended to focus on the lack of evidential support for certain of its developmental claims or the lack of reliability and validity in its theoretical posits. Lacewing claims, however, that the model contained in the clinical theory is much more scientifically (...) respectable than its critics have made out. The data may not always be in, but Lacewing's argument is that there is nothing pseudoscientific about the central model that... (shrink)

Shame’s conceptualization is one of the most challenging discussions in psychological studies. This challenge creates many ambiguities for both psychologists and theologians in Eastern cultures especially Iranian-Islamic culture. This paper discusses the dominant psychological researches about shame and tries to compare the outcome of these researches with Abdulkarim Soroush’s theological-moral view about shame. This comparison, we believe, helps us to understand their different approaches for further psychological and theological studies. We used descriptive-analytical method for the current research (...) and our resources were mostly psychological books, article and set of Soroush’s lectures. Also use the soroush books of Gods ethics for showing the soroush views in moral epistemology We conclude that although psychologists and theologians are talking about the same terminology, i.e. shame, they are coming from totally different planet in different paradigms with different philosophical-psychological assumptions. The different assumptions is showed for example about type of problem representation, innate view about shame, attention to ontological component of shame, truthful of shame, attention to virtue ethics of shame and methodology of investigation of concept and function of shame. This philosophical and psychological assumptions is discussed. (shrink)

The theory of social representations must be understood in terms of its proper epistemology so that it can accomplish its full potential in social sciences. This is often difficult to achieve because researchers comprehend it in terms of concepts that are part of static and individualistic Newtonian epistemology rather than in terms of dynamic and relational Einsteinian epistemology. This article considers three signposts that Moscovici identifies and analyses in the theory of relativity, namely the relation between epistemology and science, theory (...) and method, and the argument against the explanation of effects by their causes. The following question is posed: are these signposts also characteristic of the theory of social representations? This question is examined focusing on interactional epistemology, theory and method and the diversity of natural thinking and communication. Moscovici's Psychoanalysis shows that natural thinking appears in a plurality of modes according to the situation in which it takes place and according to social groups towards which it is directed. Natural thinking is controversial and communication-centred. Different professionals, groups and lay people use different kinds of speaking and different communicative genres when they try to resolve “the same” problem. The article suggests that bringing together dialogicality, dialogical linguistics and the theory of social representations may open up new possibilities for theoretical developments in social psychology. (shrink)

In this article, I endeavor to analyze Wittgenstein’s remarks on certain aspects of Freud’s theory in the hope to show that his criticism can be epistemologically fruitful to pinpoint some insurmountable theoretical difficulties in the metapsychological aspect of psychoanalysis, especially with regard to Freud’s insistent remarks that his deep psychology must be viewed as a scientific approach of psychic phenomena.

Like his earlier study The Phenomenological Movement, Spiegelberg’s latest work is a comprehensive overview—not of the phenomenological movement itself —but of its influence on psychology and psychiatry. Its aim is to show that the presence of phenomenology in these disciplines has broadened the perspectives of these empirical sciences and has loosened the death-grip that positivism and naturalism, behaviorism and atomistic associationism, might otherwise have exerted upon them, Spiegelberg does this "concretely" by a wide ranging account of philosophers, psychologists and psychiatrists (...) which testifies again to his great erudition and incomparable familiarity with phenomenological literature. The index of authors studied covers six pages of double columns. Part One gives a "general orientation" to the field, discussing first the notion of phenomenological psychology and then the presence of phenomenology in psychology, in psychopathology and psychiatry, in psychoanalysis and in American psychology. The second half of the book is devoted to more concentrated studies of "leading figures" and devotes entire chapters to such thinkers as Jaspers, Binswagner, Minkowski, Buytendijk and Frankl. The American student of phenomenology is once again the beneficiary of Spiegelberg’s conscientious and incisive scholarship the beneficiary of Spiegelberg’s conscientious and incisive scholarship.—J. D. C. (shrink)

Pleasure is more than a mere sensory event, but rather it can be conceptualized as a complex, multiform experience involving memory, motivation, homeostasis, and, sometimes, negative affects. According to Freud, affect is a perceptual modality that registers the internal drive state of the subject rather than the objective experience of the external world, and the quality of this perceptual modality is calibrated in degrees of pleasure and displeasure. Within this conceptual framework, the aim of drive is always pleasure, and objects (...) become significant in so far as they provide a way of discharging drives pressure. Subsequent conceptual psychoanalytic developments have partially rejected such metapsychological theorizations, postulating that other intrinsic motivations that are independent from libido can be observed in humans. Intrinsic motivation broadly refers to a set of psychological concepts including the inherent propensity to pursue one’s choices, to seek out novelty and challenges, to satisfy curiosity and competence, and to extend one’s capacities and control over events. What these concepts have in common is an inner endorsement of one’s action, which is the sense that action is self-generated and is one’s own. The notions of pleasure, drives, and affects are all of utmost importance for a neuropsychoanalytic understanding of mental functioning, due to their capability to explain desire, thought, and behavior from the perspective of human subjective experience. The purpose of this paper is thus to discuss psychoanalytic conceptual developments that have addressed pleasure, drives, and affects, in the light of recent findings coming from neurosciences. In particular, we will explore for insights from Panksepp’s theory of primary-process emotional feelings, including the notion of “wanting” and “liking” as dissociable components of reward. In the last part of the paper, we will indicate possible theoretical implications for a neuropsychoanalytic understanding of libido-independent intrinsic motivations and their relationship with the self, including neuroscientific observations on self-related processes, agency, body-ownerships, and attachment. (shrink)

