Jan de Vos - The Metamorphoses of The Brain - Neurologisation and Its Discontents

The Metamorphoses of the Brain –
Neurologisation and its Discontents
Jan De Vos
The Metamorphoses of the Brain –
Neurologisation and its Discontents
Jan De Vos
The Metamorphoses
of the Brain –
Neurologisation and
its Discontents
Jan De Vos
Philosophy and Moral Sciences
Ghent University
Ghent, Belgium
ISBN 978-1-137-50556-9 ISBN 978-1-137-50557-6 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50557-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016936399
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For Vera, “as wave is driven by wave” (Ovid, Metamorphoses).
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for their valuable and thoughtful
suggestions: Boris Demarest for commenting on Chap. 2 and Chap. 5, Karin
Lesnik-Oberstein for commenting on Chap. 6, David Pavón Cuéllar for
commenting on Chap. 7, and Ed Pluth for commenting on Chap. 3. Special
thanks to Chris Higgins for his meticulous and wonderful language editing.
Some parts of this book are based on previously published journal arti-
cles. Chapter 2 is partly based on (1) “The death and the resurrection of
(psy)critique. The case of neuroeducation”, Foundations of Science, online
first, October 17, 2014, Springer Science + Business Media Dordrecht. All
rights reserved. © Jan De Vos, and (2) “Deneurologizing education? From
psychologisation to neurologisation and back”, Studies in Philosophy and
Education, 34(3), 2015, pp. 279–295, Springer Science + Business Media
Dordrecht. All rights reserved. © Jan De Vos. Chapter 3 is partly based
on “Which materialism? Questioning the matrix of psychology, neurology,
psychoanalysis and ideology critique”, Theory & Psychology, 24(1), 2014,
pp. 76–93, Sage. All rights reserved. © Jan De Vos. Chapter 4 is partly
based on “The iconographic brain: A critical philosophical inquiry into (the
resistance of) the image”, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 15 May 2014,
Frontiers. All rights reserved. © Jan De Vos. And, finally, Chap. 7 is partly
based on “Interpassivity and the political invention of the brain: Connolly’s
neuropolitics versus Libet’s veto-right”, Theory & Event, 16(2), 2013, The
Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights reserved. © Jan De Vos.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction: The Metamorphoses of the Brain 1
2 The Educated Brain: A Critique of Neuroeducation 13
3 The Material Brain: A Plea for the Uselessness

of Psychoanalysis 53
4 The Iconographic Brain: An Inquiry into the Culture of

Brain Imaging 91
5 The Sexual Brain: Against Neuro-Plasticity 129
6 The Celebrated Brain: The Role of the Brain in the

Society of the Spectacle 169
7 The Political Brain: The Brain as a Political Invention 203
Index 243
ix
1
Introduction: The Metamorphoses
of the Brain
Upon waking one morning in the twenty-first century from the most
unsettling of dreams, we somehow came to find ourselves transformed
into a brain. How can we begin to understand this metamorphosis?
How did we get to this point? Did it involve a pharmakon, like in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses where the jealous Circe uses potions to deal with both
the men who reject her love as well as her female rivals? Are we somehow
being punished for our humanistic hubris, like Arachne who was turned
into a spider after claiming to have superior weaving skills to Athena?
Or are we simply taking on a different form as a means of defence as
we flee from something, like Thetis morphing into different forms to
escape Peleus who is attempting to make her his wife? As one can see, the
dictum “You are your brain” raises several questions: not only pertaining
to why we so readily accept it and, indeed, even embrace it so eagerly at
times, but also concerning why this dictum must be stated so firmly, so
coercively (make no mistake), as if we were being addressed by some final
sovereignty or god, that amounted to the ultimate super-ego command.
These questions—among others, for example, how the transformation
took place, what produced it exactly and for what ends—coupled with
the equally difficult if not altogether more problematic and Kafkaesque
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

J. De Vos, The Metamorphoses of the Brain – Neurologisation and its
Discontents, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50557-6_1
2 The Metamorphoses of the Brain – Neurologisation and its Discontents
ordeal of remembering what exactly we were before, might best be

approached by probing further into the results of the transformation:
what are we exactly, when we are said to be our brain? Henceforth, in this
book I set out to provide a cartography of the manifold forms that we
take when we become or are said to be brain-creatures.
The task of discerning the different metamorphoses of the brain and
trying to understand them is an urgent one. This is because the momen-
tous period in which we are living, what I am designating as the transition
from having a brain to being a brain, might represent the last window of
opportunity to say something about the shifting conditions of our exis-
tence. Having a brain meant that one could contemplate it as an object,
look at it and attempt to grasp it in language. However, given that we are
now increasingly enjoined to coincide with the brain itself, are we not
in danger of losing our capacity to speak about that very thing which
itself claims to define our conditions of possibility? Simply put, are we
becoming mute? Indeed, today there appears little space left from which
to respond to the hegemonic dictum you are your brain: we are, first and
foremost, urged to recognise ourselves in and identify with what is a rel-
atively minimalistic if not one-dimensional depiction of our existence.
That is, the way in which the brain-human is conceptualised and imag-
ined within this neuroscientific paradigm is anything but Romanesque
or complex; in fact, one is tempted to say it is grey or dull inasmuch as
it reduces human beings to cognitions, a limited range of affects and
some unconscious processes, all of which are framed by hormonal driven
instinctual impulses. One could see such a conceptualisation as the bitter,
deconstructive and material truth, a truth that leaves us befuddled and
bereft of any solid ground from which to formulate a strong riposte. You
are your brain, in other words, represents a clear and definitive full stop,
one which robs us of any humanistic hubris as well as tearing away the
remaining vestiges of any illusions we still had of being conscious agents
who possess free will—remember Arachne, in this regard. What remains is
our complete and utter awe and fascination with the brain that, although
highly complex in comparison to our one-dimensional and simplified
make-up, nevertheless often serves to silence us. Resultantly, when the
notion of having a brain is superseded by the idea of being our brain, we
become deprived of a minimal distance and lose our voice in the process.
Introduction: The Metamorphoses of the Brain 3
This is reminiscent of Gregor Samsa from Kafka’s novella The

