Philosophy of psychiatry: theoretical advances and clinical implications.

Work at the intersection of philosophy and psychiatry has an extensive and influential history, and has received increased attention recently, with the emergence of professional associations and a growing literature. In this paper, we review key advances in work on philosophy and psychiatry, and their related clinical implications. First, in understanding and categorizing mental disorder, both naturalist and normativist considerations are now viewed as important - psychiatric constructs necessitate a consideration of both facts and values. At a conceptual level, this integrative view encourages moving away from strict scientism to soft naturalism, while in clinical practice this facilitates both evidence-based and values-based mental health care. Second, in considering the nature of psychiatric science, there is now increasing emphasis on a pluralist approach, including ontological, explanatory and value pluralism. Conceptually, a pluralist approach acknowledges the multi-level causal interactions that give rise to psychopathology, while clinically it emphasizes the importance of a broad range of "difference-makers", as well as a consideration of "lived experience" in both research and practice. Third, in considering a range of questions about the brain-mind, and how both somatic and psychic factors contribute to the development and maintenance of mental disorders, conceptual and empirical work on embodied cognition provides an increasingly valuable approach. Viewing the brain-mind as embodied, embedded and enactive offers a conceptual approach to the mind-body problem that facilitates the clinical integration of advances in both cognitive-affective neuroscience and phenomenological psychopathology.

Irruption and Absorption: A 'Black-Box' Framework for How Mind and Matter Make a Difference to Each Other.

Cognitive science is confronted by several fundamental anomalies deriving from the mind-body problem. Most prominent is the problem of mental causation and the hard problem of consciousness, which can be generalized into the hard problem of agential efficacy and the hard problem of mental content. Here, it is proposed to accept these explanatory gaps at face value and to take them as positive indications of a complex relation: mind and matter are one, but they are not the same. They are related in an efficacious yet non-reducible, non-observable, and even non-intelligible manner. Natural science is well equipped to handle the effects of non-observables, and so the mind is treated as equivalent to a hidden 'black box' coupled to the body. Two concepts are introduced given that there are two directions of coupling influence: (1) irruption denotes the unobservable mind hiddenly making a difference to observable matter, and (2) absorption denotes observable matter hiddenly making a difference to the unobservable mind. The concepts of irruption and absorption are methodologically compatible with existing information-theoretic approaches to neuroscience, such as measuring cognitive activity and subjective qualia in terms of entropy and compression, respectively. By offering novel responses to otherwise intractable theoretical problems from first principles, and by doing so in a way that is closely connected with empirical advances, irruption theory is poised to set the agenda for the future of the mind sciences.

Roger Sperry, the maverick brain scientist who was haunted by psyche.

This paper describes the scientific figure of Roger Sperry as a maverick researcher, an original thinker who arrived at definitive notions about the working of the brain mostly by distancing himself from the prevalent views of his peers. After solving the riddle of the functions of the corpus callosum, he won a Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for identifying the different cognitive abilities of the disconnected right and left hemispheres of the human brain. He could have won another Nobel prize for his work on the prenatal formation of behavioral neuronal networks and their growth and development after birth. In the last part of his life, he fought a courageous but inconclusive battle for demonstrating that mental and spiritual factors can direct brain activity and behavior without violating the laws of orthodox neurophysiology. Some nodal points in his scientific career and some sources of inspirations for his thinking are identified and discussed within the historical background of the neurosciences of the twentieth century.

A landscape of consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications.

Diverse explanations or theories of consciousness are arrayed on a roughly physicalist-to-nonphysicalist landscape of essences and mechanisms. Categories: Materialism Theories (philosophical, neurobiological, electromagnetic field, computational and informational, homeostatic and affective, embodied and enactive, relational, representational, language, phylogenetic evolution); Non-Reductive Physicalism; Quantum Theories; Integrated Information Theory; Panpsychisms; Monisms; Dualisms; Idealisms; Anomalous and Altered States Theories; Challenge Theories. There are many subcategories, especially for Materialism Theories. Each explanation is self-described by its adherents, critique is minimal and only for clarification, and there is no attempt to adjudicate among theories. The implications of consciousness explanations or theories are assessed with respect to: meaning/purpose/value (if any); AI consciousness; virtual immortality; and survival beyond death. A Landscape of Consciousness, I suggest, offers perspective.

Methodological advice for the young at heart investigator: Triangulation to build better foundations.

