Given that visualisations via medical imaging have tremendously increased over the last decades, the overall presence of colour-coded brain slices generated on the basis of functional imaging, i.e. neuroimaging techniques, have led to the assumption of so-called kinds of brains or cognitive profiles that might be especially related to non-healthy humans affected by neurological, neuropsychological or psychiatric syndromes or disorders. In clinical contexts especially, one must consider that visualisations through medical imaging are suggestive in a twofold way. Imaging data not (...) only visually render pathological entities, but also tend to represent objective and concrete evidence for these psychophysical states in question. This article aims to identify key issues in visually rendering psychiatric disorders via functional approaches of imaging within the neurosciences from an epistemological point of view. (shrink)

Evolutionary explanations of psychological phenomena have become widespread. This paper examines a recent attempt by Nichols and Grantham (2000) to circumvent the problem of epiphenomenalism in establishing the selective status of consciousness. Nichols and Grantham (2000) argue that a case can be made for the view that consciousness is an adaptation based on its complexity. I set out this argument and argue that it fails to establish that phenomenal consciousness is a complex system. It is suggested that the goal of (...) establishing consciousness as an adaptation may be better served by rejecting the distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)