Metamorphosis, of course, who, upon being turned into a “monstrous
verminous bug”, finds out that he has become speechless: he attempts
to speak to his sister as well as his parents but comes to realise that his
voice has changed in such a way that no-one understands him any longer.
Equally, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the hunter Actaeon, having seen Diana
naked and turned into a stag, is rendered speechless:
In a stream he longed to say, “O miser-

Able me!” but had no words, nothing but
Animal cries while tears ran down his changed,
Bewildered face.
(Ovidius 1958, p. 69)
Perhaps, having been turned into a brain, we similarly now have no words.
Consider the archetypal brain image of the isolated brain: the brain in
profile, the brain without eyes, nose, mouth or tongue. This brain is, ulti-
mately, blind and mute. We are blinded, but yet told to walk without fear
or hesitation: follow your synapses, we are told, and if anything were to
go wrong psychotropic interventions will reset our neural paths accord-
ingly. We are mute inasmuch as the brain underneath the scanner only
lights up at particular stimuli provided externally by the person in a lab
coat. Just as Io who, as one will remember, was transformed into a cow
because her lover Jupiter wanted to hide her from his wife, and was only
able to trace letters in the dust, the mute brain can only trace signs onto
the scanner—voxels either light up or they do not. In neural times, then,
the letters in the dust have become digitalised; where once Io was—if one
will allow me this this pun—I-0 has now taken her place. If we can be
said to communicate with the brain, it is on the basis of this rudimentary
digitalised sign language. But how can we absolutely be certain that we
understand the digitised brain correctly? That is to say, how can we be
positive that we are asking the brain the right questions in the first place,
or that we are presenting it with the relevant stimuli whilst under the
scanner?
One is tempted here to reject this digitalisation, to cling tightly onto
the analogue, that is, to hold on to the idea that I, my Ego, my subject,
or whatever other terms one chooses to posit it, still has something to
say beyond or apart from the digital traces left behind by the electric or
chemical activity in the organ of the brain. Within such a project, one
could try to undo the metamorphosis and free the subject of the neu-
rosciences from the reductionism of the scanner—where it must lie still
and say nothing—and give it back its body and its voice. But in such an
instance, where we would approach the subject through recourse to the
usual phenomenological methods, get an understanding of the whole
situation by taking into consideration the socio-anthropological con-
text, and conduct in-depth interviews as part of a qualitative approach
to research, do we not run the risk of falling back on retrograde illu-
sions and even older myths from a bygone era? That is to say, would
the voice and the body we are seeking to re-establish not equally be
pre-formatted and, hence, equally non-emancipatory? That is, despite
our good intentions, we might end up doing nothing more than put-
ting the subject back in its old prison outfit and handing it old lines
to read from past scripts. Moreover, the common argument that the
neurosciences research an artificial subject in an artificial situation risks
overlooking how the subject under the scanner, watching a screen, han-
dling a joystick or a keyboard and responding to cues and clues, may,
in actual fact, be an accurate description of the contemporary head-
phoned, wired and connected subject who moves through highly digi-
talised and controlled environments where its personal and social lives
increasingly takes place.
At the very least, then, we can say that harking back to previous
epistèmes does not hold much promise of liberation. In the same way,
one could even go as far as to argue that we have merely traded one
highly scripted and controlled environment (analogue and embedded in
socio-psychological discourses) for another one (digital and grounded in
neuro-discourses). Should we thus adopt the stance that brain-discourse
represents nothing new but is merely the latest in a long line of myths
and, as such, is just yet another overarching and hegemonic cultural nar-
rative with which subjects must engage and negotiate? Such a position
would suggest that we are not, in fact, losing our voice but, rather, our
voice is simply mutating and morphing as we transition into a different
age. However, we should perhaps reject this idea that the subject will
always be resilient enough to adapt to new epistèmes, on the grounds that

it harbours a false and all too easy optimism; above all, such a view testi-
fies to how much in this day and age we all too readily rely on the option
of pressing the Ctrl + z key at any point. That is to say, within our digital
environments we are free to continually experiment with chunks of text
and image, altering them and subjecting them to numerous operations,
safe in the knowledge that we can always go back to where we started from
(only to find ourselves at a loss when in real, concrete life, for example,
a vase falls and thinking Ctrl + z turns out to be of no help whatsoever).
Hence, in this book I want to argue that we should seriously consider
the possibility that the neuro-turn signals a fundamental and structural
break qua subjectivity and sociality. Simply put, we might not be merely
trading old myths for new ones as I suggested earlier. The saying nihil
nove sub sole (there is nothing new under the sun) has a long-standing
tradition of being used by those who wish to remain blind towards the
new—or, for that matter, those who want others to remain blind towards
the new. For, it might be the case that, when faced with the dictum you
are your brain we, as aforesaid, lose our voice (as we ourselves are not con-
sidered to have any access to our own truth) and that this in an altogether
unprecedented way curtails any subjective leeway, thus amounting to a
structural and decisive break with subjective positions from former eras.
While in disciplinary, religious or psychological discourses, for exam-
ple, the subject had to mobilise a desire, invest in a discourse and engage
in some kind of activity—albeit we might call these forms of pseudo-
activity or “interpassivity” whereby desire, discourse and activity are out-
sourced to the o(O)ther (Pfaller, 2000; Žižek, 1997)1—we might need
to consider the possibility that the new brain discourses, in contrast,
condemn each of us to a kind of locked-in-syndrome where desire, dis-
course and activity lose all meaning as such. Ovid’s Metamorphoses are
replete with irreversible transformations of humans and nymphs into
trees, stones, mountains or rivers, into which their personages are irre-
versibly trapped, and through which they forever lose their access to the
world. Do we not have to consider the possibility that brain-discourse
1
E.g., it is my unconsciousness, not I, who has all these weird thoughts, or so it goes in pseudo-
psychoanalytic parlance.
prepares us for a similar metamorphosis, by virtue of the fact that the