In medicine and science, one is typically taught the main theories in a discipline or field along with standard models before receiving more instructions on how to apply certain methods. The aim of this work is not to address one method, but rather methodology, the study and evaluation of methods, by taking a philosophy of science detour. In this, a critique of biomedicine will be used as a starting point to address some positions regarding reductionism, specifying notions such as systems and mechanisms, as well as regarding the mind-body problem discussing psychosomatic medicine and psychoneuroimmunology. Some recommendations to make science more pluralistic, robust and translationally-relevant will then be made as a way to foster constructive debates on reductionism and the mind-body problem and, in turn, favor more interdisciplinary research.

Consciousness, 4E cognition and Aristotle: a few conceptual and historical aspects.

The new approach in cognitive science largely known as "4E cognition" (embodied/embedded/enactive/extended cognition), which sheds new light on the complex dynamics of human consciousness, seems to revive some of Aristotle's views. For instance, the concept of "nature" (phusis) and the discussion on "active intellect" (nous poiêtikos) may be particularly relevant in this respect. Out of the various definitions of "nature" in Aristotle's Physics, On the Parts of Animals and Second Analytics, I will concentrate on nature defined as an inner impulse to movement, neither entirely "corporeal," nor entirely "incorporeal," and neither entirely "substantial," nor entirely "accidental." Related to that, I will consider the distinction in On the Soul between the "active" and the "passive" intellect, which Aristotle asserted as generally present in "nature" itself. By offering a conceptual and historical analysis of these views, I intend to show how the mind-body problem, which is essential for the explanation of consciousness, could be somewhat either eluded or transcended by both ancients and contemporaries on the basis of a subtle account of causation. While not attempting to diminish the impact of the Cartesian paradigm, which led to the so-called "hard problem of consciousness," I suggest that the most recent neuroscience discoveries on the neurophysiological phenomena related to human consciousness could be better explained and understood if interpreted within a 4E cognition paradigm, inspired by some Aristotelian views.

An evidence-based critical review of the mind-brain identity theory.

In the philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and psychology, the causal relationship between phenomenal consciousness, mentation, and brain states has always been a matter of debate. On the one hand, material monism posits consciousness and mind as pure brain epiphenomena. One of its most stringent lines of reasoning relies on a 'loss-of-function lesion premise,' according to which, since brain lesions and neurochemical modifications lead to cognitive impairment and/or altered states of consciousness, there is no reason to doubt the mind-brain identity. On the other hand, dualism or idealism (in one form or another) regard consciousness and mind as something other than the sole product of cerebral activity pointing at the ineffable, undefinable, and seemingly unphysical nature of our subjective qualitative experiences and its related mental dimension. Here, several neuroscientific findings are reviewed that question the idea that posits phenomenal experience as an emergent property of brain activity, and argue that the premise of material monism is based on a logical correlation-causation fallacy. While these (mostly ignored) findings, if considered separately from each other, could, in principle, be recast into a physicalist paradigm, once viewed from an integral perspective, they substantiate equally well an ontology that posits mind and consciousness as a primal phenomenon.

Understanding understanding in psychiatry.

Originally put forward to defend history from the encroachment of physics, the distinction between understanding and explanation was built into the foundations of Karl Jaspers' 'phenomenological' psychiatry, and it is revised, used and defended by many still working in that tradition. On the face of it, this is rather curious. I examine what this notion of 'understanding' amounts to, why it entered and remains influential in psychiatry, and what insights for contemporary psychiatry are buried in the notion. I argue that it is unhelpfully associated with the view that the mental is epistemologically and methodologically autonomous, but that it nevertheless highlights an important lacuna in many views of psychiatry and the scientific study of humans more generally.

Unhealthy mind in a healthy body: A criticism to eliminativism in psychopathology.

In this article we criticize the thesis "The diseases we treat are diseases of the brain". A first criticism is against the eliminativist perspective and in favor of a perspective that is still reductionist but emergentist and functionalist. In a second part, we try to answer the question "under which conditions can we consider this statement legitimate?". We argue that only those mental disorders whose neural substrate has clearly neuropathological characteristics, i.e., anomalies with respect to the laws of good neural functioning, can be considered "brain diseases." We propose that it is not sufficient to observe a simple difference between the brains of people with psychopathology, that is, with anomalies with respect to the laws of good psychological functioning, and that of people without psychopathology. Indeed, we believe it is a categorical error to postulate a neuropathology starting from a psychopathology. Finally, we summarize some research that shows how purely psychological interventions can reduce or eliminate the differences between the brains of people with or psychopathology and those of people without.

