Where models intersect: a metapsychological approach

Current scientific interest in how the mind works creates a major challenge for psychoanalysis. The author proposes metapsychology as a bridging concept for an interdisciplinary dialogue. She presents a new framework on a microstructural level, within which different psychic representations are hierarchically organized. This framework permits a detailed comparison with Alexander Luria's (1973) neuropsychological model of the working brain (including recent theories of affect), and makes it possible to delineate the similarities as well as the differences between the psychoanalytic model of the mind and the neuropsychological model of the brain.     

Feminist Bioethics: Where We've Been, Where We's Going

The primary contribution of feminism to bioethics is to note how imbalances of power in the sex-gender system play themselves out in medical practice and in the theory surrounding that practice. I trace the ten-year history of feminist approaches to bioethics, arguing that while feminists have usefully critiqued medicine's biases in favor of men, they have unmasked sexism primarily in the arena of women's reproductive health, leaving other areas of health care sorely in need of feminist scrutiny. I note as well that feminist bioethicists have contributed very little to bioethical theory. In the second part of the paper I suggest two future directions for feminist bioethics. The first is to expand its critique of gender bias beyond reproductive medicine, devoting attention to the same issues raised by advances in biomedical technology as are taken up by mainstream bioethicists. The second is to develop bioethical theory that is more responsive than are mainstream moral theories to the social practices that subordinate women and minority groups.     

Where brain,body, and world collide

The brain fascinates because it is the biological organ of mindfulness itself. It is the inner engine that drives intelligent behavior. Such a depiction provides a worthy antidote to the once-popular vision of the mind as somehow lying outside the natural order. However, it is a vision with a price. For it has concentrated much theoretical attention on an uncomfortably restricted space; the space of the inner neural machine, divorced from the wider world which then enters the story only via the hygienic gateways of perception and action. Recent work in neuroscience, robotics and psychology casts doubt on the effectiveness of such a shrunken perspective. Instead, it stresses the unexpected intimacy of brain, body and world and invites us to attend to the structure and dynamics of extended adaptive systems — ones involving a much wider variety of factors and forces. Whilst it needs to be handled with some caution, I believe there is much to be learnt from this broader vision. The mind itself, if such a vision is correct, is best understood as the activity of an essentially situated brain: a brain at home in its proper bodily, cultural and environmental niche.     

God,vision and power

Enlightenment philosopher George Berkeley, Irish bishop of Cloyne (1695–1752) developed a theory of God's relation to the world both rooted in orthodox Western Theology and influential for European secular government. This article critically examines the notion of God in Berkeleian thought with special reference to its implications for his concrete recommendations and political projects in British government and empire building. To this end, it examines the application of early Christian ascetic techniques to enlightenment colonial government. Berkeley's thought exemplifies modernity's modelling of the governing autonomous self on a transcendent impassible God. His ethics represent a practice of cosmology, where the world is watched by the judging subject.     

Colour vision,evolution, and perceptual content

Computational models of colour vision assume that the biological function of colour vision is to detect surface reflectance. Some philosophers invoke these models as a basis for externalism about perceptual content (content is distal) and objectivism about colour (colour is surface reflectance). In an earlier article (Thompson et al. 1992), I criticised the computational objectivist position on the basis of comparative colour vision: There are fundamental differences among the colour vision of animals and these differences do not converge on the detection of any single type of environmental property. David R. Hilbert (1992) has recently defended computational objectivism against my comparative argument; his arguments are based on the externalist approach to perceptual content originally developed by Mohan Matthen (1988) and on the computationally inspired theory of the evolutionary basis for trichromacy developed by Roger N. Shepard (1990). The present article provides a reply to Hilbert with extensive criticism of both Matthen's and Shepard's theories. I argue that the biological function of colour vision is not to detect surface reflectance, but to provide a set of perceptual categories that can apply to objects in a stable way in a variety of conditions. Comparative research indicates that both the perceptual categories and the distal stimuli will differ according to the animal and its visual ecology, therefore externalism and objectivism must be rejected.Versions of this article were read to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago and to the Department of Philosophy at Boston University. I am grateful to the audiences for the discussions that ensued. I am also grateful to an anonymous referee for constructive criticism of certain points in the article. Special thanks are due to my comparative colour vision collaborators, Adrian Palacios and Francisco Varela.     

Henze on logic,creativity and art

Book Information The Indispensability of Mathematics. By Mark Colyvan. Oxford University Press. New York. 2001. Pp. 172. Hardback, £30.00.     

Ambiguity,cubist works of art,and preference

Number of one sec views and verbal judgements of interestingness and pleasingness of Cubist paintings were found to be a function of subjective ambiguity, defined in terms of the Shannon-Wiener average information measure, especially when an expectancy had been established regarding the identity of the main object or person in the paintings. Viewing behaviour was found to increase with subjective ambiguity; verbal judgements were found to decrease. Titles corresponding to varying degrees to the content of the paintings or instructions involving guessing were used to manipulate expectancy. An attempt was made to explain these findings and those involving recall of titles by making reference to Berlyne's point of view and the experimental literature.     

Pychoanalysis and art, Freud and Leonardo.

Freud was the first to apply psychoanalysis to art, choosing for his subject the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci. Observing Leonardo's partly fused image of the Virgin and St. Anne, he inferred that the artist had depicted his two mothers, his biological mother and his stepmother. This very early analytic discourse on parent loss and adoption changed the course of the interpretation of art. Freud explored the psychology of art, the artist, and aesthetic appreciation. Confronting the age-old enigma of the Mona Lisa, he proposed a daring solution to the riddle of the sphinxlike smile of this icon of art. His paper prefigures concepts of narcissism, homosexuality, parenting, and sublimation. Lacking modern methodology and theory, Freud's pioneering insights overshadow his naive errors. In this fledgling inquiry, based on a childhood screen memory and limited knowledge of Leonardo's artistic and scientific contributions, Freud identified with this Renaissance genius in his own self-analytic and creative endeavor.