Imagination and the Meaningful Brain

Contents......Page 10
Preface......Page 12
Acknowledgments......Page 16
1 Uncertain Steps toward a Biology of Meaning......Page 20
A Tendency to Dehumanize the Mind......Page 23
Descartes and Vico: Two Antithetical Views of the Mind......Page 30
Vico’s Poetic Logic and the Embodiment of Mind......Page 33
Intentionality as a Biological Concept......Page 36
The Mind Turning Around on Itself......Page 40
Metaphor as the Currency of Mind......Page 44
The Scientific Imagination as an Unconscious Metaphoric Process......Page 46
Does an Unconscious Metaphoric Process Have Neural Correlates?......Page 51
Metaphor and the Recontextualization of Memory......Page 54
Psychic Trauma and the Impaired Recontextualization of Memory......Page 57
The Varieties of Conscious and Unconscious Memory Systems......Page 61
The Recall and Influence of Early Memories......Page 63
Comparing the Freudian and Cognitive Unconscious: An Afterthought......Page 65
3 Imagination’s Autonomy......Page 68
The Assumption of a Universal Unconscious Mind......Page 70
Is Repression a “Mechanism”?......Page 71
When Do Individual Differences Make a Difference?......Page 75
Dreaming and the Autonomy of the Imagination......Page 77
Freud’s Specimen Dream of the Botanical Monograph......Page 81
The Dream Wish and Unconscious Intentionality......Page 85
4 The Corporeal Imagination......Page 88
The Bodily Sources of Metaphor......Page 89
Synesthesia......Page 92
Lakoff and Johnson’s Hypothesis of Primary Metaphor......Page 94
Unconscious Guilt and the Body as a Container......Page 99
Bodily Metaphors Provide an Illusion of Constancy in the Midst of Change......Page 101
Libido Theory as a Form of Corporeal Imagination......Page 103
Conflating Feelings......Page 106
5 Intentionality and the Self......Page 110
The Embodied Self as a Monitor of Affective States......Page 112
Can Consciousness Be Equated with Consciousness of the Self?......Page 114
An Ecological Approach to the Self’s Construction of Meaning......Page 117
Unconscious Intentionality in an Intersubjective Context......Page 119
Metonymy as an Affective Marker......Page 121
Unconscious Intentionality in a Neural Context......Page 123
A Self-Created Umwelt......Page 124
Images and Imagination......Page 126
Images and Homeostasis......Page 130
The Involuntary Imagination of Trauma......Page 131
The Aesthetic Imagination and the Brain......Page 133
The Empathic Imagination......Page 136
Projective Identification......Page 139
Fantasies That Constrict the Imagination......Page 142
Defining Imagination......Page 144
The Selection of Images from the Stream of Consciousness......Page 147
7 The Uniqueness of Human Feelings......Page 150
The Concept of the Limbic System......Page 151
What Is Unique about Human Feelings?......Page 153
Play, Emotions, and the Complexity of Consciousness......Page 158
The Enigma of “Sublimation”......Page 161
The Interpretation of Sensations......Page 162
The Semiotics of Feeling......Page 166
Once More, Are Human Feelings Unique?......Page 168
8 Feelings and Value......Page 170
Individual and Shared States of Consciousness......Page 172
Value and Cathexis......Page 174
Feeling and Adaptation......Page 175
Transcendent Values and the Self......Page 177
Feeling and Potential Meaning......Page 180
A Note on “Working Through”......Page 182
Communicating Feeling......Page 183
Bonding through the Music in the Tone of Voice......Page 186
9 Imagining Other Minds......Page 190
Can Nonhuman Primates Attribute Mental Agency to Others?......Page 192
Metaphor and the “As If”......Page 193
The Loss of Empathy in Autism......Page 196
Some Perspectives on Intersubjectivity......Page 198
10 Mirror Neurons, Gestures, and the Origins of Metaphor......Page 202
“Relational” Mirror Neurons and the Concept of Representation......Page 203
The Origin of Empathic Feelings......Page 205
Metaphoric Gesture and the Coevolution of Language......Page 206
Metaphoric Gesture in a Ritual Dance......Page 210
11 Experience and the Mind-Body Problem......Page 212
The Mind-Body Problem and Some Explanatory Metaphors......Page 214
Is the Unconscious Mental?......Page 216
Emergence, Grounding, and the Problem of Naive Reductionism......Page 218
Again, a Plea for an Epistemic Pluralism......Page 220
Notes......Page 224
References......Page 236
A......Page 254
B......Page 255
C......Page 256
D......Page 257
E......Page 258
F......Page 259
I......Page 260
L......Page 262
M......Page 263
P......Page 266
R......Page 268
S......Page 269
T......Page 270
V......Page 271
Z......Page 272