A Traditional Scientific Perspective on the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness.

This paper assesses two different theories for explaining consciousness, a phenomenon that is widely considered amenable to scientific investigation despite its puzzling subjective aspects. I focus on Integrated Information Theory (IIT), which says that consciousness is integrated information (as ϕMax) and says even simple systems with interacting parts possess some consciousness. First, I evaluate IIT on its own merits. Second, I compare it to a more traditionally derived theory called Neurobiological Naturalism (NN), which says consciousness is an evolved, emergent feature of complex brains. Comparing these theories is informative because it reveals strengths and weaknesses of each, thereby suggesting better ways to study consciousness in the future. IIT's strengths are the reasonable axioms at its core; its strong logic and mathematical formalism; its creative "experience-first" approach to studying consciousness; the way it avoids the mind-body ("hard") problem; its consistency with evolutionary theory; and its many scientifically testable predictions. The potential weakness of IIT is that it contains stretches of logic-based reasoning that were not checked against hard evidence when the theory was being constructed, whereas scientific arguments require such supporting evidence to keep the reasoning on course. This is less of a concern for the other theory, NN, because it incorporated evidence much earlier in its construction process. NN is a less mature theory than IIT, less formalized and quantitative, and less well tested. However, it has identified its own neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) and offers a roadmap through which these NNCs may answer the questions of consciousness using the hypothesize-test-hypothesize-test steps of the scientific method.

Can Neuroscientists Test a New Physicalist Mind/Body View: DiCoToP (Diachronic Conjunctive Token Physicalism)?

Given that disparate mind/body views have interfered with interdisciplinary research in psychoanalysis and neuroscience, the mind/body problem itself is explored here. Adding a philosophy of mind framework, problems for both dualists and physicalists are presented, along with essential concepts including: independent mental causation, emergence, and multiple realization. To address some of these issues in a new light, this article advances an original mind/body account-Diachronic Conjunctive Token Physicalism (DiCoToP). Next, puzzles DiCoTop reveals, psychoanalytic problems it solves, and some empirical evidence accrued for views consistent with DiCoToP are presented. In closing, this piece challenges/appeals for neuroscience research to gain evidence for (or against) the DiCoToP view.

Collaborative dialogue between Buddhism and science: A contribution to expanding a science of consciousness.

Investigation of consciousness (experience, mind, awareness, subjectivity) has become an accepted endeavor in contemporary neuroscience. However, current work is largely limited to study of neural correlates of consciousness. While this is interesting and important, it may not be sufficient to carry us to a place of truly new insight regarding consciousness. I argue that one element of expanding a science of consciousness is appreciation of the interdependent co-creation or enfolding of mind and world. Addressing this interdependence is an aspect of the collaborative engagement of the traditions of Buddhism and science-a project that is exploring how complementary worldviews and analytic procedures might further the development of an expanded science of mind. In this essay, written for a collection honoring the life and work of Jack Pettigrew, I describe his connection to this project.

Reality is not as it seems.

The prevalent view in cognitive science is that we construct our perception of reality in real time. But could we be misinterpreting the content of our perceptual experiences? Does what we perceive with our brain and senses reflect the true nature of reality? Might evolution have shaped our perceptions to guide adaptive behavior, without enabling us to see reality as it actually is? In a discussion moderated by Steve Paulson, cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman and neurologist Suzanne O'Sullivan analyze these questions and their profound implications for our understanding of human consciousness.

Do Not Neglect the Body and Action: The Emergence of Embodiment Approaches to Understanding Human Development.

It is becoming clear that to truly understand what it is to be human, focusing scientific efforts on the mind alone is insufficient. We are embodied minds, living and acting in a world full of meaningful things. In this article, we discuss how science has been informed by important research insights into the close relationship between the body, the mind, and the world. These interactions can be translated into embodied perspectives of human development. We provide evidence that perception, cognition, emotion, human relations, and behavior are grounded in our bodies from the beginning of our lives. From this perspective, the body cannot be assumed to be simply an effector for cognition or an instrument for collecting information for the brain. This comprehensive review and debate of embodied-related literature is accompanied by the identification of theoretical challenges and practical applications that will shape research for years to come.

The theory of symptom complexes, mind and madness.

