Phenomenology, Neuroscience and Impairment
Phenomenology, Neuroscience and Impairment
Phenomenology, Neuroscience and Impairment
20 – 33, 2008
Jonathan Cole
psychiatry and medicine too. Gallagher has not only critiqued various neuro-scientific
theories and become quoted widely within those fields, but has also co-written a number
of important papers with cognitive neuroscientists, as well as being involved, for
instance, in a series of wide ranging interviews with contemporary neuroscientists.
Both have been extraordinarily productive in their own fields, and both are
wonderful exemplars of how philosophers can be relevant in contemporary cognitive
neuroscience. By criticising – constructively – empirical researchers, whose day to day
preoccupation with experiment and data occasionally blinds them to the limits of their
theoretical stances, they have entered debates to the advantage to both empirical science
and phenomenology.
Their new book therefore has been written by two philosophers at the top of the
game and is keenly anticipated. They have chosen to view two areas of contemporary
investigation, philosophy of mind and cognitive science, and to show how these two
might profit from adding a phenomenological perspective.
Again and again, their phenomenological stance reminds us of a more broad
physiological perspective, in terms of physiology being how things work as a whole.
The reductionist approach in science has been, and is, enormously powerful but,
especially in the context of studies on ourselves, needs to be placed in context. One
thing Gallagher and Zahavi do in this book is to remind us of the importance of this and
in this respect, as in many others, they are in no way competing with neuroscience but
working with and enhancing it at its best.
The areas covered in each chapter are well chosen and each adds welcome
wisdom and reflection to what can be rapidly advancing but slightly confusing fields. I
especially enjoyed the considerations of action and agency, in which Gallagher has
made important contributions, and the later chapters on social and interpersonal
relations. They provide many examples of their clarity and depth of thought as the
authors explore and sometimes confront the massive forces and complex methods of
empiricism. Armed only with their wits, training and the phenomenological literature
they take on, like two Davids, the force and large grants of the cognitive neuroscientific
Goliath. Their aim is not to slay the big man but educate him and enter a constructive
dialogue to the benefit of both. This is no mean feat; their book is not only a first rate
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contemporary account of phenomenology but also a fascinating account of how this can
inform areas beyond itself.
My purpose in this review, however, is not simply to praise. In reading the
chapters from a clinical, and folk-first person, subjective perspective perhaps, I was also
looking for areas where further work might be done, and it is in this light that I hope the
remainder of my review will be seen.
In the first introductory chapter, the authors mention the dark days of
behaviourism and the denial – almost – of the need to study individual’s experience,
which had echoes in my earlier medical training. They quote the contemporary
philosopher Thomas Metzinger, who denies that progress in phenomenology has
occurred of late, before giving more recent developments which have required a more
phenomenological approach; renewed interests in consciousness and in more embodied
and less Cartesian viewpoints of this, and the recent developments in functional imaging
which require knowledge of the person’s subjective experience at the time of scanning. I
agree that such a dual approach, analysis of brain activity during certain subjective
states, is a legitimate and important investigation, though one must be sure of the
correlations between the two and, perhaps, the truthfulness of the report. This was
considered by Wittgenstein in the 1940’s:
Imagine that people could observe the functioning of the nervous system in others. In
that case they would have a sure way of distinguishing genuine and simulated feeling:
Or might they after all doubt in turn whether someone feels anything when these signs
are present?
There is indeed the case where someone later reveals his inner most heart to me by a
confession: that this is so cannot offer me any explanation of outer and inner, for I have
to give credence to the confession.
For confession is of course something exterior. (Wittgenstein 1981)
This is a rather long and long winded sentence. It is also ended with a reference
to Merleau-Ponty, since it paraphrases him, at least from my English translation.
Slightly later we read:
Again the meaning does not, perhaps, burst out to those outside the field.
I would also have liked more explanation of some of the methods of
phenomenology. The first of these, the epoché, is designed to suspend our natural
realistic inclination.