dictum you are your brain invalidates us as interlocutors, as answerable
partners and hermetically seals us in our brains? For example, in educa-
tion today the expert advice is no longer, talk with your teenagers but,
rather, talk with your kids about their brains, as is literally stated at one
point (Jensen & Nutt, 2014). One can imagine that it doesn’t take long
before one also talks to youngsters about their brains’ shortcomings.
This is where the only options open to teens is to listen, or at best ask
questions for clarification. One could readily dismiss this, of course, as
simply media neuro-junk, but I do think that this is symptomatic of a
problem in regular and serious neuroscience itself. Or phrased otherwise,
the aberrations which reveal themselves when neuroscience comes into
the open, that is, into the popular realm might, in actual fact, represent
a magnification of neuroscience’s hidden flaws. Moreover, one should
not underestimate the ways in which this generalised neuro-turn might
thoroughly affect our life-world, if not utterly reshape it altogether. At
the very least we should ask the question, what will become of subjectiv-
ity and society once we have raised whole generations under the rubric
of “we are our brain”?
Hence, as aforesaid, the guiding question of this book concerns what
we have actually transformed into. What are we exactly, when we are said
to be our brain? If, as argued, the metamorphosis of the brain entails
the transfiguration of an analogue, psychological subject into a digital,
neuronal subject, then the popular image of the brain-in-a-vat might be
expedient as a preliminary means through which to grasp what this trans-
formation actually entails. This well-known thought experiment features
a stand-alone brain severed from its body, artificially kept alive and con-
nected to a computer which induces a virtual reality to the brain. The
standard debate then concerns how we ourselves can know for sure that
we have a real body and a real life to live, and thus are not, in actual
fact, in this brain-in-a-vat position (see, e.g., Putnam, 1981). Does this
specific example not constitute the quintessential depiction of the fact
that fully becoming our brain entails a particular kind of locked-in syn-
drome? However, as is always the case with thought-experiments, the
most interesting aspect here is the non-thought (or should we say the un-
thought), that is, the unspoken assumptions that can be said to structure
the construction.2 For instance, would the principal issue with this set-up
not concern the choice of scenarios or scripts that were used by the com-
puter in order to simulate the so-called real world? Would the traditional,
pre-neurological human sciences, and particularly the psy-sciences, not
play a major part in constructing a more or less plausible experience situ-
ated in time and space? In other words, I claim, the ways in which this
staged brain-person relates to its virtual self, virtual others and the virtual
world would ultimately be given form by algorithms based on pre-exist-
ing theories of (social) psychology.
To elaborate on this point a bit further, so as to demonstrate its impor-
tance, let us consider a similar thought experiment, one that is said to be
more realistic by people like Ray Kurzweil, who argues that it will soon
be possible to upload the brain to a supercomputer (Kurzweil, 2000,
2005). At the very least, one can discern a recurring tendency within neu-
roscience to not only adhere to a classical mind-body dualism, but also
to conceptualise the physical brain as something that exceeds the body
and thus something that can be immaterialised and hosted in a virtual
reality: it can be regarded as software, as programmatic codes which can
potentially surpass and survive their bodily container. Again, the non-
and un-thought of this thought experiment are manifold: is it not evi-
dent, for instance, that if one were in fact able to successfully upload a
person or a subject, then surely the latter would not remain as it were for
very much longer? Indeed, if one were to connect this virtual personal-
ity to the internet, would it not become megalomaniacal and absorb all
the available knowledge? Would it not expand in uncontrollable ways
or infinitely metamorphosise, become all the things in the world, if not,
for that matter, become the world itself? As such, there is little guarantee
that subjectivity would survive, at least not as we know it. But besides
these relatively speculative ruminations of mine—perhaps not that dis-
similar to thought-experimentation itself—one could also ask, supposing
that subjectivity was in fact uploadable, what exactly would we upload
and how would we go about doing it? Is it not precisely here that, in
2
Thought experiments, to put it bluntly, are designed to make us not think, or at the very least, they
are devised to cover up and stow away basic problematic issues in one’s thinking: the
un-thoughts.
a homologous fashion to the brain-in-a-vat issue, psychological theories

