Psychoanalysis and the Mind-Body Problem

Jon Mills

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367548285
• eBook ISBN: 9781000578904
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Winner of the 2022 NAAP Gradiva Award for Best Edited Book

In this volume, internationally acclaimed psychoanalysts, philosophers, and scholars of humanities examine the mind-body problem and provide differing analyses on the nature of mind, unconscious structure, mental properties, qualia, and the contours of consciousness.

Given that disciplines from the humanities and the social sciences to neuroscience cannot agree upon the nature of consciousness—from what constitutes psychic reality to mental properties, psychoanalysis has a unique perspective that is largely ignored by mainstream paradigms. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the mind-body problem in various psychoanalytic schools of thought, including philosophical and metapsychological points of view.

Psychoanalysis and the Mind-Body Problem will be of interest to psychoanalysts, philosophers, neuroscientists, evolutionary biologists, academics, and those generally interested in the humanities, cognitive science, and the philosophy of mind.

Chapter 1 A Critique of Materialism

Jon Mills

DOI: 10.4324/9781003090755-2

Contemporary theories in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind lend burgeoning support for the materialist position regarding the mind-body problem. That is, naturalism, physicalism, and material monism are the preferred theories that explain the relationship between mental processes and physical brain states. While dualist and spiritualist approaches offer counter-arguments to materialism (Vendler, 1994; Warner, 1994), the preponderance of current research in the philosophical, natural, and social sciences concludes that mental states are nothing but physical states (Armstrong, 1968; Bickle, 1998; Churchland, 1981; Dennett, 1991; Dretske, 1995; Searle, 1994). From these accounts, mind is brain.

Throughout this chapter, I highlight five central dangers associated with materialism that ultimately result in (1) the displacement of an ontology of consciousness, (2) a simplistic and fallacious view of causality, (3) the loss of free will, (4) renunciation of the self, and (5) questionable judgments concerning social valuation practices. I will attempt to demonstrate that the physicalist position eliminates the possibility of free agency and fails to adequately account for psychic holism.

The Spectrum of Materialism

Dating as far back as Democritus and Epicurus, who conceived of nature as being composed of changeless atoms as indivisible material particles in empty space, to the scientific naturalism of Thomas Hobbes, materialism has become the most popular contemporary perspective on the nature and character of mind-brain dependence (Bechtel, 1988). There are sundry forms of materialism, yet it is important to note that not even materialists can find unified agreement on what constitutes a definition of materialism. Most materialists insist that nothing but matter in motion exists. Any reference to consciousness, psyche, soul, spirit, or anything denoting mental life is nothing but active matter. Another extreme is epiphenomenalism, which is the belief that mind does exist but is caused by and emerges out of material changes, which remains completely dependent on matter. Consciousness is a by-product of material-efficient causal forces and is itself causally impotent: mind has no causal efficacy of its own. All materialists would agree that immaterial agencies or entities do not exist: spirits, ghosts, angels, and demons are illusory. This often leads to the conclusion that there is no God(s) or a supernatural realm, and if these so-called non-material entities are purported to exist, they would be characterized in naturalized terms.

These accounts of materialism may be said to conform to three theses: (1) The identification thesis: mind is identified as nothing more than physical states and processes of the brain and central nervous system; (2) The explanation thesis: all human and animal behavior is best and most fully explained by physicalistic interpretations, that is, through neuro-chemistry and neurophysiology; and (3) The exclusion thesis: there are no powers or properties to the mind that no physical object or system can possess. All mental activity, thought, and action is physically governed and excludes non-materialistic accounts of mental phenomena (Graham, 1993, pp. 128–129).

The most sophisticated form of materialism, in my opinion, is non-reductive materialism. Here the claim is that the phenomenology of consciousness—referred to as qualia or the lived experience—cannot be adequately explained from physicalistic accounts. Hence, assertions about the ontological status of consciousness are bracketed. But it is often the case that non-reductive materialist attempts to bracket or neutralize the ontological status of mind ultimately evade the metaphysical question that is precisely at issue—Is the mind merely brain? Even the term “non-reductive materialism” is itself an oxymoron: substance is reducible matter. While non-reductive materialists claim that mental phenomena (i.e., the appearance of consciousness) cannot be adequately explained by appealing to physical brain states alone, the tacit ontological belief is that mind at bottom is the unification of biological-neurochemical-physical brain processes.

