Neuroscience and Paul Ricoeur’s Challenge

Following Antonio Damasio’s groundbreaking views on the role of emotions in reasoning and the body-brain connection, the idea that cognition and emotion are bound together by an inseparable link gained widespread acceptance; research into how the functioning of the body reaches and influences the brain to shape emotional experiences and mood accelerated. At the same time, however, developments also emerged—particularly in Affective Neuroscience—in the direction of a greater emphasis on connectivity and dynamic network theories.

Joseph LeDoux’s book The Emotional Brain (1996) (Turkish edition: The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious World of Emotions, 2020) not only accords with Damasio’s view that “the brain is a system of systems,” but also advances it further: “Although we usually speak as if the brain has a function, in reality the brain itself has no function. It is a collection of systems, sometimes called modules, each possessing a different function. There is no equation stating that the combination of the functions of all these different systems, intertwined with one another, is equivalent to an additional process called brain function” (p. 105).

LeDoux’s insistence—well ahead of its time—that just as there is no coherent, general brain function, there is likewise no general function of emotion, had already begun to attract considerable attention years earlier.

Damasio’s observation concerning the incompatibility between the brainstem and the cortex—two subsystems of different evolutionary ages within the human nervous system that are nevertheless compelled to cooperate with one another—also left a lasting impact on neuroscience, and this perspective was later supplemented with supporting contributions.[1] One of those who made such contributions was LeDoux himself. He likewise holds that, because of the evolutionary process the human brain underwent in order to acquire cognitive capacity, there exists a flawed series of connections between the cognitive and emotional systems; he argues that the cortex was somehow forced to rewire itself in the course of acquiring natural language functions (Synaptic Self, pp. 322–323). David Linden, however, carried this view even further, to the point of suggesting that the functioning of the brain consists, in an inconsistent manner, of a chaotic whirlpool of accidents, coincidences, and probabilities. Indeed, in his 2007 book The Accidental Mind, Linden went so far as to state: “The brain is a kludge—an inefficient, crude, and incomprehensible design—but it works nonetheless.” According to him, the brain is a poorly organized, cobbled-together mess resulting from countless instances of haphazard evolutionary tinkering, in which newer components have simply been layered over relatively older ones. A year later, psychologist Gary Marcus offered strong support for this idea in his book Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind (Turkish edition: Kluge: İnsan Zihninin Gelişigüzel Yapısı, 2010).

Apart from Damasio, one of the influential perspectives to emerge within Affective Neuroscience is Jaak Panksepp’s Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (1995) (Turkish edition: Afektif Nörobilim: İnsan ve Hayvan Duygularının Temelleri, 2017). Panksepp argues that even specific individual emotions do not have corresponding centers within the physiological anatomy of the brain: “No psychological concept, by itself, fully describes the functions of any brain region or circuit. Although certain key circuits are necessary for the elaboration of particular emotions in the brain, there are no definite centers or loci for discrete emotions that remain largely separate from other functions. Everything ultimately emerges from the interaction of multiple systems. For this reason, modern neuroscientists speak not of centers but of interacting circuits, networks, and cellular mechanisms” (p. 147). Panksepp regards the brain as an organ of connectivity, in which each part is linked to another; he sees it as a structure possessing astonishing degrees of interconnection, where the emotional is intertwined with the non-emotional, and he believes that emotions make all of this possible (pp. 70–76).

Panksepp argues against limiting discussions of the emotional brain solely to the human brain. According to him, humans and non-human mammals share many common features in terms of basic brain structures and functions, including emotional configurations and dynamics at various neural levels. In fact, Panksepp maintains that the mammalian central nervous system contains a fixed repertoire of seven primitive basic emotions and their corresponding experiential tones. Four of these are fundamental: “seeking” (stimulus-dependent appetitive behavior and self-stimulation), “panic” (stimulus-dependent expressions of distress and social attachment), “rage” (stimulus-dependent biting and affective aggression), and “fear” (stimulus-dependent withdrawal and flight). In addition, there are three further systems: “lust,” “care,” and “play.” These seven emotions and the feelings that accompany them constitute the primary colors of our richly varied emotional life.

