Materialism and supervenience: between Lacan and neurosciences

• Grant number: 17/10818-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2017
• End date: December 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Metaphysics
• Principal Investigator: Christian Ingo Lenz Dunker
• Grantee: Augusto Lima Ismerim Nascimento
• Host Institution: Instituto de Psicologia (IP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In the theoretical, experimental and mental health public policies field, various problems concern the relation between psychoanalysis (its theories, its objects, its methods) and neurophysiological conceptions, between psychoanalysis and the biochemical brain. We intend to examine the relation between such areas within the terrain outlined in philosophy by the mind-body problem; evaluating supervenience's conceptual potential,as defining a metaphysical position with epistemological implications, of allowing intertheoretical connection. The first step is examining whether that is an acceptable position from the point of view of a Lacanian foundation. We have recourse to the philosophy of mind, to Kim who analysed the idea of supervenience of the mental on the physical as a model to think mental causality. By the end we will consider such compatibility in relation to Shevrin's neuropsychological papers and theoretical studies on the scientific character of psychoanalysis.