would return to the fold? If in the example of the brain-in-a-vat experi-
ment it is the issue of successfully reconstructing the world which neces-
sitates the mobilisation of the old socio-psychological models, in the
thought-experiment of the uploaded brain it is the digital transformation
and reconstruction of the subject that would be the main issue. And here,
in this very act of digital translation, I claim, is where the old psycho-
logical models would have to be put into action yet again. For in devis-
ing the very algorithms through which one would be uploaded, would
there not also be the choice of which psychology (Freudian, Pavlovian,
etc.) you would prefer to be uploaded? Interestingly, when I once made
this very point in a psychology class, a student without any hesitation
exclaimed: “Oh, definitively not a Freudian one!”, which in itself is a
beautiful example of classical resistance against psychoanalysis, and fur-
ther evidence that psychoanalysis is still the Other (to be rejected) within
current mainstream neuropsy-discourses. At the very least, the question
would be: which psychology should we use for the brain, which psychol-
ogy should we choose for this newest metamorphosis of the human? As
such, we perhaps already here find some kind of intermediary, or, as I said
earlier, a pharmakon: in the metamorphoses of the human being into the
brain the transformation requires a good dose of psychology.
This is the argument I will return to again and again throughout this
book: although at first glance we appear to be dealing with a metamor-
phosis of the psychological into the neurological, one where the former
appears to be irretrievably lost (we appear unable to even imagine what
the psyche was at times), closer inspection reveals that psychology is still
the silent partner of the neurosciences. Just think of how, in order to
do an imaging study on aggression, for example, one must start from a
psychological theory of aggression. Consequently, it is only by rummag-
ing in psychology that neuroscience is able to design its experiments and
devise the stimuli offered to the subjects in the scanner. The wager of this
book is that, from this starting point, psychology in actual fact haunts
the entire edifice of the neurosciences, which in Freudian terms we can
designate as the return of the repressed.
This, at the bare minimum, means that, if the neuro-turn entails a
process of neurologisation that affects contemporary forms of subjectivity
and sociality—with neurologisation here being understood as the sub-

ject adopting neuro-discourses in order to understand (and to be with)
itself, others and the world—then we must look at its antecedent: psy-
chologisation. The first consequence that derives from this lineage that I
aim to make clear in this book is that, in much the same way that psy-
chologisation is not an ancillary effect but part and parcel of psychology
itself, neurologisation must also be viewed as something definitive and
inherent to the most fundamental level of the neurosciences itself. At the
very least this means that, if one places psychology in the position of the
pharmakon of the metamorphosis to the brain, the true question is not,
what is lost in translation? Or phrased otherwise, the issue is not to look
beyond neurologisation—or, for that matter, beyond psychologisation—
to reconnect with the ostensibly real human being. Rather, the central
question of this book is: what is this surplus, this Real qua residual excess
which emerges through the metamorphosis of the human and its former
psychology into a brain? This leads to the eventual upshot of my argu-
ment in which I will ask: what are we exactly, when we are said to have
become our brain, which is not to say, what are we really but, rather, what
have we really become?
Following in this vein, this book will, somewhat paradoxically, argue
the following: while brain science invariably claims analytical jurisdiction
over what we are, it is precisely by virtue of its claim to lay bare the real
that brain science is in danger of veiling and covering up what it is to be
human. In other words, it is the naked brain itself, the alleged cerebral
nudity that should be considered as the latest in a long line of disguises.
The brain represents a way of telling the truth in order to lie3; we dress up
in the nude, as it were. The brain can thus be said to be a metamorphosis,
which serves a similar goal that the changing of forms did for the afore-
mentioned Thetis, that is, to escape from something: in this case the goal
is to escape from the unbearable surplus of being human. Our epochal
memento mori, you are nothing but a brain, the endlessly repeated super-
egoic command that manifests itself through all kinds of channels (the
3
In this respect, it is instructive to remember Slavoj Žižek’s point: “there is a way in which one can
lie in the guise of (telling the) truth, that is, in which the full and candid admission of one’s guilt is
the ultimate deception, the way to preserve one’s subjective position intact, free from guilt” (Žižek,
2001, p. 46).
contemporary version of you are nothing but a sack of dung4), thus serves
to obfuscate the Real, that is, it operates to cover up the skandalon of us
no longer knowing what it means to be human.
But in this very act of concealing our face with a mask depicting
our brain, do we not unwittingly expose that which we want to hide?
Consider, in this respect, Socrates, who in the story of Apuleius, had
fallen on hard times in a strange town and, ashamed of his impoverish-
ment, tried to conceal his embarrassment: “he covered his face, which
had long since begun to redden from shame, with his patched cloak,
baring the rest of his body from his navel to his loins” (Apuleius, 1989,
p. 15). So if, indeed, the brain represents the final, naturalised meta-
morphosis of the human being, then we must discern which cloaks are
patched for this paradoxical ‘de-nuding’ of the human being. We need
to, then, address the manifold faces and facets of the brain. We have to
read it as a palimpsest, conducting an exegetical reading in the hopes of
deciphering the relatively obscene message that shines through the glar-
ing digital imprint of the brain scan, all in an attempt to understand what
exactly it is that we have become.
Henceforth, in this book I will trace the brain through a few of its
many avatars and metamorphoses. Chapter 2 addresses the educated
brain (the brain as something to be educated), Chap. 3 discusses the
material brain, Chap. 4 considers the iconographic brain (the brain as
image), Chap. 5 attends to the sexual brain, Chap. 6 deals with the
celebrated brain (the brain as something to be worshipped and glori-
fied) and whilst there is a political theme interwoven throughout all the
chapters, it is in Chap. 7 that I directly address the political brain. I am
cognisant of the fact that this enumeration might not mean much to
the reader at this stage, but hopefully he or she will be able to discern
in the progression of the chapters the aforementioned genealogical and
explanatory thread, which should allow us to discern the neuro-turn
and its variegated consequences for both subjectivity and society, that is,
neurologisation’s antecedent: psychologisation. Here, one might recall
4
As St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) wrote: “Man is nothing else than fetid sperm, a sack of
dung, the food of worms” (cited in Cohen, 1973, p. 24).
Proteus’ advice to Peleus after the latter expressed his desire to conquer
Thetis:
And heard him say. “O son of Aecus, go make

