Medical Humanities Blog

On Mind, Brain, and Reductionism

For those interested in the discourse here on neuroreductionism, several articles in the latest Philosophical Investigations are worth checking out.  Here are the titles and abstracts:

Mind and Matter: A Physicist's View

John Polkinghorne 

Queens' College, Cambridge

ABSTRACT

Physics explores a universe of wonderful order, expressed in terms of beautiful mathematical equations. Mathematics itself is understood to be the exploration of a realm of noetic reality. Science describes matter in terms of concepts with mind-like qualities. The psychosomatic nature of human persons is best understood in terms of a dual-aspect monism, in which matter and mind are complementary aspects of a unitary being. The new science of complexity theory, with its dualities of parts/whole and energy/information, offers modest resources for the speculative exploration of this idea. The intrinsic unpredictabilities present in nature afford the metaphysical opportunity to consider dissipative systems as exhibiting top–down causality.

This looks to be a fascinating essay.  I am fascinated by and have done a bit of work in the implications of complexity theory, and actually think it may be quite important in thinking about the inordinately complex relationship between mind and brain.  (I allude to it in the comments here, where I note that some branches of science have even found ways to harness uncertainty and unpredictability without seeking to eliminate it).

Are We Our Brains?

Stephen Burwood

University of Hull

ABSTRACT

My aim in this paper is to destabilise the brain-is-self thesis, something that is now regarded in some quarters as philosophical commonsense. My contention is that it is the epithelial body that enters into the formation of our sense of self and that largely bears the burden of personal identity as well as playing the key role in grounding our psychological ascriptions. Lacking any sensorimotor or social presence of its own, the brain by itself cannot "underlie" selfhood, but only as part of the whole living human being. If the minded individual is embodied, this must mean more than being embrained.

Well.  Readers of this blog can probably guess that I am assuredly inclined to agree with the author, and the essay is obviously timely and relevant to some of the general discourse going on right now across different disciplines regarding the merits of the conceptual bases of much contemporary neuroscience.

Self and Self-Consciousness: Aristotelian Ontology and Cartesian Duality
Andrea Christofidou

Worcester College

ABSTRACT

The relationship between self-consciousness, Aristotelian ontology, and Cartesian duality is far closer than it has been thought to be. There is no valid inference either from considerations of Aristotle's hylomorphism or from the phenomenological distinction between body and living body, to the undermining of Cartesian dualism. Descartes' conception of the self as both a reasoning and willing being informs his conception of personhood; a person for Descartes is an unanalysable, integrated, self-conscious and autonomous human being. The claims that Descartes introspectively encounters the self and that the Cartesian extent of inner space is self-contained are profound errors, distortions through the lenses of modern theories.

Count me among the growing number of thinkers -- across disciplines -- who think that Descartes has generally gotten a raw deal when it comes to responsibility for mind-body dualism.  David Morris insists that strict mind-body dualism is a creature of the Victorian age,, not stemming from Descartes, and Robert Martensen's early modern history of the brain is particularly good for a sensitive and nuanced exploration of this idea.  This essay seems an interesting contribution to this body of work.

Sadly, I do not have full-text access to these articles, so if any kind reader does and wishes to help a poor graduate student out, giddy up.

(cross-posted to Neuroethics & Law Blog)

Interdisciplinary Conference on "Madness -- Probing the Boundaries"

2nd Global Conference
Madness - Probing the Boundaries

Monday 14th September - Thursday 17th September 2009 Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Papers
This inter-disciplinary research conference seeks to explore issues of madness across historical periods and within cultural, political and social contexts. We are also interested in exploring the place of madness in persons and interpersonal relationships and across a range of critical perspectives. Seeking to encourage innovative inter, multi and post disciplinary dialogues, we warmly welcome papers from all disciplines, professions and vocations which struggle to understand the place of madness in the constitution of persons, relationships and the complex interlacing of self and other.

In particular papers, workshops and presentations are invited on any of the following themes:

1. The Value of Madness or Why is it that We Need Madness?
~ Critical explorations: beyond
madness/sanity/insanity
~ Continuity and difference: always with us yet never quite the same ~ Repetition and novelty: the incessant emergence and re-emergence of madness ~ Profound attraction and desire; fear of the abyss and the radical unknown ~ Naming, defining and understanding the elusive

2. The Passion of Madness or Madness and the Emotions ~ Love as madness; uncontrollable passion; unrestrainable love ~ Passion and love as a remaking of life and self ~ Gender and madness; the feminine and the masculine ~ Anger, resentment, revenge, hate, evil ~ I would rather vomit, thank you; revulsion, badness and refusing to comply

