Browsing by Author "Bothma, Gerhard Jacobus"
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- ItemThe human subject in the age of neuroscience : the influence of neuroscience on the view of the human subject in psychology(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University., 2020-03) Bothma, Gerhard Jacobus; Painter, Desmond; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Psychology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Over the past two decades we have witnessed the meteoric rise of neuroscience. For the most part this development was driven by new imaging technology, growing public interest in brain science and financial support by governments and the pharmaceutical industry. Neuroscience is having a major impact, not only on various scientific disciplines like medicine, linguistics, psychiatry and psychology, but also on popular opinions about who we are as human beings. The ontological model of the human underlying the mainstream core of neuroscience is to a great extent deterministic, reductionist and mechanistic. Psychology has, since its beginnings in the 19th century, always had doubts about its status as a science and often in the past turned to the natural sciences for guidance, especially physiology, biology, evolution and genetics. Since the rise of neuroscience it is on this discipline that psychology is leaning ever more heavily in order to establish itself as a true (i.e. natural) science. Thus it has become necessary to take a critical look at the relationship between neuroscience and psychology. To that end this study aims to answer these questions: What is the ontological model of human functioning as propagated by neuroscience? What is the influence of this model on psychological research endeavours and theory? What alternative models exist and how do they explain the relationship between brain and psyche? How can these alternative explanations be used to create a humanistic ontology that reflects true human experience and reality? I will conclude that the neuroscience model is too reductionist and mechanistic to be a true reflection of human functioning, restricting the multi-faceted human personality to brain processes. Focussing on the brain and neuroscience also restrict the scope of psychology, causes psychology to make biology the central focus and neglect aspects like social interaction and interpersonal processes of meaning making and to not engage critically with socio-political realities but rather to support the status quo. However, there are alternative views about the relationship between brain, mind and environment. These views argue that the mind and cognition are extended beyond the brain. The brain is necessary for explaining cognitive processes, but not sufficient, opening the way for acknowledging the role that factors other than brain processes play. I will investigate this extended view of cognition and mind and compare it with the more traditional, mainstream neuroscience view. Lastly I will connect the extended view with the ontological conception of humans as story tellers, as propagated by narrative psychology, arguing that it is not information processing that define us but rather the creation of personal and cultural narratives.