The purpose of the epoché is not to doubt, neglect, abandon or exclude reality from
consideration; rather the aim is to suspend or neutralise a certain dogmatic attitude
towards reality, thereby allowing us to focus more narrowly and directly on reality just
as it is given – how it makes its appearance to us in experience. (Gallagher and Zahavi
2008, p. 23)
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We never really first perceive a throng of sensations, e.g. tones and noises, in the
appearance of things… rather we hear a storm whistling in the chimney. (quoted from
Gallagher and Zahavi 2008, p. 95)
Then, in chapter 6, we learn that intentionality has a first person aspect. I kept
trying to disentangle the clarity of the epoché from the first person aspect of perception.
While, of course, phenomenology concerns itself with the intersubjective aspects of
perception, I then got stuck somewhere between this joint perception and the initial aim
of purity of the epoché which is necessarily individual.
Interestingly, a naïve but different view of the world might be what some of
those who live with autism describe, a world in which the elemental components of
perceptual experience are themselves experienced and in being so, appear to block the
elaboration of the more necessary complex presentations to awareness which our brains
enable. One person with autism wrote of seeing all the blades of grass but not the lawn.
Phenomenology, neuroscience and impairment 25
Cervantes.’ It is not clear to me that we can ever have exactly the same experience of
the world in the manner described above. Consider sitting watching a game of football. I
might sit in the same seat but have a very different view depending on which side I
support. Surely, in most cases, our individual experiences do have an effect on our
perception of the world.
In their conclusion to this chapter, the authors do make an important point, that
our sense of reality of the world depends on our social existence. Whether in the rare
accounts of feral children or in more psychodynamic approaches, recognising the effects
of deprivation in childhood or frank abuse leading to later antisocial behaviour, there is
ample evidence for this. This part closes the chapter, though social factors are
considered later. In a way, it could have opened another avenue of thought.
Some chapters are more philosophical whilst others open out more naturally to
empirical work and neuroscience; that is completely understandable. The chapter on
intentionality is more philosophical. But there is one example of what I might call the
‘Schneider’ problem. The case of Schneider, a patient in the early 20th century, is quoted
widely by phenomenologists, and yet I, for one, am not clear quite what psychiatric
problem he had. Occasionally, philosophers quote examples from each other to make a
point when some better more primary source might be available. In the chapter on
intentionality, we learn from Sartre’s analysis of eyestrain that pain can inform you of
the intentional experience of the world (p. 117). When eye strain begins, it is not
perceived as such but as problems in concentration, irritation etc. Though not denying
this example there are in the literature many examples of the effects of chronic pain on
one’s openness to the world, though they are often considered in terms of interference
with sleep, work and social life. As a clinician, I wished for more immersion in some of
the scientific and medical literature. We learn that pain is given as a certain way the
world is experienced, certainly, but when moderate or severe, this seems a rather
insubstantial and partial view.
When reading of intentionality and consciousness, I kept wondering what
consciousness is for? After all, most animals with reduced or minimal consciousness
move as well as or better than we do in relation to their environment. What, then, does
consciousness add? Deciding this may have important implications for our subsequent
views on choice in action.
Phenomenology, neuroscience and impairment 27
The chapter on the embodied mind begins with the infamous brain in a vat. At
one level, this strictly cognitive view of the world is one which probably only
philosophers could take. The phenomenological rebuttal of its simplicity and limitations
seem important and correct. That the body, “shapes the way we perceive and think
about the world” (p. 133), seems hugely important to me in relation to clinical medicine
and especially to how one approaches chronic impairments in embodiment, whether
arthritis, spinal cord injury or stroke. It is sometimes in pathology that the truth of this is
revealed, as we see function through loss.