3. The Boundaries of Madness or Resisting Normality ~ Madness, sanity and the insane ~ Being out of your mind, crazy, deranged yet,perfectly sane ~ Deviating from the normal; defining the self against the normal ~ Control, self-control and the pull of the abyss ~ When the insane becomes normal; when evil reins social life

4. Lunatics and the Asylum or Power and the Politics of Madness ~ The social allure and fear of madness; the institutions of confining mad people ~ Servicing normality by castigating the insane and marginalizing lunatics ~ Medicine, psychiatry, psychology, law and the constructions of madness; madness as illness ~ Contributions of the social sciences to the making and the critique of the making of madness ~ Representations, explanations and the critique of madness from the humanities and the arts

5. Creativity, Critique and Cutting Edge ~ Madness as genius, outstanding, out of the ordinary, spectacularly brilliant ~ The art of madness; the science of madness ~ Music, painting, dance, theatre: it is crazy to think of art without madness ~ The language and communication of madness: who can translate? ~ Creation as an unfolding of madness

6. Unrestrained and Boundless or The Liberating Promise of Madness ~ Metaphors of feeling free, unrestrained, capable, lifted from reality ~ Madness as clear-sightedness, as opening up possibilities, as re-visioning of the world ~ The future, the prophetic, the unknown; the epic, the heroic and the tragic ~ The unreachable and untouchable knowledge of madness ~ The insanity of not loving madness

7. Lessons for Self and Other or Lessons for Life about and from Madness ~ Cultural and social constructions of madness; images of the mad, crazy, insane, lunatic, abnormal ~ What is real? Who defines reality? Learning from madness how to cope with reality ~ Recognising madness in oneself; relativising madness in others ~ Love, intimacy, care and the small spaces of madness ~ Critical and ethical implosions of normality and normalness; sane in insane places and insane in sane places

Papers will be accepted which deal with related areas and themes. Pre-formed panel proposals are also encouraged.

The 2009 meeting of Madness will run alongside our project on Monsters and the Monstrous - Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil and we anticipate holding sessions in common between the two projects.  We welcome any papers considering the problems or addressing issues of Madness and Monsters for joint project sessions.

Papers will be considered on any related theme.

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 17th April 2009. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 7th August 2009.

300 word abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:

author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract E-mails should be entitled: Madness 2 Abstract Submission

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Maria Vaccarella
Hub Leader, Making Sense Of:
E-mail: maria.vaccarella@yahoo.it

Abel B Franco
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, California State University, USA
E-mail: abelbenjamin@yahoo.com

Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader,
Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Freeland,
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
E-mail: mad2@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the 'Making Sense Of:' series of research projects. The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

For further details about the project please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/making-sense-of/madness/

For further details about the conference please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/making-sense-of/madness/call-for-papers/

(h/t H-DISABILITY listserv)

On "Science and Scientism in Nineteenth-Century Europe"

Andrea Westermann (ETH Zurich, Institute of History) has a nice review up on H-GERMAN (cross-posted to H-SCI-MED-TECH) of Richard Olson's new book, entitled Science and Scientism in Nineteenth-Century Europe.

Here are some excerpts to whet your appetite:

The book under review deals with the "transfer of ideas, practices, attitudes, and methodologies from the context of the study of the natural world into the study of humans and their social institutions"
(p. 1), a process Richard Olson refers to as "scientism."  It does not deal, as one might expect, with the history of the natural sciences and their popular reception . . . Olson traces a history of those European ideas and social theories which, relying on the authority of natural science, earned some measurable political influence at the time: liberalism, socialism, positivism, communism, and social Darwinism.  As with his earlier works, Olson aims at showing that modern Western political culture, religion, and literature are beholden to the body of knowledge the natural sciences accrued over time.  In short, the book argues that, from the late eighteenth century onward, a basis in science was the driving force in the reasoning about and the political development of social organization.

This is interesting, because the conception of scientism that I have discussed on MH Blog is entirely different from Olson's usage here.  Westermann comments on this:

Olson's need to summarize specific advances in the natural sciences in order to explain what exactly had been transposed into the social realm distracts from a straightforward line of argumentation, and so does his defense of the meaning of "scientism" against the views of rather dated epistemologies (such as that found in Friedrich August von Hayek's pejorative perception of "scientistic" approaches).

Hmmm . . . dated? I am dubious, though I certainly would not choose Hayek as a key expositor of the notion of scientism addressed here.  Nevertheless, the whole review is well-worth reading.