Volume 25 of _The Annual_ is dedicated to the memory of Michael Franz Basch, who achieved distinction as both a psychoanalytic theorist of the first rank and an authority on the nature and conduct of dynamic psychotherapy. A wide range of original contributions bear witness to his theoretical, clinical, and educational interests. A number of papers remind us of Basch's prominence as a self-psychological theorist: Elson's self-psychological reappraisal of self-pity, dependence, and manipulation as self-states; Ornstein's developmental perspective on (...) power, self-esteem, and destructive aggression; Tolpin's review of sexuality from the standpoint of normal self development; and Wolf's discussion of self psychology and the "aging self." Basch's life-long educational concerns gain expression in Goldberg's discussion of clinical teaching, particularly the challenge of leading of case conferences; and Ornstein's and Kay's thoughtful consideration of "enduring difficulties" in American medical education. Additional highlights of the volume include: Fawcett's consideration of the role of pharmacotherapy in psychodynamic treatment; Jaffe's consideration of the applicability of hierarchical models to assessment and intervention in brief psychotherapy; Galatzer-Levy's review of the "witch" metapsychology; Gedo's analysis of mythic themes in the operas _Don Giovanni_ and _Der Rosenkavalier_; Modell's reflections on metaphor and affects; and Kernberg's discussion of a "new psychoanalytic mainstream," which he compares and contrasts with a parallel convergence of Kohutian and interpersonal analytic approaches. Many of these contributions incorporate reflections on Basch as a teacher and colleague, and the entire volume is framed by Goldberg's moving tribute. Analysts and psychotherapists sharing Basch's commitment to academic and clinical excellence and his keen awareness of the pragmatic requirements of doing effective therapy will find in Volume 25 a cornucopia of riches. (shrink)

Despite advances in feminism, the "law of the father" remains the dominant model of Western psychological and cultural analysis, and the law of the mother continues to exist as an underdeveloped and marginal concept. In her radical rereading of the Greek myth, _Oresteia_, Amber Jacobs hopes to rectify the occlusion of the mother and reinforce her role as an active agent in the laws that determine and reinforce our cultural organization. According to Greek myth, Metis, Athena's mother, was Zeus's (...) first wife. Zeus swallowed Metis to prevent her from bearing children who would overthrow him. Nevertheless, Metis bore Zeus a child-Athena-who sprang forth fully formed from his head. In Aeschylus's _Oresteia_, Athena's motherless status functions as a crucial justification for absolving Orestes of the crime of matricide. In his defense of Orestes, Zeus argues that the father is more important than the mother, using Athena's "motherless" birth as an example. Conducting a close reading of critical works on Aeschylus's text, Jacobs reveals that psychoanalytic theorists have unwittingly reproduced the denial of Metis in their own critiques. This repression, which can be found in the work of Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein as well as in the work of more contemporary theorists such as André Green and Luce Irigaray, has resulted in both an incomplete analysis of Oresteia and an inability to account for the fantasies and unconscious processes that fall outside the oedipal/patricidal paradigm. By bringing the story of Athena's mother, Metis, to the forefront, Jacobs challenges the primacy of the Oedipus myth in Western culture and psychoanalysis and introduces a bold new theory of matricide and maternal law. She finds that the Metis myth exists in cryptic forms within Aeschylus's text, uncovering what she terms the "latent content of the Oresteian myth," and argues that the occlusion of the law of the mother is proof of the patriarchal structures underlying our contemporary social and psychic realities. Jacobs's work not only provides new insight into the Oresteian trilogy but also advances a postpatriarchal model of the symbolic order that has strong ramifications for psychoanalysis, feminism, and theories of representation, as well as for clinical practice and epistemology. (shrink)

While the self-representation of our bodies is a key element in our belief that we are autonomous individuals with a “first-person perspective,” the term body image covers and has covered a variety of meanings. In neurology, this term currently designates the verbal representation of the body parts. Psychoanalysis considers body image as intertwining the imaginary and symbolic aspects of identity, and insists on its dependence on the Other’s regard; this link to regard appears in the term specular image. This paper (...) first presents a history of the modern psychiatrical, psychological and neurological conceptions of own-body representation. Next, it considers applications of the Lacanian notion of specular image in neurological disorders of body image. (shrink)

My main concern in this article is the relevance of theoretically integrative approaches. I argue that such approaches are methodologically better equipped for the psychology of religion because they correspond with the inherent complexity of religiosity. In order to concretize this matter I critically evaluate the hypothesis proposed by some cognitive researchers that the attraction of counter-intuitive representations provides an explanation of religion. Irrelevant aspects are left out in this hypothesis. In contrast to this I rely on cognitive-analytic perspectives that (...) are based on a broader theoretical foundation. This generates a more complete picture that also connects to the tradition built on Otto's idea of the wholly other. From this perspective it is more plausible to assume that religious representations are trajectories of the early evolving tripartite sense of self, other and world and, further, formed by individual mentalization capacity. This can be conceptualized in terms of interplay between specific complex representational constellations rooted in different phases of early development. Integrative approaches that depict mental activity as a dynamic and multifaceted phenomenon embedded in intersubjectivity are relevant for the psychology of religion. (shrink)

