Imagination and the Meaningful Brain

by Arnold H. Modell

The ultimate goal of the cognitive sciences is to understand how the brain works—how it turns "matter into imagination." In Imagination and the Meaningful Brain , psychoanalyst Arnold Modell claims that subjective human experience must be included in any scientific explanation of how the mind/brain works. Contrary to current attempts to describe mental functioning as a form of computation, his view is that the construction of meaning is not the same as information processing. The intrapsychic complexities of human psychology, as observed through introspection and empathic knowledge of other minds, must be added to the third-person perspective of cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

Assuming that other mammals are conscious and conscious of their feelings, Modell emphasizes evolutionary continuities and discontinuities of emotion. The limbic system, the emotional brain, is of ancient origin, but only humans have the capacity for generative imagination. By means of metaphor, we are able to interpret, displace, and transform our feelings. To bolster his argument, Modell draws on a variety of disciplines—including psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology, linguistics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. Only by integrating the objectivity of neuroscience, the phenomenology of introspection, and the intersubjective knowledge of psychoanalysis, he claims, will we be able fully to understand how the mind works.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Neuroscience

253 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2003

Reviews

[javor · Rating 3 out of 5]

An at-times shallow but overall insightful and expansive reworking of a theory of mind that argues for metaphoric imagination as an innate process neurally predating the historical acquisition of language. Argues for unconscious intentionality and the capacity for thought beyond language, supported by a wide range of sources from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, philosophy of language, linguistics, psychoanalysis, and more. Most importantly, in my opinion, Modell makes a concrete foray into what an epistemic pluralism might actually look like, which I think provides solid grounds for a transdisciplinary study of mind which takes into account, in the author's terms, the third-person perspective of natural science as well as the first-person perspective of phenomenology and the second-person perspective of relational psychoanalysis.

[Roy Kenagy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, but will need to come back and study it more carefully after my first pleasure reading. Modell is a psychoanalyst on the faculty at Harvard Medical School who pulls together a lot of the threads I've been interested in over the last few years: embodiment, theory of metaphor, evolutionary and cognitive psychology, and neurobiology. His project is to counter computational, information processing theories of meaning with a constructivist and phenomenological approach grounded in current neurological research. I am especially drawn to his willingness to reinterpret (and if necessary, jettison) classical Freudian theory in light of current scientific and philosophical theory of mind.

Early on he quotes Philip Roth on the decline of interest in exploring human consciousness: “I read the other day in a newspaper that Freud was a kind of charlatan or something worse. This great, tragic poet, our Sophocles!” (p.5) Interest in the modernist project was already on the wane in my now-ancient days as an undergraduate, and I admit I have given it short shrift in the 40 years since then. I must admit, however, that my life as lived has seemed more comprehensible through the lens of Kafka and James Joyce than through that of Daniel Dennett or Steven Pinker (Fodor and Putnam are way too technical for me). At the very least, Modell has prompted me to add The Interpretation of Dreams to my near-future reading list.

[Mariah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book could be my constant bedside companion. It was completely blowing my mind by Chapter 7 on The Uniqueness of Human Feelings, which differentiated between limbic emotions and human feelings in the sense that our immediate "primal" emotional sensations are transformed through our idiosyncratic consciousness (our experiences, prior emotional patterns and responses, our individual brain circuitry) into unique human feelings and all the metaphorical associations we correspond with those feelings. Its discussion of the significance of consciousness and how we can come to understand it (metaphor, intentionality, intersubjectivity, the construction of meaning, mirror neurons, etc.) goes forth brilliantly. The book's strength lies in its highly interdisciplinary approach, making it the most comprehensive conception of the mind I have yet encountered. A quality book with solid ideas and all the right support and counterarguments: definitely deserving of another future read.