A net to trap your sleeping bride; her dreams transform her,
But if you bind her you may lie upon her.”
As Titan-Phoebus swung his chariot down
To ride the Western sea, Thetis came home,
Undressed herself for sleep. Scarcely had Peleus
Mounted her, she changed, or tried to change,
Yet she was open to him, limbs bound fast.
At last she moaned, “Some god made you undo me.”
Then she gave way and Peleus held his Thetis,
And got his son on her, the great Achilles
(Ovidius, 1958, p. 306)
Unlike in the passage above, the nets with which we tie down the brain
do not have to be cast from a God; on the contrary, these nets are to be
found in the brain itself, more precisely yet still, they have been woven
into the brain from the very beginning. Although dense, the brain qua
tissue, neurons, synapses and neural networks is actually empty; neuro-
science attempts to fill it, to stuff it with forms and regions, to give it
different colourings, that is, to dress it up by weaving different, more or
less fitting cloaks for it. The principal aim of this book is not to do away
with the weavings altogether, so as to replace them with the Real of the
brain and/or of the Real of the human—which would amount to claim-
ing a god-like Archimedean perspective—but, rather, to discern the real
or the excess of the human being which is spun out through the contours
of these very weavings.
References
Apuleius. (1989). Metamorphoses (J. A. Hanson, Trans.). Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Cohen, K. (1973). Metamorphosis of a death symbol: The Transi Tomb in the late
Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jensen, F. E., & Nutt, A. E. (2014). The teenage brain: A neuroscientist’s survival
guide to raising adolescents and young adults. New York: Harper Collins.
Kurzweil, R. (2000). Live forever—Uploading the human brain … closer than
you think. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.
com/articles/200001/live-forever
Kurzweil, R. (2005). The singularity is near: When humans transcend biology.
New York: Viking.
Ovidius, N. P. (1958). The metamorphoses (H. Gregory, Trans.). New York: The
Viking Press.
Pfaller, R. (2000). Interpassivität: Studien über delegiertes genießen. Wien/New
York: Springer.
Putnam, H. (1981). Reason, truth and history. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Žižek, S. (1997). The plague of fantasies. New York: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2001). The fragile absolute: Or, why is the Christian legacy worth fighting
for? London: Verso.
2
The Educated Brain: A Critique of
Neuroeducation
Introduction
It would appear that the century-long dominion of the psychological
has come to an end. Today, we are no longer instructed to take care of
ourselves, to become more in-tune with our emotions, or to enhance our
communication skills. Instead we are increasingly enjoined to look after
our brains: to engage in brain exercises, eat the right kinds of food and,
if required, take medication to restore the cerebral chemical balance. As a
consequence of this, we no longer think of ourselves exclusively in terms
of having psyches but, rather, in terms of having, if not actually being,
a brain. Or, as Nikolas Rose contends:
We are increasingly coming to relate to ourselves as “somatic” individuals,

that is to say, as beings whose individuality is, in part at least, grounded
within our fleshly, corporeal existence, and who experience, articulate,
judge, and act upon ourselves in part in the language of biomedicine.
(Rose, 2006, pp. 26–27)
What Rose is suggesting here is that, in terms of analysis and explana-

tion it is the brain which can now be said to constitute the only game in

Discontents, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50557-6_2
town, providing a narrative, in the words of Ovid, “to tell the shifting
story of the world from its beginning to the present hour” (Ovidius,
1958, p. 31).
However, the first point I wish to stress here is that, quite remark-
ably, this epistemic shift has not rendered psychologists obsolete, and left
out in the cold looking in; quite the contrary, in fact, many psycholo-
gists have performed a volte-face and become the primary advocates of
the neuro. Today, ADHD, love, being happy, bulimia, etc., all have their
derivation in the brain, or at least that is what we are told by those for-
mer advocates of a psychological perspective on the world. Thus, whereas
cashiers in supermarkets who prompt customers to use self-service check-
outs are, albeit unwittingly, contributing to the end of their profession,
psychologists who grant complete jurisdiction to neuroscientists remark-
ably survive their symbolic death. Consider here how the psy positions
itself in relation to the problem of ADHD:
Medication is highly effective for treating ADHD. But it can’t teach you

skills for living successfully with the disorder. … That’s where psycho-
therapy comes in. [Psychotherapy] helps you better understand your
ADHD and improve all areas of your life, including home, work and
relationships.1
As one can discern in the above quote, it is the role of psychologists to