Recent definitions of materialism which have come into vogue within contemporary philosophy of mind include the view that what is material is anything that perceives or exists in space and time. Flew (1984), among others, points out that the precise meaning and status of the materialist doctrine is far from clear. What are the properties, attributes, or qualities that matter can, cannot, or must possess? Furthermore, what are its essential properties? Is there a distinction to be made between its existence, being, and essence, its occurrence and phenomenology, its appearance and reality? What is the exact nature of how matter extends in space and time, the forces that operate on it, and how consciousness—itself conceived as matter—perceives and understands its dependence on it? What are the exact mechanisms by which thought occurs, and how do we know? How is it that we cannot directly intuit, feel, observe, or recognize those mechanisms or processes when they are occurring in our own minds? The range of attempted and possible answers to these questions makes materialism an ambiguous group of precepts rather than a unified doctrine.

One thing is clear about materialism: it is a reaction against and rejection of Cartesian dualism that posits a non-extended “thinking substance,” which is associated with an immaterial mind (Descartes, 1984). It is worth noting, however, that there are many forms of dualism ranging from the Platonic distinction between appearance and reality, Kant’s separation of phenomena from noumena, the ontological distinctions between being and essence, the dialectically opposed forces and manifestations of consciousness, to the epistemological chasms between the knowing subject and object. It is not my intention to defend ontological dualism, but only to show that materialist conceptions of mind pose many problems for understanding the complex psychological, psychosocial, and ontological configurations that constitute the human condition.

Rather than explicate the multitude of materialist positions ranging from identity theories (Armstrong, 1968; Lewis, 1966; Place, 1956), functionalism (Levin, 1986; Putnam, 1967; Smart, 1962; Sober, 1985), supervenience (Teller, 1983), eliminativism (Churchland, 1981; Stich, 1994), representationalism (Dretske, 1988, 1995; Fodor, 1987, 1998), to anomalous monism (Davidson, 1980), I will refer to the materialist position collectively, which includes the following characteristics as operationally defined:

1. Physical Reductionism: (a) all mental states are simply physical states in the brain; there is nothing “over and above” biological-neurochemical-physiological structures, processes, and evolutionary pressures; (b) all mental events, properties, or processes arise out of physical preconditions whereby (c) the organism is conceived of as a matter-energy system composed solely of active material properties or substances reified through material-efficient causal attributions.
2. Naturalism, which I define as (a) the belief that all knowledge comes from physical conditions governed by natural causal laws based upon an empirical epistemology; (b) supports realism,¹ which is often (but not always) incompatible with a priori truths or transcendental idealist positions; (c) is a form of positivism, in that truth claims about reality are quantifiable facts that can be directly observed, measured, or verified within systematic science relying on experience, experimentation, and rational methods of inquiry; (d) is anti-supernaturalistic, anti-theological, and anti-metaphysical (despite its metaphysical consequences); (e) is pro-scientific, that is, all natural phenomena are adequately explained or are in principle explainable through scientific methodology; and (f) displays tendencies toward non-teleological, non-anthropomorphic, and non-animistic explanations.

If materialism is going to make such ontological assertions, then it must be able to coherently defend its own self-imposed assumptions without begging the question. It becomes our task to ferret out the philosophical, humanistic, and ethical implications of the materialist project and expose the conundrums it generates if we are going to properly understand the question of mind. I will attempt to show that psychic holism becomes an alternative paradigm to the materialist position, which more successfully addresses the multifaceted domains of mental processes, personal experience, and discourse surrounding mind-body dependence without succumbing to a reductive metaphysics.

The Naturalistic Fallacy

Freud (1900) admonishes us to “avoid the temptation to determine psychical locality in any anatomical fashion” (p. 536), insisting that the mind should not be reduced to “anatomical, chemical or physiological” properties (Freud, 1916-1917, p. 21). Materialists, on the other hand, are dogmatic in their insistence that all mental events are ultimately reducible to physical events or brain states in the organism. Thus, physical reductionism is the sine qua non of materialism. Teller (1983) summarizes this position nicely: “Everything... is at bottom physical.” In other words, there is no mind, only brain. One might ask materialists, How do you know that? To justify their claims, they will inevitably rely upon science, empirical psychology, the bare appeal to sensible and tangible experience, or naturalized or evolutionary accounts of epistemology (see Quine, 1969a; Vollmer, 1975; Wuketits, 1990). While science has its legitimate status, it must first establish a coherent criterion for truth. To fall back on the very criterion that it must set out to prove simply begs the question and envelopes materialist justifications in circularity.

