Brain science disguises ideological presuppositions that philosophers must expose
Evidence
Playing on the title of a well-known work by Daniel Dennett, we are not seeking to explain or explicate consciousness, but to implicate it. To implicate consciousness, to ask what we should do with our brain, means, starting from these clarifications, to attempt to develop a critique of what we will call neuronal ideology. It is thus not just a matter of uncovering, in the name of brain plasticity, a certain freedom of the brain but rather, starting from as precise a study as possible of the functioning of this plasticity, to free this freedom, to disengage it from a certain number of ideological presuppositions that implicitly govern the entire neuroscientific field and, by a mirror effect, the entire field of politics—and in this way to rescue philosophy from its irresponsible torpor. Philosophers, excepting ”cognitive scientists,” are not sufficiently interested in the problem, mostly misunderstand the cognitive sciences, and, in the end, are simply ignorant of the results of recent research on the brain. So they miss the ideological stakes as well. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 54
Categorization
- DEFINE: Introduces ‘neuronal ideology’ as the key concept: ideological presuppositions governing both neuroscience and, by mirror effect, politics.
- SEED: The claim that philosophy’s ‘irresponsible torpor’ lets scientists smuggle politics into neurology could seed an essay on how ‘brain-based’ wellness discourse smuggles ideology.
- XREF: connects to: Treating mental illness as brain chemistry depoliticizes it and serves capitalist interests — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 82; Accusing science of bias is a stepping-stone to admitting ideologically tainted alternatives — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 57