educate subjects, to teach you about certain things so that you can under-
stand your brain condition. In this respect, they not only educate patients
or their families, but also the general public: it is commonly believed, in
other words, that society at large should be taught the latest findings of
neuroscience. Simply put, the brain must be educated and this, I argue,
is one way how psychologists seemingly stay in business.
But, before we question in more detail this issue of neuro-education,
we must first ask what it means precisely to have become “somatic”
individuals? When we acknowledge the dictum “we are our brain”,2
1
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/02/23/how-to-pick-an-adhd-therapist-whos-
right-for-you/
2
What might at first glance appear to be an overly simplified phrase from popular neuroscience—
see Dick Swaab’s book (2014)—can in actual fact be attributed back to two Nobel prize winners:
The Educated Brain: A Critique of Neuroeducation 15
do we truly believe this? Might we say that this utterance is, in fact,
always over-determined by minimal doubt or at least a minimal distance?
What we might refer to as a form of disavowal: I know very well that
I am my brain, but …. In such instances, a certain surplus arises: we
suspect that there is more to it, that, in fact, there is something to being
human which is not only about the brain. It is illustrative to cite a couple
of examples here. Firstly, due to extensive media coverage we all know
that the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) is a mere contingent clas-
sification of mental disorders, because it is based on conventions and
agreements which, as such, are always contestable. Secondly, we are all
perfectly aware that the general acceptance of ADHD being brain-based
is, in actual fact, not supported by any conclusive empirical evidence. Yet
despite knowing this, I would argue, we nevertheless continue to act as if
both acronyms (DSM and ADHD) possess strong validity and are useful
for apprehending reality. The point I am making here is that, yes, we are
“somatic” individuals, but we also know the manifold caveats.
Perhaps this is nothing more than a simple case of suspending one’s dis-
belief. As is well known, a novel or a movie can only really be absorbing
and experienced as real insofar as we ignore the obvious inconsistencies
and the visible technical constructions of the illusion. Is something anal-
ogous to this taking place within neuro-discourses? But maybe, upon
reflection, it would be more appropriate to speak of a suspension of
belief apropos neuro-discourses. That is, of course we all acknowledge
that, in a sense, we are our brain: I do not doubt for one second that
if my brain stopped working at this very moment, then not one single
letter would subsequently appear on the screen in front of me. What
I am arguing is that, it is precisely this belief which is suspended in the
educational component of the neuro-turn taken up by psychologists.
For, if psychologists claim to be able to help you “better understand your
ADHD, and improve all areas of your life, including home, work and
relationships”, then are they not also presupposing not only a potential
minimal gap between you and your brain, but also a minimal space
and momentum beyond the brain? That is to say, I know very well that
Eric Kandel said “you are your brain” and Francis Crick wrote “You are nothing but a bunch of
neurons” (cited in S. Rose, 2011, p. 57).
I am my brain, but …. Apparently, something in your brain can set

itself apart from the other (malfunctioning) parts. It is this very split,
I contend, which assures that, even with the dawning of the neuro-
paradigm, psychologists are not simply superseded; rather, it is this
very minimal distance between you and your brain that brings the
educational paradigm onto the scene.
At the very least, at the level of the subjective experience, the
neuro-turn is no simple, one-dimensional phenomenon: it evokes
aporias, unsolved paradoxes and non-resolved questions (e.g., what
is materiality? what is the human, etc.?). Moreover, not only is neu-
roscience itself far from a unified field, there is also a large dispar-
ity between those manifold discourses and practices which adopt the
neuro-signifier (e.g., differences in terms of how they use and choose
to incorporate the neuro-factor). However, this is not to say that in
this very dispersion there is not also some form of unity. For, it is
precisely through a generalised neuro-education, educating the whole
of society under the banner of “you are your brain”, that the neuro
is able to establish a vast and hegemonic grip over both subjectivity
and society. Indeed, neuro-education is responsible for the manage-
ment and exploitation of the aforementioned suspension of (dis)belief
which is necessarily evoked by the neuro-turn. Throughout the media,
governmental institutions and corporations one can clearly discern
an emerging neuro-bloc, which, almost as if it were an ideological
apparatus, establishes a generalised neuro-scene, an all-encompassing
neuro-culture. Hence, there is a kind of unity within the neuro-
disparity: the unifying force of the neuro-turn is neuro-education,
whilst the common denominator is neurologisation and the way in
which it enjoins people to see oneself, others and the world through
the lens of the neuro-discourse.
It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that neuro-discourses are deeply
embedded within education itself: from parenting courses to school-
ing, there are persistent appeals to incorporate knowledge on the brain.
One should not overlook the ways in which in the transformation of the
human being into a somatic brain-individual is interwoven with, or even
built upon for that matter, the traditional metamorphosis envisioned
in education, that of the child developing into a human being. Hence,
in order to understand neuroeducation3 one must first get a handle on

the traditional transformation envisioned in education. Resisting the
temptation to cite the altogether tedious metaphor of the “larva child”
who becomes a butterfly through the “chrysalis of education”,4 I want
to turn instead to Immanuel Kant’s well-known phrase that “the human
being can only become human through education” (Kant, 2007, p. 439).
The difference between Kant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s educational
project is crucial for our purposes here. While for Rousseau there is no
doubt as to what man’s destiny is, namely nature, for Kant the ultimate
goal of education is far more abstract and aims at something which is
only asymptotically reachable: that is, for Kant man’s destiny is nothing
else than humanity itself (Kant, 2007, p. 438). Here, as Boris Demarest
(2016) succinctly remarks, Kant trades Rousseau’s “man’s place in nature”
with man’s “vocation”.5 Hence, for both Kant and Rousseau education is
future-oriented; but whereas for Rousseau the aims can be clearly stated
(the purpose of education is to return to a natural state), for Kant there
can be no such certainties in this respect: “one can never know how far
[our] natural dispositions reach” (Kant, 2007, p. 439).6 Kant specifically
relies, above all, on cultural heritage and the historical past: “one genera-
tion educates the next” (Kant, 2007, p. 437), in contrast to Rousseau
for whom the past which orients the future of education is very much a
natural past.
Turning our attention towards contemporary education, then, one
could argue that the latter strongly focuses on the present. Not only
does history tend to disappear from the curricula altogether (Billiet,
2002), but in the West there is also no longer any direct reference to a
future-oriented grand societal project. If the reader will forgive me what
3
I use the word “neuroeducation” in its unhyphenated form to designate education based on brain
research, whether in schools or in the realm of parental support, whilst “neuro-education” in its
hyphenated form designates the more general practice of teaching the so-called layperson the
theories and findings of neuroscience.
4
See here for the use of that metaphor: http://muralconservancy.org/murals/metamorphosis-
education-0
5
Rousseau writes: “Remain in the place which nature assigns to you in the chain of being”
(Rousseau, 1979, p. 83).
6
Boris Demarest remarks: “The limits are assumed to be there, but we can never make determinate
claims about them, such that Kant’s humanism is peculiar for its omission of commitment on the
nature of humanity” (Demarest, 2016, p. 111).
is a rather sweeping observation: contemporary education focuses, above

