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Humanistic Neuropsychology the Implications of Neurophenomenology for Psychology Emergent Trends CHAPTER 15 Humanistic Neuropsychology The Implications of Neurophenomenology for Psychology Brent Dean Robbins Susan Gordon or many, the notion of a humanistic neuroscience may seem to be an oxymoron. Neuro- science and physiological psychology emerged during the 18th century within the climate F of a staunch materialistic worldview, which aimed to reduce all subjective qualities to objective qualities. Humanistic psychology, on the other hand, has always been grounded within a phenomenological worldview, in which the assumptions of empiricism, including the dichot- omy of a subject versus an object, are questioned radically and in which experience is given priority in the investigation of reality (Bugental, 1964; Giorgi, 2005; Rogers, 1964). At first glance, these projects seem opposed. However, alongside reductionistic and mechanistic approaches to neuroscience, there have always existed alternative, nonreductive and holistic approaches to biology, which have sought to preserve the integrity of experience. Rather than standing in opposition to biology, humanistic psychology, from the begin- ning, was strongly influenced by thinkers who were attempting to develop holistic approaches to biology and the mind—for example, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William James, John Dewey, Jakob Von Uexkull, Kurt Goldstein, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, among others. Today, an integration and culmination of these approaches can be identified as neurophenom- enology, which we identify as the basis for a genuinely humanistic neuroscience. In his 1996 paper, “Neurophenomenology: A Methodological Remedy for the Hard Problem,” Francisco Varela pioneered the link between cognitive neuroscience and phenom- enology. The aim of this project was to address what David Chalmers (1995) identified as the “hard problem” of consciousness. Chalmers first identified the “easy problems” of con- sciousness, such as how the brain can discriminate, categorize, and react to stimuli in the environment; integrate information within a cognitive system; report mental states; access its own internal states; focus attention; control behavior deliberately; and distinguish between wakefulness and sleep. Chalmers thought that it would only be a matter of time before 195 ©SAGE Publications 196 HUMANISTIC THEORY neuroscience answers these questions. The such as color and value, have been under- truly “hard problems” of consciousness, in stood to acquire scientific interest only to contrast, have to do with why we experience the extent that such qualities can be reduced anything in the first place. Hard-problem to primary qualities, such as physiological questions include the following: Why are events in the brain. A reduction of the psy- some organisms subjects of experience? chological to biology and biology to chemis- Why does awareness of sensory information try and physics is the inevitable consequence exist at all? Why do qualia (i.e., a general of the Galilean worldview, which came to its property, such as “redness”) exist? Why fruition most explicitly in the philosophy of is there a subjective component to experi- Locke (Zaw, 1976). This reductionism of ence? Note that these hard questions refuse psychology to biology and biology to chem- to merely explain away consciousness by istry and physics is, however, untenable. reducing it to simple mechanistic problems. When it comes to the problem of con- The hard problem demands that conscious- sciousness, reductionism is an inappropriate, ness be addressed on its own terms. internally incoherent strategy of resolution. Consciousness itself is a problem that The problem is a rather simple one. When cannot be solved by explaining it away. we reduce consciousness to biology and then Consciousness is in need of a functional biology to chemistry and then physics, the explanation for why it exists in the first explanation in terms of the primary qualities place. Neurophenomenology, as a science of of physiological extension and movement in experience grounded in phenomenological anatomical space still presupposes the exis- philosophy, is uniquely equipped to handle tence of consciousness. Biology, chemistry this very problem that neuroscience alone and physics, and even the science of psychol- seems incapable of contending with. To this ogy and other social sciences, always already extent, neurophenomenology represents, presuppose an individual and a collective today, the most well-developed philosophy consciousness within which knowledge for a humanistic neuroscience. and motivation for the study of physiology have meaning and being (Robbins, 2013; Thompson, 2007). Rather than arriving at NEUROSCIENCE AND given facts that are mind independent, sci- THE EXPERIENTIAL ence produces social artifacts that, over time, REVOLUTION IN PSYCHOLOGY inspire our confidence because they have intersubjective validity. In other words, we At least since Galileo (1623/2008) made the ourselves and other people within the com- distinction between the primary and second- munity can report over time that discoveries ary characteristics of objects, Western cul- can be predicted and repeated through sys- ture has had a tendency to conflate reality tematic methodological approaches to clearly (what is ontologically and epistemologically stated and empirical questions. But without valid) with mind independence (properties conscious individuals living within scientific of objects believed to exist apart from a per- communities, such discoveries would not ceiver) (Robbins, 2006). Thus, the so-called be possible. Therefore, consciousness has primary characteristics of objects, such as ontological primacy within philosophy and the presumed qualities of extension and science as the always already presupposed movement, have remained the domain of the appearance of a world that matters and for sciences, whereas, the secondary characteris- which we have care and concern. A com- tics, which are dependent on the observer, pletely indifferent science alien to human ©SAGE Publications Humanistic Neuropsychology: The Implications of Neurophenomenology for Psychology 197 concerns would never get started. Therefore, activity of the field. Neurophenomenology a science that rejects the ontological primacy and phenomenology, more generally, hold a of consciousness will consequently under- promise of clarifying psychology’s relation- mine its own foundation—its very reason ship to philosophy and the STEM disciplines. for being. Clearly, this is a major problem for Psychology, within this perspective, would be biological reductionism within neuroscience. distinguished from the transcendental phe- Phenomenology within the tradition of nomenology that is central to phenomenolog- Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice ical philosophy, because psychology’s activity Merleau-Ponty, and others provides a poten- in contrast would be empirical. However, tial answer to the problem of consciousness neither would psychology be capable of and is a possible antidote to the quagmire of being reduced to biology, because psychol- reductionism in the sciences. Phenomenology ogy’s domain is human consciousness— introduces an approach to philosophy and experience, thinking, and feeling—which to human science that is able to articulate, in must be described, understood, and explained ways impossible to the conventional empiri- empirically on its own terms prior to any cal sciences, the ontological ground on which question of biological correlation to these science operates. Doing so, phenomenology events of consciousness. Psychology, there- is able to preserve both consciousness and fore, would be preserved as the descriptive science. Neurophenomenology is the inte- and empirical examination of human expe- gration of phenomenology and neuroscience rience and correlated behavior. This articu- in such a way that the science of the brain lation of psychology would be the fruition can help clarify questions about conscious- of an experiential revolution in psychology, ness and experience without reducing con- which does not stop at cognition and emo- sciousness or experience to the brain or the tion as the domain of psychology but under- living organism to mere (cause and effect) stands cognition and emotion to have their mechanical causation. The upshot is a neu- ontological basis within human experience roscience, within the context of phenome- (Robbins, 2013). The language of thinking nology, that attempts to transcend the faulty and emotion has its roots in human experi- subject/object, fact/value, and feeling/thinking ence, from which our language has emerged. dichotomies that have plagued philosophy By returning to the everyday consciousness and the sciences for centuries. This is an within which everyday language about think- ambitious project, and so humility is impor- ing, emotion, and experience has meaning, tant. These problems have not been solved, psychology may clarify its identity as a sci- but new kinds of questions provide the hope ence in its own right, as clearly distinguished of better answers to them. from yet integrally related to philosophy and Psychology has much to benefit from biology. this conception of neurophenomenology. Psychology has notoriously been subject HISTORICAL ROOTS OF to criticism for its failure to live up to the NEUROPHENOMENOLOGY rigors of the so-called STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) Goethean Science Versus disciplines. On the other hand, psychology Newtonian-Galilean Science identifies itself as a
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