A Learning Module on the Social Determinants of Health

Via the Equidad listserv I learned of this cool learning module for the SDOH.  Here is the relevant information:

Global Learning Device on Social Determinants of Health and Public Policy Formulation 

Mark Akerman
Pan American Health Organization PAHO/WHO - February 2009

English and Spanish at:  http://dds-dispositivoglobal.ops.org.ar/curso/

The purpose of the Introductory Module is to raise awareness of and provide insight into the Social Determinants of Health (SDH) in order to reduce health inequities, encourage changes in the political agenda and contribute to a better administration of social justice and enforcement of human rights. Based on this attitude, we wish to inspire a critical vision of SDH by facilitating both the dissemination of the approach and the understanding of the intervention criteria, drawing on validated scientific papers on SDH, public policies based on the SDH approach, and documents produced by the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, established by WHO.

This Introductory Module intends to stress the need for and importance of encouraging global learning processes as collective contexts for reflecting upon public policy-making and implementation, so that the Social Determinants of Health SDH approach is not only a well-structured set of scientific evidence and country-based “case studies,” but also a political and educational instrument to encourage reflection on and changes in usual public policy practices.

General objectives of the online Introductory Module

 Understand Health Equity as a value that reflects social justice theory and constitutes a basic factor for the right to health.
 Recognize the potential of identifying health inequities as a strategic element in designing more equitable public policies.
 Recognize intersectoral policies and concerted action strategies from the SDH perspective.
 Analyze the recommendations drawn from the reports drafted by the Commission on Social Determinants of Health and its nine Knowledge Networks,
   as well as foster their discussion and adoption, taking into account both the conditions and priorities in each country.

The Introductory Module is basically targeted at WHO/PAHO staff members as well as Health Ministries’ officials in all countries who are engaged in designing action programs, policies and plans for SDH.

Furthermore, in joining other country initiatives and academic center networks that have organized educational processes with their own public agents and university lecturers, we aim at reaching a broad audience (not only academic and scholars) to lay down the foundations of our process in an attempt to generate, disseminate and increase knowledge as well as facilitate the development of professional qualifications for applying SDH approach to public policies and other strategies via personal and institutional capacity-building processes.

I have not looked through the entire module, but a preliminary look indicates to me it is a valuable set of tools for introducing some of the evidence and implicatons of work on the SDOH.

Recommended!

Symposium: Rhetorics of Plague: Early / Modern Trajectories of Biohazard

Rhetorics of Plague: Early / Modern Trajectories of Biohazard

You are cordially invited to attend the upcoming symposium titled "Rhetorics of Plague: Early / Modern Trajectories of Biohazard," which will be held February 26-27 in the Standish Room on the University at Albany.  As a collaborative project, "Rhetorics of Plague" will be a multi-disciplinary exploration of the connections between 20th- and 21st-century representations and medical models of biological pandemic and those in earlier periods ranging from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.  Given the current prospect of devastating epidemic, our aim is to establish a dialogue that can address a diverse range of historical, disciplinary, and conceptual perspectives.  Over 30 researchers from several countries and from a number of fields--including anthropology, English, history, religious studies, pharmacology, public health, and Islamic studies--will convene to offer presentations on topics ranging from the Black Death and the arts, to the economics of contagion, to environmental factors of biohazard.

A full description of the symposium, including the two-day program and summaries of the keynote lectures, is available at the website: http://www.albany.edu/english/plague.shtml.  Attendance is free for all Albany staff, faculty, and students, as well as for students from any institution.  Registration is otherwise $10.  A flyer for the symposium is below.
 
We hope you will be able to come.  Please let us know if you have any questions. 
 
Sincerely,
 
The symposium organizing committee:
 
Richard Barney           rbarney@albany.edu  
Kir Kuiken
Ineke Murakami
Helene Scheck            hscheck@albany.edu
 
Department of English, HU 333
University at Albany, SUNY
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222

Newcastle University: Studentships in the History of Medicine

NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF HISTORICAL STUDIES

NORTHERN CENTRE FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE

MASTERS STUDENTSHIPS
IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE

The School of Historical Studies at Newcastle University is pleased
to advertise between 4 and 6 Masters Studentship Awards for
postgraduate study in Newcastle’s Wellcome Trust recognised MA
programme in the History of Medicine during the academic year
2009-10. The closing date for applications is 30 April 2009.

The stipends for these awards will be set as follows: Two
studentships will be awarded at either £15,000 (including home/EU
fees) for full-time home/EU students, or £20,000 (including
international fees) for full-time non-EU students of outstanding
merit; the other studentships will be awarded at either £5,000
(including home/EU-fees) for meritorious full-time home/EU students,
or £10,000 (including international fees) for non-EU students. Part
time studentships will be awarded to meritorious applicants at c.
half the above rate per annum.