Many criticisms have been launched on naturalized epistemology for (1) its attempt to naturalize mental notions of intentionality in materialistic and physically reductive terms, (2) its presupposition of a realist notion of truth, (3) its positivistic structure, and (4) its tendency to collapse into cultural relativism. Putnam (1983) charges that naturalized epistemology presupposes a metaphysical realism and a correspondence theory of truth in that truth corresponds to the “facts.” He ultimately argues that this notion is incoherent, whereby “truth” is relevant to one’s scheme of describing and explaining physical phenomena, hence embedded in a social language practice that determines how truth is to be defined and measured. This metaphysical assumption postulates a set of “ultimate” objects that are “absolute” and can be “objectively” measured, hence are “real,” which essentially tries to revive the whole failed enterprise of the realism/anti-realism debate. Because realism and correspondence theory presuppose knowledge of an object world independent of the subject, such postulation becomes a meaningless proposition when one cannot talk about objectivity without importing subjectivity. It was Kant, followed by the German Idealism of Fichte and Hegel, who cogently demonstrated that the a priori structures of subjectivity make objectivity possible.

Post-structural and linguistic accounts characteristic of postmodernism maintain that truth claims are constructed by historical contingencies and socially defined language practices: our identification of Truth conforms to current rationally accepted standards of truth. From this account, any talk of absolute knowledge that exists objectively—as if it inheres as a property in an object independent of the subject—is vacuous. All interpretation rests on a theory of language, therefore objectivity is always interpreted through subjectivity. Yet language is instantiated in a social ontology and determines the definition of objectivity. However, what is agreed upon within a social context of linguistic practices and custom is determined by a collection of subjects. Traditionally, arguments against realism come from a priori epistemology and semantics, or theories of meaning. This strategy typically applies a theory of meaning or a philosophy of language to critique and abnegate any metaphysical claims to truth that naturalism holds, thus bringing into doubt serious questions about any mind-independent realms of existence. From this perspective, realism is an issue of interpretation, hence hermeneutics, instantiated in linguistic, semantic, and social practices. Even facts are language-formulable facts, and can be semantically captured in language-formulated truth (Dancy & Sosa, 1992, p. 188). This claim is that epistemically, naturalized accounts cannot make such realist assertions of mind.

Some philosophers such as Wittgenstein and Derrida seem to renounce (or perhaps elude) the whole debate itself. While Derrida deconstructs the distinction between the inner and the outer and treats them equiprimordially, from a Wittgensteinian stance, the whole debate becomes a “language game” (see Post, 1991). Because there are many equally privileged ways of communicating, each language has its own rules and vocabulary that determine what we are talking about within a social context. Therefore, no linguistic practice captures the ultimate structure of reality, including the nature of mind. Absolute naturalized claims about the being and essence of mind become a naturalistic fallacy. This is the tendency to believe that a complex whole is identical or reducible to its parts, causes, and natural origins, and that the mind’s complexity may be entirely explained by appealing to such naturalistic conditions.

Notions of truth and rational acceptability are relative to social language practices within a particular cultural context. “Reason is always relative to context and institution” and “the ideal language,” “inductive logic,” and “the empiricist criterion of significance” are “fantasies of the positivist” (Putnam, 1983, p. 358). Furthermore, reason is informed by the cultural norms that determine what naturalistic views will be. Truth—the only notion of truth one can understand—is then define...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Introduction: Minding the Body and the Embodied Mind
• 1 A Critique of Materialism
• 2 Notes Toward the Psychoanalytic Critique of Mind-Body Dualism
• 3 Freud's Views on Mental Causation
• 4 Developing a Metaphysical Foundation for Analytical Psychology
• 5 Lacan on Mind and Body
• 6 Self and the Experience of Interiority
• 7 The ‘Hard Problem’ of Consciousness
• 8 Mentalizing from/to/with the Body
• 9 A Revised Psychoanalytic Model of Mind and Communication in Body-Mind Continuity
• 10 Unconscious Experience
• 11 The Plumbing of Political Economy: Marxism and Psychoanalysis Down the Toilet
• 12 The Dionysian Primate: Goethe, Nietzsche, Jung and Psychedelic Neuroscience
• 13 Creativity in Cyborgs: Mind, Body and Technology: Plesnner’s Spatial Phenomenology as a Basis for a Jungian Metaphysics
• 14 The Embodied Analyst: The Mind-Body Impact of Sustained Clinical Practice
• Index