Phenomenology and neuropsychology
pp. 153-166
in: Rolf von Eckartsberg (ed), Metaphors of consciousness, Berlin, Springer, 1981Abstract
There is a growing recognition that the major crisis of modern psychology is its lack of any integrative general paradigm and language to unify its ever more fragmented subdisciplines both among themselves and with extrapsychological theoretical breakthroughs and tendencies. This crisis is currently being addressed most fruitfully by two schools of psychology, which superficially stand in polar opposition to one another. At the one extreme, we find existential-phenomenological psychologists1 proposing an integrative paradigm under their umbrella, and at the other extreme we find neuropsychology/physiological psychology (e.g., Karl Pribram's approach),2 making their prescriptions. Strangest of all, we find that the representatives of these two extremes, identified loosely in the popular mind with mentalism and "brainism," respectively, are proposing similar remedies, using similar or at least convergent language, and even quoting some of the same sources (e.g., Brentano, Husserl, and William James on intentionality, volition, and the structure of consciousness).