Shortly before and during World War II many European psychoanalysts found refuge in South America, concentrated in Buenos Aires. Here, together with local professionals, they created a strong, creative and productive psychoanalytic movement that in turn gave birth to theoretical and clinical contributions that transformed psychoanalysis, psychology, medicine and culture in South America. _The Pioneers of Psychoanalysis in South America_ is a collection of those pioneers’ papers, and introduces the reader to a body of ideas and advancements, many of which (...) have had limited and piecemeal exposure within the psychoanalytic community in the rest of the world until now. The editors Nydia Lisman-Pieczanski and Alberto Pieczanski present original papers and essays, many of which have never before been published in English; those that have been translated were rarely presented in context. Each one of the chapters is accompanied by a scholarly introduction written by psychoanalysts, many of whom personally knew the pioneers and their oeuvres in depth, tracing the roots of their ideas in the European analytic schools. _The Pioneers of Psychoanalysis in South America _is divided into six main sections: Psychoanalytic process Psychoanalytic technique Metapsychology Psychoanalysis of children Culture and society Psychosomatic medicine. Nydia Lisman-Pieczanski and Alberto Pieczanski provide a coherent guide to the seminal ideas and practices of the South American psychoanalysts who have made major theoretical and clinical contributions to the advancement of the psychoanalytic discipline. The chapters present the material in a way that is accessible to psychoanalysts from across the globe and will enable them to incorporate the ideas and practices outlined here into their everyday psychoanalytic work. It will also be of interest to psychoanalytic psychotherapists, academics interested in the history and development of psychoanalytic ideas and psychoanalysis, and advanced students. The following link leads to an video interview featuring Nydia Lisman-Pieczanski and Alberto Pieczanski by the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis for the History Project, where they open up about their stories, their marriage, and their new book: https://www.routledge.com/posts/8996. (shrink)

In contrast to the fruitful relationship between psychoanalysis/psychoanalysts and the humanities, institutionalized psychoanalysis has been largely resistant to the integration of psychoanalysis with other empirical branches of knowledge, as well as clinical ones [primarily cognitive-behavioral therapy ]. Drawing from two decades of theoretical and empirical work on psychopathology, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis, the author aims to show how a reformulation of object relations theory using psychological science may enhance a clinical-psychoanalytic understanding and treatment of suicidal depression, which constitutes one of (...) the most formidable health challenges of our time. Specifically, he rewrote the notion of Melanie Klein positions—primarily the depressive position—using extant knowledge of structure of emotions, the centrality of mental representations of the future and the toxic nature of criticism-based emotions. This reformulation enables a dialog between clinical psychoanalysis and other therapeutic schools of thought and sheds light on the understanding and treatment of suicidal depression. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.4 (2004) 32-45 [Access article in PDF] Ernst H. Gombrich, Pictorial Representation, and Some Issues in Art Education Nanyoung Kim Introduction This essay will deal with different ways of conceptualizing pictorial representation in art education and their implications. The philosophical issues involved in pictorial representation have fascinated philosophers since the time of Plato and Aristotle. In the first half of the twentieth century, the (...) issue of representation became a centerpiece of various theories among art historians in an attempt to explain representational styles of non-Western cultures that were vastly different from Western styles, and also in order to reinterpret less-valued Western styles that had deviated from the Classical and Renaissance traditions. In recent years, the field of aesthetics has seen a resurgence of interest in the issue, probably because of the demise of Formalism and the returning interest in representation among postmodernists.In art education, interest in pictorial representation has been limited to research on children's drawing (mostly unsolicited drawing) and to the alleged benefits of drawing activity on children's emotional and cognitive development. To understand art images made by adult artists, especially in the Western tradition, art educators must refer to art history or aesthetics. For non-Western images, an anthropological or sociological approach seems appropriate because, more than Western images, they seem to demand knowledge about the culture in which they originated. Art education therefore does not have one comprehensive model of pictorial representation to encompass all these different kinds of images.For more than a decade, the dominant theory of children's pictorial representation in art education has been a symbolic model, and it thrived and is thriving in the context of ever-growing cognitive claims on art. Replacing the long-held creative self-expression model of Viktor Lowenfeld of the 1960s and 1970s, the advocates for this model advanced their theory based on Nelson Goodman's symbolic interpretation of pictorial representation.1 [End Page 32] While their theory illuminated what had not been revealed by the previous creative self-expression model, its long-held dominance in the field lends it an aura of self-evidence and authority.My aim in this essay is to reintroduce Ernst H. Gombrich's theory of pictorial representation in order to balance the dominant theory and to provide a broad perspective for viewing children's drawings and adults' art images together.2 Despite its potential contribution to art education, Gombrich's theory has not been adequately interpreted for art educators. When Gombrich's theory was introduced in art education in the past, he was treated, along with Goodman, as a prime advocate of the concept of representation as a convention. His attention to cultural, psychological, biological, sociological, and art historical dimensions of pictorial representation has never been fully explored by art educators. Gombrich was first and foremost an art historian and theorist of art history of solid classical scholarship, but he was also a cultural historian equipped with extensive knowledge of diverse fields such as cognitive psychology, ethology, psychoanalysis, and the philosophy of science. He was truly a scholar with an interdisciplinary penchant, which makes it difficult for his readers to categorize him. In addition, his elusive writing style tends to limit access to his theory.In this sense, Leslie Cunliffe's recent reintroduction of Gombrich's theories to art education is notable.3 Cunliffe covered the whole gamut of Gombrich's theories, including that on representation, by contextualizing him as a Social-Constructivist, and he expounded many potential benefits that art educators may gain through understanding and adopting his theories. My scope will be narrower than Cunliffe's. I will deal with Gombrich's theory of representation insofar as it illuminates the nature of children's drawings and other art images and helps us understand them within a coherent system. The order of discussion will be as follows: first, the linguistic model derived from Goodman and its continuing influence on art education; second, Gombrich's theory of pictorial representation, including his discussions of the conventional and biological aspects of... (shrink)