In conclusion, we may say that developments in neuroscience in recent years have revealed that, in the domain of emotion, the brain consists of non-atomic clusters of interconnections among numerous different systems and subsystems, and that during affective states three modes of brain functioning—cognition, affect, and motivation—are activated simultaneously. Likewise, although neuroscientific approaches, particularly their crude evolutionary and materialist interpretations, may give the impression of strong philosophical reductionism, we should not rush to such a conclusion. A closer look reveals that leading neuroscientists such as Damasio, LeDoux, Panksepp, and Keith Stanovich do not endorse an essentialist naturalism that unconditionally attributes phenomena arising from cultural upbringing (nurture) to natural structure (nature); rather, they seek to carve out a distinct sphere for humanity’s mental and cultural achievements. Most neuroscientists remain far removed from a mechanical materialism that crudely reduces human cultural activities to nature and biology (Adrian Johnston, Catherine Malabou, The Self and Emotional Life: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and Neuroscience, translated by Hakan Gürvit, Axis Publications, 2025, pp. 284–296, 300–303). I also believe that perspectives which regard the findings of neuroscience not as the cause of mind and culture but merely as their material foundation are beginning to emerge.

Philosophical Cautions Regarding Affective Neuroscience

As you may recall, we concluded the section of our article on emotion and state of mind leading up to neuroscience with the following words: “We believe that the perspective we have adopted regarding the historical and conceptual (philosophical) dimensions of emotion will also serve as a critical filter in evaluating developments emerging in neuroscience. We may now turn to developments in neuroscience.” We did so and attempted to describe what has been taking place through a critical lens. Given its importance, let us reiterate:

Neuroscience, which has emerged over the last few decades and is still in a developmental phase, is bringing about a monumental paradigmatic transformation in our understanding of the human being and the mind—a transformation that cannot possibly be ignored. However, the ideas advanced by the renowned neurologist Antonio Damasio in his book Descartes’ Error, which later became firmly established within neuroscientific circles, also contain errors and dangers. The most significant of these are their misunderstanding of Descartes and their opening the door to materialist reductionism. It is entirely mistaken to regard Descartes as a mechanist on the basis of long-held assumptions and to portray him as a one-dimensional thinker who viewed mind and body as completely separate, almost like a “ghost in the machine.” In Descartes’ philosophy, mind and body (soul and matter) are intimately connected and stand in interaction with one another. Likewise, Damasio’s (and his followers’) belief that Descartes failed to understand the role of emotions in the workings of the mind is entirely mistaken; it is unjust to accuse Descartes of locating reason and decision-making in a wholly “abstract” realm, independent of physical and emotional processes. Historians of philosophy have pointed out that, in works such as The Passions of the Soul, Descartes not only acknowledged the influence of bodily mechanisms (animal spirits/neural transmissions) and emotions on mental decisions, but also attempted to explain them physiologically. For this reason, some philosophers of mind argue that Damasio’s and affective neuroscience’s understanding of the mind and emotions is, in fact, a new and more advanced version of the embodied mind approach that Descartes formulated within the limited possibilities of his own era.[2]

The principal criticism directed at neuroscience—or more precisely, at the neuroscientific approach claiming that the mind can largely be explained through investigations of the brain—comes from the philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Indeed, the book containing his debate with the neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changeux deserves to be read as a textbook by all aspiring neuroscientists and anyone interested in the mind today. Although he conducts the discussion under the broad heading of phenomenology, Ricoeur sees himself as a representative of the philosophies of reflexivity, descriptiveness (phenomenological), and interpretiveness (hermeneutic). While regarding and supporting research in neuroscience as an effort to illuminate the foundations of studies of the mind, Ricoeur’s fundamental objection is directed at the disregard of the distinction between knowledge of the brain and knowledge of the self, as well as to the formula “the brain thinks,” which may be considered an oxymoron. According to him, mentality includes corporeality, yet the body in question cannot be reduced to the objective body recognized by the natural sciences. Ricoeur holds that just as one says “I grasp with my hands,” one cannot say “I think with my brain.” “I can say that my hands, my feet, and so forth are my organs; these belong to the sphere of lived experience, and I do not have to withdraw into a spiritual ontology in order to speak in this way. By contrast, when I am told that I have a brain, I have no corresponding lived experience, no lived reality of it; I learn this from books” (p. 24).

Undoubtedly, Paul Ricoeur is not directly opposed to neuroscience, nor would such a position make sense, since he acknowledges the importance of science and the distinctiveness of scientific discourse. Like Freud’s psychoanalysis, he also engaged with cognitive science and neuroscience, because consciousness, language, memory, and interpretation lie at the center of his interests. Particularly from the 1990s onward, he sought to establish a serious dialogue with these disciplines: while supporting their efforts to investigate the scientific foundations of the mind, he simultaneously opposed reductionist approaches. Ricoeur accepts the findings of neuroscience and attaches great importance to them insofar as they explain the material foundations of the human mind; however, he objects to the philosophical interpretation of those findings. Mind and consciousness are, of course, connected to the brain, yet through language, culture, and processes of meaning-making they transcend the brain’s physical limits. As he did in Freud and Philosophy, Ricoeur emphasizes that when dealing with human reality one must necessarily look at it through two distinct perspectives—one scientific and the other grounded in meaning and interpretation—and employ a mixed discourse.

