University of Twente Student Theses
A comparative analysis of human mental functioning in treatments with deep brain simulation: eliminative materialism, Clark’s functionalism and postphenomenology
Woldman, Wessel (2011) A comparative analysis of human mental functioning in treatments with deep brain simulation: eliminative materialism, Clark’s functionalism and postphenomenology.
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| Abstract: | The question that lies at the basis of this thesis is how deep brain stimulation, as a recent technological development in the domain of neuroscience and human mental functioning, can be analyzed and understood from a philosophical perspective. The focus of this thesis is on the dynamics between neuroscience, as a field that consists of a wide variety of methodologies, theories, techniques, books, articles, assumptions, and technological artifacts and the way human behavior and mental functioning is understood. Three different philosophical perspectives will be discussed - a materialist, a functionalist and a postphenomenological - on cognition and human functioning. These theories will be applied to address and then assess deep brain stimulation. The goal is to examine whether deep brain stimulation enables a new form of mental functioning, and whether these philosophical perspectives need to be refined or dismissed for understanding the relationship between human mental functioning and deep brain stimulation. Since these three theories together represent a dominant spectrum of the philosophical perspectives on human mental functioning, this philosophical discourse may be particularly relevant in light of addressing the problems and complexities that emerge during treatments with deep brain stimulation. This leads to a final question that focuses on how the different perspectives characterize the influence of deep brain stimulation on the concrete practices in the reality of daily life. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 08 philosophy |
| Programme: | Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society MSc (60024) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/61186 |
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