Later in this fascinating and important chapter, the authors suggest that the body
is a facilitator, a source of act in the sense that ‘I can.’ Neglecting the slight dualism
implicit in this, there is a line of thought within what might be called the disabled
community that, say, for those with spinal cord injury, their problems with embodiment
and physical limitations are socially induced. If our streets and buildings were only
fitted with ramps etc., then they would still be able to do what they want. Their limits on
action and agency, for them what determines freedom in a Merleau-Pontian sense, may
be social rather than necessarily being confined to the body. In the book we read of
pathology not infrequently, but less about people’s resourceful and creative ways of
living with and beyond that pathology.
Further, though I might be critical of the brain in the vat, one cannot but be
aware, through The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Bauby 2002), of Locked-In
Syndrome, (LIS) in which a person is without movement beyond eye blink and
sensation, and yet remains conscious. Laureys et al. have evidence that people in
chronic LIS rate their quality of life similar to people without any illness or disability
(Laureys et al. 2005). Even with the most minimal agency and action, some sort of
coming to terms can occur in a Goldsteinian sense. Our embodiment does indeed
determine our ‘I can.’ But somehow, some people can find worthwhile lives without it.
Lastly in this section, a small point. We read on page 147 that, ‘the painful body
can occasionally be experienced as alien.’ One of the lessons of the NASA robot
referred to is quite how plastic our body image is and how quickly we adapt to changes
in embodiment, so as we break a leg we do not feel alienated to this changed state. I am
not sure what the context and reference for that alienation following pain is. It is true,
however, that acute and temporary alienation can occur with local anaesthetic to a limb,
Jonathan Cole 28
as well as illusions of size and shape, and that these can be related to blocking of small
peripheral nerve sensory fibres. Again, an immersion in some of the neuroscience
literature on this would have enriched the work.
The chapter on agency and action is one of the highlights of the book and one
which reveals just how fruitful interactions between philosophy and neuroscience can
be. The authors tease apart and illuminate empirical work in a brilliant way, carefully
interpreting at times slightly reductionist experiments in their own terms but also always
aware of the whole, or physiological or phenomenological inter-relations which
normally take place. In their discussion of the possible ways in which the sense of
agency may be affected, four parts which are not mutually exclusive, there is no
suggestion of the interactions between these differing channels. One suspects that the
brain might constantly be optimising intention, motor command and feedback in
differing ways to optimise on line its sense of ownership and agency. Bayesian theories
of such optimisation of information might be one way to look at this.
Another area in which phenomenological analysis has proved fruitful, to this
reviewer at least, is theory of mind as discussed in chapter 9. This theory, with its two
divisions into theory and simulation, has proved very productive of papers and is hugely
influential in cognitive neuroscience and psychology. The authors’ scepticism and
critiques are carefully presented and important for the field. Here, though accepting that
the tools of phenomenology are explicit, i.e. involving awareness, they also delve into
implicit mechanisms in criticising simulation. Here, their arguments may not be
absolutely secure.
In an experiment, Bosbach et al. asked actors to pick up two sets of identical
boxes, a large set which required them to do so standing and a small set which could be
picked up with the one hand (Bosbach et al. 2005). Several different weights were in the
boxes though they looked the same. The actors picking up were told the weights in each
box beforehand. Videos of these were shown to two deafferented subjects who, like
control subjects, were asked to say what weight was being picked up on each occasion.
Controls and deafferented subjects were similar in their judgement of weight. Then a
different discrimination was asked for. In a few catch trials, the actors were told that
erroneous weights were in the boxes before they picked them up. The second task was
to decide what the actors’ expectations were of these weights from the same videos they
Phenomenology, neuroscience and impairment 29
had just seen. In this condition, the deafferented subjects did show a deficit compared
with controls. Bosbach et al. suggested that the judgement of another’s expectation
depends on an implicit internal simulation of an action which was dependent of a motor
representation or programme which was absent or not maintained in those without
sensory feedback. Here, the task was the same and the videos were the same but the
result differed according to the judgement required; the judgement required them to go
beyond perception.