The studentships are funded by the Northern Centre for the History of
Medicine and will be available as of September 2009. The Northern
Centre is a partnership between the Universities of Newcastle and
Durham, and is supported by the Wellcome Trust. Successful applicants
will join the postgraduate community based at the School of
Historical Studies at Newcastle University. Postgraduate teaching and
research supervision in the History of Medicine at Newcastle is
delivered by scholars with established international reputations in
the field.

The MA in the History of Medicine incorporates 3 compulsory formal
research training components (30 credits), during which students
develop research skills and methodologies; a compulsory core module
‘Introduction to the History of Medicine’ (30 credits), and 2 special
study options (60 credits); and it culminates in the completion of an
intensively researched 14,000 word dissertation (60 credits). Study
consists mainly of seminars, tutorials, workshops and independent
learning.

The programme provides the necessary research training that will
either link into further PhD and postgraduate academic study, or act
as a stand alone MA. Candidates who have successfully completed the
programme will be eligible to take part in the annual Wellcome Trust
PhD studentship competition. The MA also provides the key skills and
training for a wide range of careers both within and outside of
Higher Education.

Eligibility: Applications for the studentship are invited from highly
motivated graduates from various backgrounds including the Humanities
and Social Sciences (e.g. History, Classics, Philosophy, Literature,
Religious Studies, Archaeology, Psychology, Sciences, Sociology
etc.). Applicants require a good (or predicted) undergraduate degree
result (1st or high 2:1) in such a subject. Candidates with a medical
background are also strongly encouraged to apply, and the studentship
is open to current stage 4 Newcastle medical students who have opted
to take the MA in the History of Medicine as an intercalated degree
after stage 4 MBBS. Applications from overseas candidates with
equivalent qualifications are also very welcome.

Application procedure: Applicants are asked to send: i) a CV and list
of academic qualifications and experience; ii) a personal statement
and letter of application outlining reasons for wanting to pursue
postgraduate study in the history of medicine at Newcastle and
highlighting specific research interests (max 300 words), iii) copies
of any relevant certificates and transcripts, and (iv) letters of
recommendation from two academic referees. Applications should be
sent to the Postgraduate Secretary, Ms Sandra Fletcher, School of
Historical Studies, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1
7RU, to arrive no later than 30 April 2009.

For specific inquiries about the studentships and about the MA
programme please contact:

Prof. P.J. van der Eijk
Degree Programme Director, MA in History of Medicine
School of Historical Studies & Northern Centre for the History of
Medicine,
Newcastle University
Armstrong Building
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
tel: (direct) 0191 222 8262; email: philip.van-der-eijk@ncl.ac.uk

For more information on the MA programme in History of Medicine at
Newcastle see

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/historical/postgrad/taught/ma_medicine.htm

For more information on the subject of History of Medicine at
Newcastle see

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/historical/medicine/index.htm

For more information on the Northern Centre for the History of
Medicine see

http://www.nchm.ac.uk/

For information about postgraduate study in the School of Historical
Studies contact the School's Postgraduate Secretary, Mrs Sandra
Fletcher, at , tel. (+)44.191.2227966.

Prof. P. J. van der Eijk
School of Historical Studies
Newcastle University
Armstrong Building
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
UK
tel: (direct line) +44 (0) 191 222 8262
Email: philip.van-der-eijk@ncl.ac.uk
Visit the website at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/historical/postgrad/taught/
ma_medicine.htm

(h/t H-DISABILITY listserv)

On Genes & Diabetes Disparities

As I am constantly harping on genetic reductionism in the way we think about health and illness, esp. as to disparities, it was nice to see an Editorial written by Michael J. Montoya, an anthropologist at UC Irvine who works on the intersection of race, culture, medicine, and illness.  The title of the article is "Do genes explain diabetes health disparities between ethnic groups? Social taxonomies are not based on biology."

Here are some excerpts:

The question is not whether ethnic minorities are more susceptible than other groups. The question is whether we can infer genetic susceptibility if what is meant by “ethnic and racial minority” corresponds to sociocultural factors alone.

In spite of decades of trying, the actual genetic contributions for diabetes that explains the disease disparities between peoples of Northern European ancestry and Native American, African American, and Hispanic/Latino peoples remain elusive and likely do not exist. This apparent heterodoxy is less outlandish than it appears.

The crux of the matter is not whether genes are important. Rather, the issue is will genes ever explain all but a small fraction of the global prevalence of disparities between those groups most affected by diabetes?