all else I would argue, on the present of the individual, the individual
with his or her psycho-neurological make-up and his or her undeveloped
potential capabilities and skills. This latter aspect, the targeting of growth
and expansion, is the only reference to the future that remains in contem-
porary educational discourse.
It is for precisely this reason, I suggest, that it is enlightening to take a
closer look at the field of neuroeducation,7 for while at first it may seem
in accordance with the Rousseauian naturalist project, it can neverthe-
less be said to eventually transcend the latter as, ultimately, the goal of
neuroeducation is not simply to reach or regain the natural state but to
go beyond it. Is neuroeducation thus Kantian? Indeed, it does clearly
envision a future enhancement of the brain beyond its natural coordi-
nates. But one should not overlook the crucial shift here. The envisioned
growth and surplus are not on the side of humanity, as in the Kantian
perspective, but on the side of the brain (more synapses, more plasticity,
etc.), a paradoxical natural surplus gained at the expense of nature. So,
after the nature versus nurture or culture discussion, we “trade up” to the
nature versus brain discussion. Here the brain itself has become the very
target of educational transformation: even though we do still encounter
educational programmes claiming that exercising your brain is, for exam-
ple, crucial for building social skills, more and more, I argue, this argu-
ment is becoming inverted, such as in the following title: “How social
relationships help build (and rehabilitate) our brains”.8
Neuro-education—note the hyphen—which educates us in neuro-
scientific theories, represents the way in which this aforesaid surplus of
“I know perfectly well that I am my brain but …” is put to work in order
to realise a surplus of the brain. If, as has been argued, the neuro-turn has
7
As aforesaid, this concerns education based on scientific brain research. For an overview of this
burgeoning field see Elena Pasquinelli’s plea for a “good marriage” between education and the
science of the mind-brain-behaviour, as well as her warning about some of the treacherous terrain
facing research and practitioners in this endeavour (Pasquinelli, 2013). In this chapter, however,
I contend that these aforementioned slippery slopes are not merely avoidable pitfalls or simple
misunderstandings; rather, they are structurally unavoidable deadlocks that undermine the entire
field of neuroeducation.
8
So went the title of a seminar, http://research.vtc.vt.edu/videos/2014/mar/31/how-social-
relationships-help-build-and-rehabilita/
a direct linkage with post-Fordist production and modes of consumption

within capitalism (see e.g., Boltanski & Chiapello, 2007), then the ratio-
nale of neuro-education can be said to provide the operative paradigm:
it is the educated brain itself which constitutes the surplus most readily
extracted by the contemporary market. Scrutinising neuroeducation, in
its unhyphenated form, which designates the manifold ways in which
neuroscience has embedded itself within education and parenting specifi-
cally, is crucial for our attempts to understand the issue I flagged up in
Chap. 1 of this book: if we successfully convince an entire generation of
children and youngsters via a generalised neuro(-)education to identify
with the brain (despite or, as we will see, precisely because of a minimal
distance from it), then what kind of subjectivities/socialities will this pro-
duce? Let me begin to address this question by providing some additional
remarks on the issue of surplus within (neuro) education; in so doing we
will open up some space, which, of course, is a prerequisite for critique.
The Question of the Surplus

In response to the popular claim that neuroscience has the potential to
revolutionise education and parenting, Bas Levering rightfully asks, as
summarised by Ramaekers and Suissa: what exactly is it that we now
claim to know which we did not know before and what exactly is it that
would follow from this knowledge (Ramaekers & Suissa, 2012, p. 21)? In
other words, what or where is the surplus? Of course, the question of the
surplus has always itself been a major issue within education. Either edu-
cation is concerned with instilling something in a subject, or it involves
decanting something extra out of you, as per the motto: plus est en vous
(there is more in you)—the personal motto of Lodewijk van Gruuthuse,
a fifteenth-century nobleman from Bruges. In the first instance, the sub-
ject is either a blank slate, or an entity with its own (developing) sub-
stance onto which something new, something extra is grafted.
With regards to the entrance of the neuro within education, one
particular surplus (constituting a major difference to the previous psy-
approaches) stands out: psychotropic medication, used to remediate a
shortage of chemical substances (whether of stimulants or inhibitors) in
the case of disorders which directly or indirectly affect learning processes.