Over the course of a long and distinguished career, psychologist and psychoanalyst Sidney J. Blatt has made major contributions to cognitive-developmental theory, psychoanalytic object relations theory, applied psychoanalysis, and current research in the areas of psychopathology and psychotherapy. This book presents chapters by Dr. Blatt's many colleagues and students who address the key areas in which Dr Blatt focuses his intellectual endeavours: *Personality development *Psychopathology *Issues in psychological testing and assessment *Psychotherapy and the treatment process *Applied psychoanalysis and broader (...) cultural trends _Relatedness, Self-Definition and Mental Representation_ explores Dr. Blatt's unique contributions within both psychoanalysis, where empirical research is often neglected, and clinical psychology, where psychoanalysis is increasingly ignored. It will be engaging reading for psychoanalysts and clinical psychologists, as well as all those concerned with psychotherapy and personality theory and development. (shrink)

From its inception, psychoanalysis has been troubled by the problem of suggestion. I defend an answer to the problem of suggestion understood as a methodological concern about the evidential basis of psychoanalytic theory. This purely methodological approach is relatively uncommon in discussions in psychoanalysis. I argue that suggestion in psychoanalysis is best understood in terms of experimenter expectancy effects. Such effects are not specific to psychoanalysis, and they can be corrected for by relying on the corroboration of findings by different (...) researchers. This response to the problem of suggestion faces several challenges, and a reply to these is offered. I argue that the psychodynamic model of mind, if not the metapsychological and etiological claims of psychoanalysis, can be vindicated in light of the actual agreement that exists. (shrink)

The main concepts of the free energy (FE) neuroscience developed by Karl Friston and colleagues parallel those of Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology. In Hobson et al. ( 2014 ) these include an innate virtual reality generator that produces the fictive prior beliefs that Freud described as the primary process. This enables Friston's account to encompass a unified treatment—a complexity theory—of the role of virtual reality in both dreaming and mental disorder. In both accounts the brain operates to minimize (...) FE aroused by sensory impingements—including interoceptive impingements that report compliance with biological imperatives—and constructs a representation/model of the causes of impingement that enables this minimization. In Friston's account (variational) FE equals complexity minus accuracy, and is minimized by increasing accuracy and decreasing complexity. Roughly the brain (or model) increases accuracy together with complexity in waking. This is mediated by consciousness-creating active inference—by which it explains sensory impingements in terms of perceptual experiences of their causes. In sleep it reduces complexity by processes that include both synaptic pruning and consciousness/virtual reality/dreaming in REM. The consciousness-creating active inference that effects complexity-reduction in REM dreaming must operate on FE-arousing data distinct from sensory impingement. The most relevant source is remembered arousals of emotion, both recent and remote, as processed in SWS and REM on “active systems” accounts of memory consolidation/reconsolidation. Freud describes these remembered arousals as condensed in the dreamwork for use in the conscious contents of dreams, and similar condensation can be seen in symptoms. Complexity partly reflects emotional conflict and trauma. This indicates that dreams and symptoms are both produced to reduce complexity in the form of potentially adverse (traumatic or conflicting) arousals of amygdala-related emotions. Mental disorder is thus caused by computational complexity together with mechanisms like synaptic pruning that have evolved for complexity-reduction; and important features of disorder can be understood in these terms. Details of the consilience among Freudian, systems consolidation, and complexity-reduction accounts appear clearly in the analysis of a single fragment of a dream, indicating also how complexity reduction proceeds by a process resembling Bayesian model selection. (shrink)

In this paper we explain Wittgenstein’s claim in a 1933 lecture that “aesthetics like psychoanalysis doesn’t explain anything away.” The discussions of aesthetics are distinctive: Wittgenstein gives a positive account of the relationship between aesthetics and psychoanalysis, as contrasted with psychology. And we follow not only his distinction between cause and reason, but also between hypothesis and representation, along with his use of the notion of ideals as facilitators of aesthetic discourse. We conclude that aesthetics, like psychoanalysis, preserves the verifying (...) phenomena in their fullness. (shrink)

For the contemporary reader of Psychoanalysis: Its Image and Its Public the analyses of communicative systems in the book provides a challenging occasion for reconsidering current social psychological thinking about the character of social groups. In Moscovici's careful delineation of the communicative systems of diffusion, propagation and propaganda through his content analysis of the French press, one can also see the description of different types of group structured through distinctive social psychological organisations. Moscovici himself suggests that the genres (...) of diffusion, propagation and propaganda are each linked to the construction of a specific type of social-psychological object, opinion, attitude and stereotype respectively. But one can also identify different forms of affiliation corresponding to each communicative genre, and consequently also different representations of the people who constitute both the in-group and the out-group in each instance. The affiliative bonds might be described as forms of sympathy, communion and solidarity. (shrink)