According to Ricoeur, neuroscience studies the brain; however, human experience, no matter how extensively it may be explained in terms of networks or connectivity, cannot be exhausted solely by neuronal events. The biochemistry of the brain and the activity revealed through imaging techniques cannot be explained on the same plane as a person’s intentionality and the world of meaning in which they live. The field of inquiry of neuroscience consists of electrical and chemical processes, such as the firing of neurons. Thinking, feeling, or making sense of a memory, however, belongs to the world of meaning. In his view, mapping the neural correlates of an emotion does not explain what that emotion means. Brain processes (material causes) and human actions and thoughts (meanings) are two different languages. One cannot be reduced to the other. Any attempt to do so amounts to committing a category mistake.

According to Ricoeur’s famous concept of narrative identity, a person constitutes oneself within the story of one’s life. Identity is constituted through the stories people tell about themselves and others. One cannot say that identity = genes + brain. For the person is distinct from the brain, and the brain is distinct from thought. Therefore, one should say, “I made the decision,” rather than, “My brain made the decision.”

Neuroscience operates from a third-person perspective. It looks at the brain from the outside and derives concepts such as brain images, neurons, and synapses from the phenomena it observes. Conscious experiences such as suffering pain, remembering, loving, and fearing, however, are ultimately lived from the first-person perspective. Undoubtedly, these experiences may also be explained at the level of scientific phenomena, but the dialectic of explanation and understanding will always proceed together. According to Ricoeur, understanding is not merely receiving information; it is not confined to reading a text[3] or deciphering words. When a person reads, they bring their own past, emotions, culture, and expectations into the text. Thus, two people may read the same book and understand different things. Every text opens up a new world independent of its author. For this reason, reading—the effort to understand—is not a passive but an active, living, and dynamic activity of the brain, and it is at the same time unique to the individual. Therefore, these two levels of explanation—the first-person and third-person perspectives—should seek to complement one another, but neither should be reduced to the other.

As you may have noticed, Ricoeur also argues that memory cannot be regarded merely as a neurological recording system from which memories can be retrieved, or simply as a storage function for recollections. Remembering is, of course, a biological process, but this does not negate the fact that it is simultaneously a narrative and historical process. Human experiences encompass the past, culture, language, and relationships with others (the Other). While remembering, countless synaptic changes undoubtedly occur in our brains, yet there is also an entirely different dimension concerning what we remember and how we remember it—a dimension related to our personal story[4]—and these two constitute different levels of explanation of the same phenomenon. Neuroscience cannot explain the meaning conveyed through symbols, stories, culture—in short, through language—and therefore it should not attempt to do so, but should leave that task to those whose field it is. Neuroscience should strive to answer the question, “Which brain regions are active?” during the formation of meaning and its interactions, but it should not concern itself with the question, “What is the meaning of this experience?” Even if it does address such a question, it must remain within the boundaries of its own discipline and avoid overinterpretation.

[1] For my part, I certainly believe that examining the differences between the human brain and the brains of other vertebrates and mammals is both necessary and intellectually illuminating. For a well-researched review and summary on this subject, I recommend Barış Korkmaz’s article, “Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis” (Cogito, Special Issue on Neuroscience and Philosophy, 75:126–185, Winter 2013). However, I would like to state that I find this perspective—which, rather than viewing the human being as a being possessing a unique ontology and characteristics fundamentally distinct from those of other living beings, regards humans almost as an evolutionary deviation or anomaly emerging with the development of the neocortex (the “new brain”), which underlies language and thought—highly objectionable, and I characterize it as a form of evolutionary fanaticism.

[2] For those wishing to explore the academic details of this debate, I recommend the articles “Sources of Damasio’s Error: A Reply to Damasio” and “Descartes’ Embodied Psychology: Descartes’ or Damasio’s Error?”

[3] When speaking of a text, one should not understand this term as referring solely to written texts. According to Ricoeur, meaningful actions are also texts; therefore, every act of understanding is an act of interpreting a text.

[4] Memory, History, Forgetting