2019-02Forum
Freud, Stern and McGilchrist: Developmental and Cultural Implications of Their Work

Abstract:

“Human beings have two fundamentally different ways of thinking about and engaging with the world.” Some variant of this proposition is shared by many thinkers across time. This paper focuses on the core similarities and the subtle (but significant) differences between Freud’s theory of primary and secondary processes, Karl Stern’s theory of the scientific and poetic modes of knowledge and Iain McGilchrist’s account of the differences between left and right-hemispheric competences, values and ways of “being-in-the-world”. It asks whether (or to what extent) the collective tendency to privilege one “way of knowing” over another promotes or inhibits optimal human development and cultural change and transformation.

Keywords:

psychoanalysis, modes of knowing, hemispheric dominance, modernity, postmodernism

How to cite:

Burston, Daniel. “Freud, Stern and McGilchrist: Developmental and Cultural Implications of Their Work.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 3, no. 2(8) (2019): 109–123. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2019.0021.

Author:

Daniel Burston
Psychology Department, Duquesne University
211 Rockwell Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15282, USA
burston@duq.edu

References:

Belenky, Mary F., Blythe M Clinchy, Nancy R. Goldberger, and Jill M. Tarule. Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice and Mind. New York: Perseus Books, 1997.

Blair, R.J.R., S.J. Morris, C.D. Frith, D.I. Perrett, and R.J. Dolan. “Dissociable Neural Responses to Facial Expressions of Sadness and Anger.” Brain 122 (1999): 883-893. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/122.5.883.

Blonder, L.X., A.F. Burns, D. Bowers, R.W. Moore, and K.M. Heilman. “Right Hemisphere Facial Expressivity during Natural Conversation.” Brain and Cognition 21 (1993): 44-56. https://doi.org/10.1006/brcg.1993.1003.

Borod, J.C., C.S. Haywood, and E. Koff. “Neuropsychological Aspects of Facial Asymmetry during Emotional Expression: A Review of the Adult Literature.” Neuropsychology Review 7 (1997): 41-60. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02876972.

Buck, Robert. “The Neuropsychology of Communication: Spontaneous and Symbolic Aspects.” Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994): 265-278. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(94)90112-0.

Burston, Daniel.  A Forgotten Freudian: The Passion of Karl Stern. London: Karnac, 2016.

Burston, Daniel.  “The Politics of Psychiatry and the Vicissitudes of Faith Circa 1950: Karl Stern’s Psychiatric Novel.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 51, no. 4 (2015): 351-364. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.21742.

Einstein, Albert. “52: December 4, 1926 [Letter to Max Born].” Translated by Irene Born. The Born-Einstein Letters. New York: Walker and Company, 1971.

Einstein, Albert. “Science and Religion.” Ideas and Opinions (New York: Citadel Press, 1956).

Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Volume 21. Edited and translated by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1974 [1930].

Freud, Sigmund. “Formulations Regarding the Two Principles of Mental Functioning.” Sigmund Freud: Collected Papers. Volume 2. Translated by Joan Riviere. Edited by Masud Khan. London: Hogarth Press, 1971 [1911]. https://doi.org/10.1037/e417472005-292.

Freud, Sigmund. “The Dissection of the Psychical Personality.” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Volume 21. Edited and translated by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1981 [1932].

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. In Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Volumes 4 and 5. Edited and translated by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1974 [1900].

Freud, Sigmund. “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death.” In Sigmund Freud: Collected Papers. Volume 2. Translated by J. Riviere. Edited by Masud Khan. London: Hogarth Press, 1971 [1915].

Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Grayling, A.C. “In Two Minds.” Literary Review, no. 372 (December 2009).

Holt, Robert R. Freud Reappraised: A Fresh Look at Psychoanalytic Theory. New York: Guildford Press, 1989.

Kim, J.J., N.C. Andreason, D.S. O’Leary, A.K. Wiser, L.L. Boles Ponto, G.L. Watkins, and R.D. Hitchwa. “Direct Comparison of the Neural Substrates for Recognition of Words and Faces.” Brain 122 (1999): 1069-1083. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/122.6.1069.

Laing, Ronald David. The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise. New York: Penguin Books, 1967.

Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff, ed. The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.

McGilchrist, Iain. The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Modern World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Muller, M.M., A. Keil, T. Gruber, and T. Elbert. “Processing of Affective Pictures Modulates Right Hemispheric Gamma Bad EEG Activity.” Clinical Neuropsychology 110 (1999): 113-120. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1388-2457(99)00151-0.

Nakamura, Katsuki., R. Kawashima, Nobuya Sato, A. Nakamura, Motoaki Sugiura, T. Kato, Kentaro Hatano, K. Ito, H. Fukuda, T. Schormann, and Karl Zilles, “Functional Delineation of the Occipto-temporal Areas Related to Face and Scene Processing: A PET study.” Brain 123 (2000): 1903-1912. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/123.9.1903.

Narumoto, J., H. Yamada, and T. Iidaka. “Brain Regions Involved in Verbal and Non-Verbal Aspects of Facial Cognition.” NeuroReport 11 (2000): 2571-2576. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001756-200008030-00044.

Sass, Louis. Madness and Modernism: Insanity in Light of Modern Art, Literature and Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Stahnisch, Frank W. “German Speaking Émigré neuroscientists in North America after 1933: Critical Reflections on Emigration-Induced Scientific Change.” In “Forced Migration of Scholars and Scientists in the 20th Century,” edited by Christian Fleck. Special Issue, Öesterreichische Zeitschrift fur Geschictswissenschaften 21 (2010): 36-68.

Stern, Karl. The Flight from Woman. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1965.

Stern, Karl. The Pillar of Fire. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951.

Stern, Karl. The Third Revolution: A Study of Psychiatry and Religion. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1954.

Stern, Karl. Through Dooms of Love. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1960.

Schore, Allan N. Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.

Winston, J.S., B.A. Strange, J.O. O’Doherty, and R.J. Dolan. “Automatic and Intentional Brain Responses During Evaluation of Trustworthiness of Faces.” Nature Neuroscience 5 (2002): 277-283. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn816.

“The Human Brain: Right and Left.” The Economist, November 26, 2009.

Winnicott, Donald. “The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship.” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 41 (1960): 585-595.

Open Access Statement:

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Submitting a text to Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture means that the author agrees with the general conditions of this license. The author does and will maintain copyrights and publishing rights for his/her article without any restrictions.