[ . . . ]

Chief among the reasons that suspected diabetes genes found within ethnically or racially labeled groups cannot explain the recent rise of diabetes is that genotypes are stable while the social worlds of affected peoples are not.  How can ancient genes explain a 40-year-old epidemiological pattern? More to the point, genes cannot explain health disparities between human groups because the correspondence between social taxonomies and human biology is a fallacy.

This is deeper than the experimental search for correspondence between self-reports and specific markers.  In the nonexperimental world of DNA collection, the ascertainment of ethnicity or race is a profoundly social enterprise anchored in contemporary history.

I'm not going to quote any more of the article, nor offer much commentary, because there is absolutely nothing I can add and because anyone remotely interested in this topic really ought to read the entire article.

Highly recommended!

New Blog and Web Site for Special Collections at UNC Health Sciences Library

As I am always on the lookout for digital collections and images related to the medical humanities, I was pleased to see some extra touches being added to the Special Collections at the Health Sciences Library of the Univ. of North Carolina of Chapel Hill:

Special Collections at the Health Sciences Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is pleased to announce a new blog, The Carolina Curator: http://carolinacurator.blogspot.com.

The blog is an open-ended forum for the history of the health sciences, and will also alert readers to news and events, useful resources, as well as highlight the activities of Special Collections at the UNC Health Sciences Library.

In addition, the web site for Special Collections has also been recently revamped: http://www.hsl.unc.edu/specialcollections.

The site includes the following new sections: highlights, exhibitions, digital collections, archival collections, historical collections, oral history, research resources, The Bullitt History of Medicine Club, Friends of the Health Sciences Library, etc.

(h/t H-NET-DISABILITY)

On the Philosophical Foundations of Law & Neuroscience

Via the Professor comes word of an important new paper authored by Michael S. Pardo and Dennis M. Patterson, entitled Philosophical Foundations of Law and Neuroscience.  Here is the Abstract: 

According to a wide variety of scholars, scientists, and policymakers, neuroscience promises to transform law. Many neurolegalists - those championing the power of neuroscience for law - proceed from problematic premises regarding the relationship of mind to brain. In this Article, we make the case that their accounts of the nature of mind are implausible and that their conclusions are overblown. Thus, their claims of the power of neuroscience for law cannot be sustained. We discuss a wide array of examples including lie detection, criminal-law doctrine, economic decision-making, moral decision-making, and jurisprudence.

Given the lively discussion on exactly these matters we've had over the last 10 days here on N&L Blog, I would think this paper is both timely and important.  While I am less familiar with Pardo's work, I know Patterson's work very well, as he is one of the more important philosophers of law and the preeminent authority on Wittgenstein and the law.  I am quite excited to read this paper, and will update this post with my thoughts after doing so.

UPDATE: I have now reviewed the paper, and I think it is a marvelous piece of work.  In referring to Vul et al.'s paper on 'voodoo correlations,' I saidthat while the latter was a sophisticated critique of some of the conclusions drawn in social neuroscience, I was more interested in a philosophical, conceptual critique of some of the basic assumptions that animate the enterprise.  This paper fits squarely within the latter, and is an important contribution.

As I remarked to Peter privately, my view is that this paper is intended as a radical challenge to some of the bedrock assumptions of contemporary neuroscience.  If in fact the mind is not the brain -- with which I absolutely agree -- then a very large portion of neuroscientific practice is immediately headed down a long, dark rabbit hole.  But note again my insistence that the proposition that the mind is not (merely) the brain hardly means neuroscience itself is infirm or weak.  Quite the contrary; as Pardo and Patterson emphasize, there is still a great deal of important work to be done on the brain that can best be demonstrated through neuroscientific methods.  But the work is just that -- on the brain, and the constant leap from brain to mind cannot be sustained, if Pardo and Patterson are correct.  The consequence is not that neuroscience is unimportant or not worth doing, but simply that neuroscientific modalities are not totalizing; they cannot explain or account for all of what it means to be conscious, to have mind, and ultimately, to be a person.

Meaning, in other words, cannot be reduced to neurons.

Thoughts?

(cross-posted from Neuroethics & Law Blog)

On Neuroreductionism, Brain, Mind, and the Mereological Fallacy

Adam Kolber, proprietor of the very fine Neuroethics & Law Blog, has graciously invited me to guest-blog over there.  I have been mostly been discussing the topic of neuroreductionism, one that is near and dear to my heart.  I suspect that this topic would also be interesting to a MH audience, so you can check out my thoughts here and here (also check out the Pardo/Patterson paper).