Unusual’ human experiences: Kant, Freud and an associationist law

Kant famously held that there are 12 categories of understanding necessary to ground human experience, where human experience can be taken to include the perception of objects ‘objectively’ and the ordinary daily rationality of mature adults. There are however other ‘unusual’ human experiences, most notably dream and hallucinatory states, and much of the thinking of the very young, all of which seem to be grounded by some other organizing principle, prior to the categories. I want to make a case that this principle is an associationist one; and further that such an associationist principle is prior to and transcendentally necessary for the categories to operate. Since Kant himself held this, although not so famously, the purpose of this paper is not to refute Kant. Rather it is to demonstrate that experiences organized by the associationist law vs. experiences organized by the categories map very well onto the two types of mentation posited by Freud-the ‘primary processes’ and the ‘secondary processes’ respectively. Discovering this mapping can help psychoanalytic theory by providing some convergent support for its posits; and it can make vivid a lesser known piece of Kantian philosophy of mind as it is instantiated by observations made everyday as a practical consequence of psychoanalytic theory

Extinction Phenomena: A Biologic Perspective on How and Why Psychoanalysis Works

This article presents the view that much of the success of classical psychoanalysis is centrally predicated on its biological potency; focusing not on neuropsychology, but on the biology of conditioning. The argument suggests that features of classic psychoanalytic technique – the couch, meetings several times per week with both parties present, and free association – uniquely facilitate intense transferences of various sorts, and that these in turn constitute the multiple and diverse extinction trials necessary to best approximate extinction

Phantasies, Neurotic-Beliefs, and Beliefs-Proper

This paper presents a philosophical analysis of three cognitive states familiar and important to psychoanalysts—phantasy, neurotic-belief, and belief-proper. It explores the differences among these three propositional attitudes and finds that the development of secondary process capacities of reality testing and truth directness out of earlier primary process operations (themselves prior to considerations of truth or falsity) plays a crucial role. Difficulties in the proper typing of cognitive states are discussed, as are the consequences of such confounds. This use of a philosophical method serves to sharpen the familiar psychoanalytic clinical concepts of phantasy and neurotic-belief. In addition, these same clinical concepts, once properly specified, have much to offer the philosophy of mind, where current understanding of representational cognitive states is restricted to those that are largely conscious and rational. When psychoanalytic concepts such as phantasy and neurotic-belief can be better integrated within the discipline of philosophy of mind, both philosophers and psychoanalysts will have a more complete and adequate theory of mind.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45678/1/11231_2004_Article_346567.pd

Ego Constriction

The terms ego constriction, ego inhibition, and ego restriction have not been clearly differentiated in their usage in the literature. In this paper a rationale for “ego constriction” as an entity distinct from both ego inhibition and ego restriction is given, despite its clear similarities to each. In a person with an ego inhibition, the ego inhibits a part of its own functioning because a particular function is linked to an unacceptable impulse. It is an internalized conflict. The person with an ego restriction, in contrast, avoids psychological pain triggered from an area in the outside world by restricting activity in that area. Like each of these problems but different, a person with an ego constriction first externalizes an internalized conflict associated with important functions or activities. Then, only through a series of particular obligatory steps can the person “overcome” the ego constriction—albeit temporarily. It is noted in this paper that the function of the specified obligatory steps is structurally parallel to the rigid obligatory behavior necessary for genital gratification in the perversions. As the recognition of this distinction arose in the course of an analysis of a mental health professional, something of the necessarily shared nature of analytic work is noticeable, shining through as the background for the work of this paper.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45680/1/11231_2004_Article_489861.pd

Categories of Wrong Belief--A Proposal

Wrong beliefs, known by some as ‘alternative facts’, have proliferated lately in important areas of human life, including social, political, and public health domains. This can be and has been damaging. This brief article proposes an epistemological category classification of these wrong beliefs, with the following mappings: a) ‘No-Information’ marked by willful blindness produces ‘Empty Beliefs’; b) ‘Mis-Information’ yields ‘Mis(taken) Beliefs’; and c) ‘Dis-Information’ predicated on blatant distortions produces ‘Dis(torted) Beliefs’. This simple classification system, is perhaps epistemologically satisfying, and moreover could have positive policy implications

Vaccine refusal: a preliminary interdisciplinary investigation

Many people who generally receive standard recommended inoculations refuse to partake of COVID-19 vaccines, preventatives that are effective, safe, and life-saving amidst the current pandemic. Our quest is to understand this puzzling and dangerous phenomenon, as it exists among US and UK citizens, whom in other respects would be regarded as quite regular. We will discuss Vaccine Refusal compared with two better understood phenomena: addiction, and akrasia, along with the related matters of human action, intention, agency, will, and identity. Vaccine Refusal, we will argue, appears to be rewarded by “informational reinforcement” leading to heightened arousal, along with increases in self-esteem resulting from “bucking the trend,” asserting one's “superior” understanding, and “tribal identity” in acting against social norms. These factors provide an overall reward amounting to satisfaction that outweighs the well-known consequences of COVID-19 infections. Our investigations will also lead us to a pair of epistemological hypotheses about two subtypes of the Vaccine Refusers under consideration here

Attributional and Relational Processing in Pigeons

Six pigeons were trained using a matching-to-sample procedure where sample and rewarded comparisons matched on both attributional (color) and relational (horizontal or vertical orientation) dimensions. Probes then evaluated the pigeons’ preference to comparisons that varied in these dimensions. A strong preference was found for the attribute of color. The discrimination was not found to transfer to novel colors, however, suggesting that a general color rule had not been learned. Further, when color could not be used to guide responding, some influence of other attributional cues such as shape, but not relational cues, was found. We conclude that pigeons based their performance on attributional properties of but not on relational properties between elements in our matching-to-sample procedure. Future studies should look at examining other attributes to compare attributional versus relational processing

Phonological Ambiguity Detection Outside of Consciousness and Its Defensive Avoidance

Freud proposes that in unconscious processing, logical connections are also (heavily) based upon phonological similarities. Repressed concerns, for example, would also be expressed by way of phonologic ambiguity. In order to investigate a possible unconscious influence of phonological similarity, 31 participants were submitted to a tachistoscopic subliminal priming experiment, with prime and target presented at 1 ms. In the experimental condition, the prime and one of the 2 targets were phonological reversed forms of each other, though graphemically dissimilar (e.g., “nice” and “sign”); in the control condition the targets were pseudo-randomly attributed to primes to which they don't belong. The experimental task was to “blindly” pick the choice most similar to the prime. ERPs were measured with a focus on the N320, which is known to react selectively to phonological mismatch in supraliminal visual word presentations. The N320 amplitude-effects at the electrodes on the midline and at the left of the brain significantly predicted the participants' net behavioral choices more than half a second later, while their subjective experience is one of arbitrariness. Moreover, the social desirability score (SDS) significantly correlates with both the behavioral and the N320 brain responses of the participants. It is proposed that in participants with low SDS the phonological target induces an expected reduction of N320 and this increases their probability to pick this target. In contrast, high defensive participants have a perplexed brain reaction upon the phonological target, with a negatively peaking N320 as compared to control and this leads them to avoid this target more often. Social desirability, which is understood as reflecting defensiveness, might also manifest itself as a defense against the (energy-consuming) ambiguity of language. The specificity of this study is that all of this is happening totally out of awareness and at the level of very elementary linguistic distinctions