Clinical fields of the “sciences of the mind” (psychotherapy, psychiatry, etc.) lack integrative conceptual frameworks that have explanatory power. Mainly descriptive-classificatory taxonomies like DSM dominate the field. New taxonomies such as Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) aim to collect scientific knowledge regarding “systems” for “processes” of the brain. These terms have a supradisciplinary” meaning if they are considered in context of Systems Science. This field emerges as a platform of theories like general systems theory, catastrophe theory, synergetics, chaos theory, etc. It (...) provides a lot of abstract concepts, constructs, methods and models. We assume that these tools also enable theoretical integration in the diversified field of clinical practice in the sciences of the mind. Additionally, systems thinking in clinical psychology improves conceptual links to currently network-oriented neurobiology. However, clear definitions of systemic terms are necessary to emerge from their mainly metaphorical use. Here we revise mainly terms like “structure”, “process” and “dynamics” as they are used already in psychology, psychoanalysis, psychopathology and psychiatry in an ill-defined way. For instance, affective-cognitive structures like “life space” or “object representations” can be seen as products of mental processing. These structures, in turn, modulate dynamics of mental processes. Additionally, we suggest a coupled network concept of emotions and motivations as the main subsystem that modulates mental dynamics that results in a qualitative systemic model of the mind. Finally, we assume that a revisited systemic approach could improve interdisciplinary understanding of the mental. ystem for mental dynamics. In this context, we assume that a revisited systemic approach could improve interdisciplinary understanding of the mental. (shrink)

The magical number three has provided the template for this comparative study of Freudian psycho-analysis and Husserlian phenomenology. "Three" should be considered the number of dialectics; the method in the study to let three distinct thematisations succeed each other should find its legitimation in dialectics. The relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology as that between two dialectic theories might well call for a dialectic interpretation. It should be difficult from a straightforward and unambiguous interpretation to give full credit to the rich (...) and equivocal meaning of psycho-analysis and phenomenology. I hope to have shown in the presentation above, that it is possible by accentuating different sides of the two scientific disciplines to reach different conclusions regarding their relationship. For a full account of this relationship these different conclusions should be placed together and viewed in their internal coherence as a dialectical unity. Thus none of the three sections of the text should be considered apart from the others. In the first section of the paper, the first thematisation, I tried to spell out the discrepancies between Freud and Husserl as clearly as possible. The point of departure here was the Freudian notion of the "psychical apparatus," and Husserl's doctrine of "intentional consciousness." The models built around these central notions can be shown to have a paradigmatic meaning for the development of Freud's and Husserl's psychological projects. Conceiving the subject as psychical apparatus, Freud thought it possible to make psychology a natural science. The subject could be treated like a mechanical apparatus, that is a machine admitting the general laws of motion. - In contrast, Husserl thought psychology should depart from natural science in its scientific selfunderstanding, and join the humanities instead. Psychology's departure from natural science, Husserl found legitimized in the subject's essential character of intentional consciousness. According to Husserl, man as a conscious being could not be reduced to a thing in the natural world. On the contrary, the aprioric basis for the world should be found in intentional consciousness, which constitutes the "world" as a meaningful coherence related to the subject. Freud's and Husserl's conceptions of psychology were traced to historical roots in respectively positivism, naturalism and mechanical materialism on the one hand, and rationalism, humanism and idealism on the other. In this first interpretation the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology seemed to be antithetical, the two theoretical projects representing opposite poles with regard to cartesian dualism. Although in some ways caricaturing the theories in this one-sided interpretation, I tried to show, that such interpretation is possible with bases in the texts of Freud and Husserl. The decided one-sidedness of the first thematisation should, however, be balanced by the competing interpretation in the second section of the paper. In the second thematisation, I tried to show, that both psycho-analysis and phenomenology in their concrete psychological projects went beyond their points of departure. Although Freud as a scientist of the 19th century naturally found his theoretical language in the successful natural sciences, from which his scientific career started, he decisively broke with this frame of reference in his descriptions of the pathological problems from his clinical praxis. In contrast to the abstract metapsychology of the psychical apparatus, Freud in his clinical psychology departed from mechanism in his attempts to interpret the meaning of the patient's neurotic symptom. The clinical attitude of Freud might resemble phenomenologists' openness towards the meaning of the phenomena, and the case-histories of Freud often read like clinical analyses stemming from existential- phenomenological psychiatrists. - Correspondingly, although Husserl started from the tradition of German philosophy of consciousness, also he can be seen to go beyond the premises of his wellsprings. Starting with a notion of intentionality as consciousness's active positing meaningful objects, Husserl later was led to consider a deeper level of intentionality, a "functioning intentionality," that would situate the subject in a "world" prior to any thematic perceptual act. With the notion of functional intentionality and its further development in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the "body-subject," phenomenology seems to have come close to the Freudian doctrine of the unconscious. From this second interpretation it seemed to follow, that a meeting between psycho-analysis and phenomenology should be possible, by cutting off the mechanistic parts from psychoanalysis and the idealistic parts from phenomenology. The hindrance for such meeting should apparently be found in the divergent theoretical prejudices stemming from the ideological climates in which the theories were hatched. None of these two apparently contradictory interpretations, that of the first and second thematisation, should, however, rule out the other. To the question which interpretation is the right one, we should answer "both... and," or perhaps better "Neither... nor." Freud and Husserl in fact held contradictory views in their explicit scientific self-understanding. On the other hand, much of the controversy was caused by theoretical prejudices not essential to the central enterprise of psycho-analysis and phenomenology. And yet, the theoretical work of Freud and Husserl should be considered in its entirety, not omitting parts that do not fit the interpretative context. Freud's mechanistic theories must be read in connection with his clinical/phenomenological psychology, Husserl's doctrine of transcendental consciousness together with his concrete analyses of the world and the body. Freud sticked to his mechanistic metaphors throughout his life, not just because mechanic materialism was his scientific point of departure, but also because he found the models of the psychical apparatus useful to picture the subject-matter of psycho-analysis, the unconscious as it is discovered by the analytic method. Correspondingly, Husserl found in transcendental idealism a metaphysical horizon apparently suited for his main theoretical project, to un-cover by phenomenological reflexion man in his free and conscious being. In this way Freud's materialism and Husserl's idealism might find their limited justification, not in the absolutistic sense set forth in the first section, but in relation to their weighting different aspects of the subject/object dialectic of man. This point of view I tried to explicate in the third section of this paper. In the subject/object dialectic Freud seems to underline man's existence as object, his being ruled by the mechanic, the irrational, the infantile, the unconscious. In contrast, Husserl underlines man's existence as subject, his free and conscious openness towards the world and the future. This difference I characterized with the notions of Ricoeur as respectively an "archeology" and a "teleology" of the subject. And yet the difference between Freud and Husserl is that of a weighting different sides of the subject/object dialectic, not of an exclusive thematisation of man as either subject or object. Freudian archaeology is supplemented by an implicit teleology, Husserlian teleology by an implicit archeology. On the background of such interpretation the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology should be seen neither as the polarity of the first thematisation, nor as the synthesis of the second. Psycho-analysis and phenomenology both contradict and imply each other in a relationship that should be termed dialectical. With this third interpretation the paper ended. At last I noted that the problems raised by the controversy on the subject/object dialectic of man should not easily be solved. Instead, the question "what is man" should have to be answered continuously in a concrete historical reflextion or dialogue. Yet I think it safe to conclude, that any psychological consideration has to take into consideration, both man's archeological and his teleological features, thus not allowing the one perspective completely to rule out the other. (shrink)