I am very sympathetic to embodied accounts of displays of emotion and have
written of the ways in which those with disfigurement are constantly constrained by
their visible difference in this regard. In their excellent consideration of social
interaction and of intersubjectivity, the authors stress the role of embodied emotional
communication:
When I see the other’s action or gesture, I see the meaning of the action or gesture. I see
the joy or I see the anger… I see it. I don’t have to simulate it. (Gallagher and Zahavi
2008, p. 179)
“We see emotion.”- as opposed to what? – we do not see facial contortions and make
inferences from them (like a doctor framing a diagnosis) to joy, grief, boredom. We
describe a face immediately as sad, radiant, bored even when we are unable to give any
other description of the features. - Grief, one would like to say, is personified in the
face. (Wittgenstein 1981, p. 225)
take from us something we were not aware of. So much but not all may be revealed in
action or gesture, or even words. Social interaction may start off relatively embodied
and simple, but it can become an infinitely more subtle dance of revelation and
concealment. This, of course, Gallagher and Zahavi are well aware of:
Bodily behaviour is neither necessary nor sufficient for a whole range of mental
phenomena… which is why lying, deception and suppression is possible, but this is not
to say that this is generally the case. (Gallagher and Zahavi 2008, p. 185)
that phenomenology is about the analysis of perception and how experiences are given,
to separate experiences and their given-ness and an analysis of them can be difficult and
at times seems incomplete. Phenomenology is also about “how we are immersed in our
everyday situations and projects, how we experience the world, relate to others and
engage in the kinds of actions and practices that define our lives.” (Gallagher and
Zahavi 2008, p. 26). It is possible that some of the ways people describe their situations
reveal much with an immediacy and intensity.
When going to people, say with impairment, they also tend not to talk of
consciousness, let alone of pre-reflective self-awareness; they talk of self esteem and of
stigma, of confidence and often of the practical aspects of daily living made problematic
by their condition. Sometimes I would have liked some folk-phenomenology, if that is
not an oxymoron. Thus Robert Murphy in describing living with his late quadriplegia,
which he said led him to an emotional detachment from his body:
a quadriplegic’s body can no longer speak a ‘silent language’... the thinking activity can
no longer be dissolved into motion, and the mind can no longer be lost in an internal
dialogue with physical movement.
My thoughts and sense of being alive have been driven back into my brain... many say
they are no longer attached to their bodies…
my former sense of embodiment remained taken for granted... my sense of re-
embodiment is problematic negative and conscious... consuming consciousness of
handicap even invades one’s dreams. Even in sleep disability keeps its tyrannical hold...
The totality of the impact of serious physical impairment on conscious thought... gives
disability a far stronger purchase on ones sense of who and what he is than do any social
role... which can be manipulated. Each social role can be adjusted to the audience, each
role played before a separate audience, allowing us to lead multiple lives. One cannot
however shelve a disability or hide it... It is not a role: it is an identity... society will not
let him forget it. (Murphy 1987)
One should say that Murphy was a professor of anthropology and so less naïve
than many and also that many younger people with similar condition do not have such
negative experiences. But the richness of his account gives a flavour of what is
available, and is available from ordinary people’s responses to unusual situations.
Jonathan Cole 32
Jonathan Cole
Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Poole Hospital
jonathan.cole@poole.nhs.uk
Phenomenology, neuroscience and impairment 33
References
Bauby, J.-D. (2002) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. London: Harper Collins.
Borges, J.-L. (2000) Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings. London: Penguin.
Bosbach, S et al. (2005) ‘Inferring another's expectation from action: the role of
peripheral sensation.’ Nature Neuroscience 8, 1295-1297.
Laureys, S. et al. (2005) ‘The locked-in syndrome: what is it like to be conscious but
paralyzed and voiceless?’ Progress in Brain Research 150, 495-511.