Physiology, neuropsychology, and natural sciences
This is a working paper which will probably be rewritten several times in the next
months
AUTHOR: Dr. Gerd Döben-Henisch
FIRST DATE: February 19, 1996
DATE of LAST CHANGE: March-8, 1996
Although the phenomenological data D-PHEN are the primary data which we have, one can
try to go beyond
the phenomena. Phenomena can be overcome with the aid of concepts, models and theories.
In our case one can restrict oneself to the empirical data of objects D-OBJ, a special subset of D-PHEN, and can try to built causal models
which are dedicated to bodies, their overt behavior, and to spaces with bodies.
This is done by physics.
The investigation of the structure of bodies including their nervous system (D-PHYS)
is the main subject of physiology
and neurology. We assume that D-PHYS is a subset of D-OBJ. The investigation of overt behavior
of bodies (D-ETH) is a subject of ethology, a subdiscipline of biology, and of psychology
as well.
If we are looking to the possible causal relationships between empirically described
structures and phenomenologically described structures then we can not name any direct relation between them.
By definition are empirical sciences restricted to empirical phenomena and if they want to correlate empirical data with non-empirical data then they need some kind of a translation of non-empirical data into an empirical equivalent. The only way -known today- to realize such an translation is that a person tries to 'express'/ to 'articulate' certain non-empirical phenomena by his body to make them becoming empirical phenomena; this can be movements according to some forgoing instructions or verbal expressions. What the researcher is doing in such cases is that he will take the articulated empirical phenomena as if they are the non-empirical phenomena ! The relationship between the articulated empirical phenomena and the presupposed causing non-empirical phenomena are not empirical given and thus apt to become wrong representations. We will call those 'supposed to be phenomena' 'weak empirical phenomena (see for a more elaborated discussion: [DÖBEN-HENISCH 1995b]). The systematic procedure of such correlations and their integration in a interdisciplinary
theory is the main subject of neuropsychology
or physiological psychology.
Continue with: Semiotics
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