An increasing number of academic papers, newspaper articles, and other media representations from all over the world recently bring climate change’s impact on mental health into focus. Commonly summarized under the terms of climate or ecological emotions, these reports talk about distress, anxiety, trauma, grief, or depression in relation to environmental decline and anticipated climate crisis. While the majority of psychology and mental health literature thus far presents preliminary conceptual analysis and calls for empirical research, some explanations of ecological emotions (...) are already offered. They mainly draw from psychoanalysis and depth existential and humanistic psychology, as well as social psychology and address the relationship between ecological emotions and individual engagement in climate action. While these studies suggest building on individual resilience if concerned by ecological emotions, we argue that this only addresses their acute symptoms and not the social causes. Based upon our literature research, we show that in an individualistic society such as the liberal ones, feelings of individual responsibility are fostered, and this also applies to climate activism. (shrink)

Because both the individual and the state call for simultaneous investigation in social psychology, one could argue that in some sense Serge Moscovici, with the publication of Psychoanalysis, put forward the first systematic large scale empirical study of cognitive representations in, as it happily proved, various blocs of French understandings of psychoanalysis, admitting, characteristically, doubts about the individual, bloc, and the state representations.

How does the human animal who thinks and loves relate to criminal justice? This essay takes up the idea of a moral psychology of guilt promoted by Bernard Williams and Herbert Morris. Against modern liberal society’s ‘peculiar’ legal morality of voluntary responsibility, it pursues Morris’s ethical account of guilt as involving atonement and identification with others. Thinking of guilt in line with Morris, and linking it with the idea of moral psychology, takes the essay to Freud’s metapsychology in Civilization and (...) Its Discontents. Two conflicting routes to guilt are noted in Freud, one involving internalisation of external anger to suppress destructive instincts, the other loving identification with others in the process of self-formation. This second route is developed through the psychoanalytic thought of Hans Loewald and Jonathan Lear. Following Loewald, the moral psychology of self-formation makes loving identification with others the root of responsibility, guilt and atonement. Following Lear, the moral psychology of guilt developed on these lines renders psychoanalysis part of a broadly understood philosophical project following Aristotelian and Socratic principles. Underlying Morris’s account of guilt is the possibility of ‘prospective identification’, understood as the moral and psychological ground of guilt and reconciliation. This is the rational core of criminal justice, which maintains an uneasy relationship with law’s ‘peculiar’ morality. (shrink)

O presente trabalho versa sobre a constituição da noção de memória na teoria freudiana. Para tanto, utilizamos, de modo primordial, as elaborações desenvolvidas no Projeto para uma psicologia científica. Objetivamos ressaltar que Freud subverte a problemática acerca do conceito de memória, concedendo a essa ideia um caráter criativo que se diferencia da simples representação de um objeto contido na realidade material. Em Freud, a memória excede o que se compreende comumente como evocação, ou seja, a lembrança não se restringe à (...) retomada de uma percepção. Se a memória é considerada como sendo o próprio psiquismo, é a sua relação com a pulsão e, posteriormente, com a noção de a posteriori que possibilita a efetivação de uma memória própria à Psicanálise. Desse modo, explicitamos que a memória em Freud é tanto um imperativo da pulsão quanto o desdobramento dos efeitos de uma temporalidade psíquica. Mesmo que parta de uma construção teórica estritamente associada às ciências naturais, um exame mais detido a respeito das formulações desse período nos ajuda a compreender a maneira como ele arquiteta uma teoria que, pelo menos a princípio, tinha como objetivo último esclarecer a problemática concernente à noção de memória.The present work deals with the constitution of the notion of memory in Freudian theory, primarily making use of the elaboration developed in the Project for a scientific psychology. We aim to point out that Freud subverts the problem of the concept of memory, giving this idea a creative character that differs from the mere representation of an object contained in material reality. In Freud, memory goes beyond what is commonly understood as evocation, i.e., memory is not restricted to a recovery of perception. If memory is considered to be the psyche itself, it is its relationship with drive and later with the notion of Nachträglich that enables the realization of memory appropriate to psychoanalysis itself. Thus, we make it explicit that memory in Freud is both an imperative of drive and of the unfolding of the effects of a psychic temporality. Even though Freud departs from a strictly theoretical construction associated with the natural sciences, a closer examination of his formulations from this period helps us understand how he constructs a theory that, at least at first, had the ultimate goal of clarifying issues regarding the notion of memory. (shrink)