Kahlbaum's seminal approach to symptom complexes, as opposed to disease entities, is still relevant. Many psychopathologists have approached mental symptom complexes without prejudging them as necessary physical deficits or diseases, favouring a broader dimensional and anthropological view of mental disorders. Discussions of symptom complexes gained prominence in psychiatry in the early twentieth century - through Hoche - and in the period leading up to World War II - through Carl Schneider. Their works, alongside those of Kraepelin, Bumke, Kehrer, Jaspers and others, are reviewed in relation to the theme of symptom complexes, the mind, and mental disorders. A particular feature of symptom complexes is their relationship to aspects of the normal mind and how this affects clinical manifestations. It is further suggested that symptom complexes might offer a useful bridge between the psychic and the biological in theories of the mind.

Dualism and its place in a philosophical structure for psychiatry.

It is often claimed in parts of the psychiatric literature that neuroscientific research into the biological basis of mental disorder undermines dualism in the philosophy of mind. This paper shows that such a claim does not apply to all forms of dualism. Focusing on Kenneth Kendler's discussion of the mind-body problem in biological psychiatry, I argue that such criticism of dualism often conflates the psychological and phenomenal concepts of the mental. Moreover, it fails to acknowledge that there are different varieties of dualism, and so overlooks the important metaphysical insights of contemporary dualist philosophers. I argue that while the neuroscientific research underpinning biological psychiatry challenges the traditional dualism of René Descartes, it does not pose any problem for the more modern dualism of David Chalmers. It is possible to take seriously the scientific claims of biological psychiatry while holding that this latter form of dualism is true. This has implications for the positioning of the mind-body problem in psychiatry. While the "easy" problem of explaining psychological processes is relevant to the aims of biological psychiatry, psychiatrists need not worry about the "hard" problem of consciousness.

Do Personality Features Influence Our Intuitions of the Mind-Body Problem? A Pilot Study.

The elusive relationship between the mental domain and the physical brain, known as the mind-body problem, is still a hot topic of discussion among philosophers and neuroscientists. Rather than solving this problem, our pilot study addresses the question as to whether personality features could influence intuitions of the mind-body problem, or more precisely, whether it is possible to identify a person's intuitive inclinations toward dualism or materialism and their inclinations toward reduction of the mind to the brain. For the purposes of this pilot study, we developed a questionnaire, which employed several theories of analytic philosophy of the mind, in order to determine which category the participants would belong to. These main categories were dualism, non-reductive materialism and reductive materialism. To test whether personality features affect preferences for these categories, the participants were investigated by Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). We found significant differences in the self-transcendence dimension of the TCI between participants who were evaluated as dualists and those who were assessed as reductive materialists. Our data show that the personality dimension of self-transcendence correlates with intuitive inclination toward reductive materialism or dualism. In addition, our results suggest that ideas, theories, and hypothetical solutions of the mind-body problem and possibly even conclusions, acceptance, and disputations of thought experiments of philosophy of the mind can be biased by personality traits. This fact should be taken into account in future discussions of the philosophy of the mind and may also be important for empirical research and an empirical understanding of the mind.

The mind-body problem in the philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience: a physicalist naturalist solution.

Using an analysis of a voluntary action caused by a visual perception, I suggest that the three fundamental characteristics of this perception (being conscious, self-conscious, and provided with a content) are neurologically implemented by three distinct higher order properties of brain dynamics. This hypothesis allows me to sketch out a physicalist naturalist solution to the mind-body problem. According to this solution, primary phenomenal consciousness is neither a non-physical substance, nor a non-physical property but simply the "format" that the brain gives to a part of its dynamics in order to obtain a fine tuning with its environment when the body acts on it.

Framing the Mind-Body Problem in Contemporary Neuroscientific and Sunni Islamic Theological Discourse.

Famously posed by seventeenth-century French philosopher René Descartes, the mind-body problem remains unresolved in western philosophy and science, with both disciplines unable to move convincingly beyond the dualistic model. The persistence of dualism calls for a reframing of the problem through interdisciplinary modes of inquiry that include non-western points of view. One such perspective is Islamic theology of the soul, which, while approaching the problem from a distinct point of view, also adopts a position commensurate with (substance) dualism. Using this point of convergence as a conceptual starting point, we argue that bringing into dialogue contemporary neuroscientific, philosophy of mind, and Sunni Islamic theological discourses may provide a fruitful way of reframing the age-old mind-body problem. This paper provides an overview of how these three discourses have approached the issue of the mind-body (-soul) problem. Juxtaposing these three discourses, we hope, may ignite further scholarly dialogue and investigation.