Though many philosophers of mind have taken an interest in the great developments in the brain sciences, the interest is seldom reciprocated by scientists, who frequently ignore the contributions philosophers have made to our understanding of the mind and brain. In a rare collaboration, a world famous brain scientist and an eminent philosopher have joined forces in an effort to understand how our brain interacts with the world. Does the brain behave as a calculator, combining sensory data before deciding how (...) to act? Or does it behave as an emulator endowed with innate models of the world, which it corrects according to the results of experiences obtained by the senses? The two authors come from very different backgrounds - the philosopher Jean-Luc Petit belongs to the philosophical tradition of Husserlian phenomenology. Alain Berthoz has long been interested in the physiology of action (movement, posture, decision-making, perception, etc.). Drawing on cutting-edge research from the cognitive sciences, the authors have produced a highly original volume showing how phenomenology and physiology can interact to further our understanding of the brain and the mind. (shrink)

Over the past several decades the ‘affective revolution’ in cognitive psychology has emphasized the critical role affect and emotion play in human decision-making. Drawing on this affective literature, various commentators have recently proposed strategies for managing therapeutic expectation that use contextual, symbolic, or emotive interventions in the consent process to convey information or enhance comprehension. In this paper, we examine whether affective consent interventions that target affect and emotion can be reconciled with widely accepted standards for autonomous action. More specifically, (...) the ethics of affective consent interventions is assessed in terms of key elements of autonomy, comprehension and voluntariness. While there may appear to be a moral obligation to manage the affective environment to ensure valid informed consent, in circumstances where volunteers may be prone to problematic therapeutic expectancy, this moral obligation needs to be weighed against the potential risks of human instrumentalization. At this point in time we do not have enough information to be able to justify clearly the programmatic manipulation of human subjects' affective states. The lack of knowledge about affective interventions requires corresponding caution in its ethical justification. (shrink)

Despite its phenomenal success since its inception in the early nineteen-nineties, the evidence-based medicine movement has not succeeded in shaking off an epistemological critique derived from the experiential or tacit dimensions of clinical reasoning about particular individuals. This critique claims that the evidence-based medicine model does not take account of tacit knowing as developed by the philosopher Michael Polanyi. However, the epistemology of evidence-based medicine is premised on the elimination of the tacit dimension from clinical judgment. This is demonstrated through (...) analyzing the dichotomy between clinical and statistical intuition in evidence-based medicine’s epistemology of clinical reasoning. I argue that clinical epidemiology presents a more nuanced epistemological model for the application of statistical epidemiology to the clinical context. Polanyi’s theory of tacit knowing is compatible with the model of clinical reasoning associated with clinical epidemiology, but not evidence-based medicine. (shrink)

In this work the distinguished physical chemist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi, demonstrates that the scientist's personal participation in his knowledge, in both its discovery and its validation, is an indispensable part of science itself. Even in the exact sciences, "knowing" is an art, of which the skill of the knower, guided by his personal commitment and his passionate sense of increasing contact with reality, is a logically necessary part. In the biological and social sciences this becomes even more evident. The (...) tendency to make knowledge impersonal in our culture has split fact from value, science from humanity. Polanyi wishes to substitute for the objective, impersonal ideal of scientific detachment an alternative ideal which gives attention to the personal involvement of the knower in all acts of understanding. His book should help to restore science to its rightful place in an integrated culture, as part of the whole person's continuing endeavor to make sense of the totality of his experience. In honor of this work and his The Study of Man Polanyi was presented with the Lecomte de Noüy Award for 1959. (shrink)

Suitable for students and scholars, this title challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

Book reviewed in this article: Talking with Patients. By Eric J. Cassell.

The evidence-based medicine movement advocates basing all medical decisions on certain types of quantitative research data and has stimulated protracted controversy and debate since its inception. Evidence-based medicine presupposes an inaccurate and deficient view of medical knowledge. Michael Polanyi’s theory of tacit knowledge both explains this deficiency and suggests remedies for it. Polanyi shows how all explicit human knowledge depends on a wealth of tacit knowledge which accrues from experience and is essential for problem solving. Edmund Pellegrino’s classic treatment of (...) clinical judgment is examined, and a Polanyian critique of this position demonstrates that tacit knowledge is necessary for understanding how clinical judgment and medical decisions involve persons. An adequate medical epistemology requires much more qualitative research relevant to the clinical encounter and medical decision making than is currently being done. This research is necessary for preventing an uncritical application of evidence-based medicine by health care managers that erodes good clinical practice. Polanyi’s epistemology shows the need for this work and provides the structural core for building an adequate and robust medical epistemology that moves beyond evidence-based medicine. (shrink)

Most clinicians take for granted a simple, reductionist understanding of medical knowledge that is at odds with how they actually practice medicine; routine medical decisions incorporate more complicated kinds of information than most standard accounts of medical reasoning suggest. A better understanding of the structure and function of knowledge in medicine can lead to practical improvements in clinical medicine. This understanding requires some familiarity with epistemology, the study of knowledge and its structure, in medicine. Michael Polanyi's theory of tacit knowing (...) is advanced as the basis for developing a more accurate understanding of medical knowledge. Tacit knowing, which explores the taken-for-granted background knowledge that underlies all human knowing, is explained in detail with a focus on its relevance for clinical medicine. The implications of recognizing tacit knowing in medicine and medical decisions are discussed. These include the ability to explain the importance of the clinical encounter in medical practice, mechanisms for analysing patient and doctor as persons, and the need for humility given the uncertainty that the tacit dimension injects into all medical decisions. This more robust medical epistemology allows clinicians to better articulate the nature and importance of patient-centred care, to avoid pitfalls inherent in reductionist approaches to medical knowledge, and to think more clearly about the relationships between medicine and health care at the individual and population levels. (shrink)

The Phenomenological Mind is the first book to properly introduce fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology. Key questions and topics covered include: What is phenomenology? naturalizing phenomenology and the empirical cognitive sciences phenomenology and consciousness consciousness and self-consciousness, including perception and action time and consciousness, including William James intentionality the embodied mind action knowledge of other minds situated and extended minds phenomenology and personal identity Interesting and important examples are used throughout, including phantom limb syndrome, blindsight (...) and self-disorders in schizophrenia, making The Phenomenological Mind an ideal introduction to key concepts in phenomenology, cognitive science and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Explores the thought of twentieth-century philosopher Michael Polanyi.

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment. I will keep them from harm and injustice. The Hippocratic Oath formulates the ethical principle of medical beneficence and its negative formulation non-maleficence. It relates medical ethics to the traditional end of medicine, that is, to heal, or to make whole. First and foremost, the duty of the physician is to heal, and if this is not possible at least not to harm. This (...) ethical principle helped to establish the necessary trust between physician and patient in the pre-modern era when most of medicine was nothing more than a set of placebos (Shapiro 1960). Beginning in the seventeenth-century, Western .. (shrink)