_New Therapeutic Visions_ begins with Lachmann and Beebe's developmental perspectives on representational and selfobject transferences, followed by commentaries. In Section II, the self-psychological approach is brought to bear on the clinical treatment of an adolescent girl, incest survivors, addictive personalities, patients exhibiting codependency, and a case of desomatization. Section III, on applied self psychology, contains chapters on the theory of creativity; subjectivism, relativism, and realism in psychoanalysis; and quantum physics and self psychology. The final section offers two critical review (...) essays on major contributions to the self psychology literature by Wolf, by Bacal and Newman, and by Lichtenberg. Stolorow's chronicle of his personal odyssey into self psychology and intersubjectivity theory rounds out volume 8 of the Progress in Self Psychology series. (shrink)

Through an integrated multi-disciplinary theory, Michael Robbins proposes that the human mind consists of two mental structures, the one we share with other animate creatures, and a capacity for reflective representational thought which is unique. As an alternative to Freud's model of the human mind as structured by the id, ego and superego, this book contends that the prolonged period of post-natal immaturity - otherwise known as neoteny - which is specific to humans, gives rise to reflective representational thought that (...) in turn allows for the acquisition of complex knowledge. Robbins examines how Freud's conception of the human mind was limited by his ignorance of the related disciplines of sociology, primatology, cultural anthropology and most notably evolution, which were then in their infancy, to explore the implications of the non-unitary nature of the human mind for us as individuals, as a society, and for our future as a species. Drawing on a broad range of influences from psychoanalysis to anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology and politics, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of these disciplines alike. (shrink)

Both books published in 1996 explore the role that gender plays in the psychology of art (dealing with both making and viewing), complicating current philosophical distinctions between the aesthetic and the cognitive, and providing new insights into basic topics in the history and psychology of perception, representation, and disinterestedness.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dewey and the Aesthetic Unconsciousness: The Vital Depths of Experience by Bethany HenningFrank X. RyanDewey and the Aesthetic Unconsciousness: The Vital Depths of Experience Bethany Henning. Lexington Books, 2022.In this important and splendidly crafted book, Bethany Henning recovers a philosophy of aesthetic wisdom distinct from the narrow epistemological lens dominant today. Unlike the psychological atomism of European Empiricism, from its outset, American philosophy embraced nature's aesthetic (...) splendor and the continuity between our thought and our world. Jonathan Edwards held that relations among ideas reflect beauty in the structure of being. For Ralph Waldo Emerson, each of us is a "transparent eyeball" where the cultivation of nature's spontaneous beauty fortifies our moral and spiritual agency. At the apex of this tradition is John Dewey, for whom Henning touts "aesthetic experience as the highest mode of human experience" (55).Although the aesthetic is generally associated with the cognitive evaluation of art, of special significance for Dewey is its non-reflective or unconscious dimension. Henning's appropriation of "unconscious"—the cradle of Freud's infantile id—is intentionally provocative. American culture, reflected in academic thought, has largely resisted appeals to subterranean urges and drives. In so doing, however, we perpetuate a myth of rational and moral exceptionalism that masks our history of colonialism, oppression, and crass commercialism. In accepting the unconscious, European thought has taken strides to acknowledge and address such ills. Despite America's disdain for psychoanalysis, Henning wonders whether it "could have accepted a dynamic unconscious, were it presented with an alternative mythology" (10).Dewey's alternative, says Henning, arises from his underappreciated notion of qualitative immediacy. In Henning's interpretation of this, meaning is embodied as a "sense of fulfillment" among accumulated habits—a "coming to terms with the world around us" through an "aesthetic (directly felt) connection between ourselves and the world." As such, to appreciate meaning, we must affirm the tacit, unconscious depth of experience; that is, we must "welcome aesthetic experience back into our philosophical lives" (5).Embodied meaning signifies that "the sensuous, lived body" is "the primary reality" (69). In this reality, qualitative immediacy is a non-reflective, aesthetic unity punctuated by "impulsions" arising from an organism's needs. Such needs are satisfied in organism-environment interactions where, says Dewey, "the epidermis is only in the most superficial way an indication of where an organism ends and its environment begins" (LW 10:61). As "a site of adaptive adjustments," Henning continues, "the body is responsive to the [End Page 114] brink of coalescence at the point of contact with the world, in which things that are 'outside of it' belong to it" (71). As such, the body-mind relation is a problem of aesthetics, not epistemology. For Dewey, as for Merleau-Ponty, the body "is the organic and dynamic condition of my thought" (75). The body is not a thing, however, but a process "always organically involved in exchanges" (86).Following the feminist thought of Susan Bordo, Henning agrees that the ascendance of the body amounts to a kind of philosophical recovery. Seventeenth-century science eviscerated the organic "female" universe of the Middle Ages. But this loss of an integrated world evoked existential fright, which Descartes tried to calm by subjugating feminine vagaries of the body to a masculine cognitive certitude bent upon controlling the whole of nature. In America today, this neurosis perpetuates our cultural alienation from our bodies, our environments, and one another (81–84). With the re-emergence of the body, however, it is possible to acknowledge and address this trauma."Feeling," in Dewey's sense, is unconsciously affective: a constant rhythm of disequilibrium and equilibrium, of need and resolution noticed only when a problem rises to the point of requiring our conscious attention. This affective "charge," this rhythm of sensed need and the desire to overcome it, is Dewey's appropriation of Plato's Erōs. Thomas Alexander casts Dewey's Erōs broadly as humanity's aesthetic investment in our world—our collective effort "to transform a biophysical environment into a world filled with meaning" (Alexander 11). But Henning turns to the more familiar sense of Erōs attuned not to the world at... (shrink)

