Retreat – Neurophilosophy
As much as I like science philosophy, I do get a bit twitchy sometimes when people describe themselves as “neurophilosophers”, given the current buzzword status of neuroscience and the fact that most social neuroscience makes me extremely wary in the same way evo-psych does. Sam Harris, for example, makes me scrunch my eyes so hard I see spots.
My program recently had a retreat (like a mini-conference). I’ll confess I didn’t attend a lot of it, especially today, given I was feeling a bit ill, and kept falling asleep during the molecular/cellular neuroscience talks. But the opening talks were by Dr. Ian Gold and two students regarding the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy.
Dr. Gold introduced the topic by giving a quick history of neurophilosophy, citing Patricia Smith Churchland’s 1986 book “Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind Brain” as really kicking off the field. Assuming (correctly, I’m willing to bet) that most people in the audience weren’t too acquainted with philosophy, he gave some examples of just what the field covers.
Firstly, neurophilosophy asks question about neuroscience itself. One of the big ones is ‘can psychology be reduced to neurobiology?’ For those of you following at home, by the way, my answer is “Yes in principle, but neurobiology is probably not the appropriate level at which to describe most psychological phenomena. Other questions deal with core principles like “How should we understand functional localization?”, core methods like brain imaging and cognitive functions, and core concepts like “What exactly are visual receptive fields, and are they a useful concept?”
Secondly, neurophilosophy directs neuroscience at traditional philosophical questions and concepts. These include
Mind: What is the relation between perception and action? How do different sensory and motor pathways interact?
Social theory: How do people “mind-read”, ie. create an idea of what others are thinking or feeling? Do certain types of neurons play a role?
Epistemology: What are beliefs? What can we learn from delusions caused by temporal lobe lesions.
Metaphysics: What are the limits of free will? Libet’s experiments, for example, suggest our brains begin actions before we’re consciously aware of them.
Ethics: How do people make moral decisions? There seem to be different brain networks involved in different kinds of ethical decision-making, and certain regions seem to play a role in our assignment of moral blameworthiness.
Aesthetics: Why is a painting beautiful? For example, the ambiguity of the Mona Lisa seems to result from the fact that at different resolutions, her expression is different (mocking when high, sad when medium, happy when low), and so as our eyes move and we focus more or less on her face, we see different emotions.
Dr. Gold ended with an excellent quote from Hippocrates: “One ought to know that on the one hand pleasure, joy, laughter, and games, and on the other, grief, sorrow, discontent, and dissatisfaction arise only from the brain.”
I might go through the student talks later, but for now, I like the idea that neuroscience and philosophy can interact, however cautiously.