What does a confrontation between philosophy and psychoanalysis look like? My task is a philosophical investigation of a psychoanalytic concept. Thus, I offer a conceptual analysis of a concept that is used both clinically and as a part of a metapsychology. The concept that I investigate in this article is regression. I work with the following two problems: What does a conceptual analysis of the phenomenon called regression look like? Regression can be regarded as an instrument that can give us (...) knowledge about ourselves. What does this mean? I compare two ways of analyzing regression, an atomistic as well as an holistic approach. This comparison is made by way of a discussion of the conceptual analysis of the infant. Can we construct the inner life of the infant? How should we conceptualize the primitive? Using concepts like ‘conceptual holism’ and ‘holism of attributes’, I draw parallell conclusions about the construction of the infant's inner life and the analysis of the concept of regression. (shrink)

The psychological writing of Jung and the post-Jungians is all too often ignored as anachronistic, archaic and mystic. In Jung and the Postmodern, Christopher Hauke challenges this, arguing that Jungian psychology is more relevant now than ever before - not only can it be a response to modernity, but it can offer a critique of modernity and Enlightenment values which brings it in line with the postmodern critique of contemporary culture. After introducing Jungians to postmodern themes in Jameson, Baudrillard, (...) Jencks and Foucault, the author introduces postmodernists to Jung's cultural critique and post-Jungian discussions of representation, individuation, consciousness, and the alternatives to Enlightenment rationality. He also takes a totally fresh approach to topics such as hysteria and the body, Jung and Nietzsche, architecture and affect, Princess Diana and the 'death' of the subject, postmodern science and synchronicity, and to psychosis and alternative 'rationalities'. Jung and the Postmodern is vital reading for everyone interested in contemporary culture, not only Jungians and other psychotherapists who want to explore the social relevance of their discipline, but anyone who shares a assionate concern for where we are heading in postmodern times. (shrink)

The Representational Theory of the Mind (RTM) has been forcefully and subtly developed by Jerry A. Fodor. According to the RTM, psychological states that explain behavior involve tokenings of mental representations. Since the RTM is distinguished from other approaches by its appeal to the meaning or "content" of mental representations, a question immediately arises: by virtue of what does a mental representation express or represent an environmental property like coto or shoe? This question asks for a general account of (...) the semantics of mental representation. Fodor places two conditions on the requisite theory: it must be physi calistic (that is, it must be couched in nonsemantic and nonintentional terms, free of expressions like "refers to" or "denotes" or "means that"), and it must be atomistic (that is, it must allow that the thinker can have a single intentional state without having any others). What is wanted, then, is a reductive theory that "naturalizes" content by specifying sufficient conditions, in physicalistic and atomistic terms, for a mental symbol to represent or express a certain property. (shrink)

Total permissiveness can be captured by the phrase “anything goes.” Psychological atomism can be informally characterized by the idea that in the mind anything goes with anything. There is a strong tendency toward such thinking in Western philosophical thought—both in classical antiquity and during and since the Enlightenment. Perhaps the two most important philosophers of the Enlightenment, Hume and Kant, accepted more or less limited forms of atomism, and I shall explain in what follows in the main (...) text and footnotes, why and how I think their atomism goes astray. Since much of Western philosophy since the Enlightenment to some extent bears its imprint, we shall also be seeing some recent examples of ill-conceived atomism. However, and despite the main themes of the present volume, I shall go well beyond the task of dealing with themes in Enlightenment thinking. In fact, I shall be relying on some unfamiliar aspects of Chinese thought to correct quite generally what I take to be erroneous atomistic thinking. (shrink)

The Representational Theory of the Mind allows for psychological explanations couched in terms of the contents of propositional attitudes. Propositional attitudes themselves are taken to be relations to mental representations. These representations (partially) determine the contents of the attitudes in which they figure. Thus, Representationalism owes an explanation of the contents of mental representations. This essay constitutes an atomistic theory of the content of formally or syntactically simple mental representation, proposing that the content of such a representation is determined (...) by the intersection of the representation's correlational and control properties. The theory is distinguished from standard information-based accounts of mental content in allowing that the relevant correlations be contingent while insisting on an efferent aspect to mental content. The theory on offer allows for a natural explanation of misrepresentation, finds a niche for the notion of narrow content, welcomes radical first person fallibility with respect to questions of content, admits of mental ambiguity and recognizes that the future of a psychological agent is a factor in determining the content of the agent's present psychological states. (shrink)

In this brief space I want to describe how Chomsky's analysis of "psychological reality" departs from what I think is a fairly standard construal of the idea. This familiar formulation arises from distinguishing between someone's following a rule and someone's acting in conformity with a rule. The former idea, but not the latter, involves the idea that the person has some mental representation of the rule that plays a certain causal role in determining behavior. Although there may be many (...) grammatical rules to which a person's verbal behavior (ignoring slips of the tongue and other performance interferences) conforms, only some of those rules have psychological reality; these are the ones that are internalized in thought and play some appropriate causal role. (shrink)