Here, we are certainly a long way away from the classical view of educa-
tion and its envisioned surplus of the universal. Think of Plato’s idealism
and his view of education as aiming toward the illumination of universal
truth, as well as Socrates’ “maieutics” in which the soul has to be deliv-
ered from universal knowledge. Contemporary education, by contrast,
at most addresses the general level and this becomes particularly evident
with the neuro-medical turn in education. That is, it starts from a general
conception of capabilities, skills and dispositions of the human being as
these are determined, constrained or at least relayed by the material sub-
strate of the brain, and when necessary addresses the particular shortcom-
ings or deficiencies at this material level with medication.
But, of course, psychotropic medication is merely but one aspect of
how neuroscience is utilised within education and, in fact, many advo-
cates of neuroeducation would argue that it is not the most important
issue. Rather, the surplus, as many argue, pertains to the fact that now
that we know how the brain works, we can adjust our educational meth-
ods or even get rid of methods which we now know to be ineffective.
Again, this knowing does not concern the universal; indeed, on this
point, neuroscience is relatively modest: it does not attempt to show how
things are, rather it tries to envision how things work or what they look
like beneath the skull. In this respect, neuroscience is in accordance with
modern science’s lack of concern with the truth as such. Just consider
the example of evidence based methods: the central issue there is not to
know why something works, but only that it works. Scientific knowledge
envisions the statistical, mathematical rendering of what is looked upon
as the natural and material substrate of things.
To sketch out the shift that this modern conception of knowledge
effected within the field now classified as the human sciences, one could
argue that the mediaeval motto, plus est en vous, was recalibrated in the
Enlightenment in terms of the modern sciences and its knowledge. The
plus est en vous came to mean: there is something in you that you did not
know about: you have a wrong idea of what is in you, there is something
more/something else in you. Consider how Vesalius made incisions in
the skin to lay bare the modern flesh, which is entirely different to the
medieval, biblical “weak flesh”. There the plus est en vous ceased to be
a religious, moral or ethical injunction related to some universal truth,

becoming instead a scientific observation concerned with the general
knowledge of the natural, objectified and mathematised substrate. The
modern subject, then, no longer attributes causality to (evil) spirits or a
weakness of will; it is the body and the material that are now regarded as
the source of the unknown forces driving the human being.
Within the domain of the burgeoning human sciences the basic
assumption thus became that the human being suffers from a fundamen-
tal and objective misconception regarding him/herself (and by extension
regarding society) which can be, if not corrected, then at least pointed
out by science. Science, then, is inextricably intertwined with education,
aiming to make you aware of your naïve, mistaken forms of dealing with
yourself, the other(s) and the world. Today, for example, we are taught
to reconsider our thoughts on love, altruism or morality, as neuroscience
can reveal to us how these are influenced, shaped or, for some, entirely
reducible to material and evolutionary determinants.
The neurosciences clearly inherited this educational drive from the
psy-sciences. Remember, here, the primary educational intentions of
Stanley Milgram’s shock generator experiment (Milgram, 1974). In the
experiment participants are led to believe they are giving electric shocks
to another person. At the end of the experiment, Milgram enters the
room. As the ultimate representative of science, and in a truly Candid
Camera moment, he lifts the veils: not only about the deception of the
experiment—the fact that the electric shocks are fake—but, further, the
veils of our culturally induced ideas, all for the purposes of teaching us
the real social psychological mechanisms of obedience (see De Vos, 2009).
The crucial point, here, is that it is widely held that this psycho-
education will benefit us: Milgram believed in the emancipatory poten-
tial of this study. The plus est en vous can thus be turned into a surplus:
once you know how it works, you can manipulate and profit from it. Just
consider how the concept of “positive thinking” essentially rests on the
idea that you can lead or even mislead your psyche. It is this logic that
returns in full force with the neurological turn: you can fool your brain,
so we are told in both the numerous popular “train your brain” websites
and the more sophisticated academic discourses on neuro-feedback (for
an overview see Weiskopf, 2012). Do we not already move here from the
plus est en vous to the capitalist scheme of pursuing the surplus, the lat-
ter of which is achieved via outsmarting the labourer, the colonial other,
future resources etc., and now, in turn, the brain? I will return to this
point at the end of this chapter, but for now, what we could say is that
this perhaps goes some way to explaining the eagerness inherent to the
neurological turn: the contingency and volatility of psychology never
managed to flesh out the plus en vous; in neuroscience this is allegedly a
given: is it not simply the brain?
However, if we take a closer look at the gains and the expected profits
of neuroeducation, in both its popular manifestations and in terms of its
more regular and mainstream forms, are we not immediately once again
back within the territory of psychology? Brain training, for example, so
it is said, can be used to treat problems related to cognition, behaviour
and emotion (Szczerba, 2014). Here, one can discern how both the sur-
plus and espoused benefits, whilst originally formulated in neuro-terms,
eventually refer to psychological issues such as cognitions, behaviours and
so on and so forth. Hence, if we want to cast a critical gaze upon neuro-
education, it is clear that there are at least three players involved: educa-
tion, neuroscience and psychology. It might be worthwhile to disentangle
these three terms in order to relaunch a critique.
Relaunching Critique
There already exists a significant corpus of critique vis-à-vis neuroeduca-
tion. There is, for example, the likes of John Bruer, he who famously
referred to neuroeducation as “a bridge too far” (Bruer, 1997). From here
many authors call for a more cautious and deliberate approach. Busso and
Pollack, for example, argue that the “imprecise use of brain language may
undermine legitimate efforts to meaningfully incorporate neuroscience
into educational practice” (Busso & Pollack, 2014, p. 5). In the same
vein, critics have targeted the popularisations and the alleged misappro-
priations of neuroscience. Take, for example, the critique of what has
been called the neuromyths and the need to debunk them (see e.g., Ansari,
De Smedt, & Grabner, 2012). The paradigmatic example is the myth
of the lateralised brains, the notion that there are left-brain people and
right-brain people, for whom we must devise different educational meth-

ods. Alternatively, there is the popular idea that making babies or, indeed,
even foetuses listen to Mozart will in turn make them musical. These are
unscientific myths, so we are told, far removed from real neuroscience.
These critical assessments of the use of neuroscience in education and
parenting can be categorised in terms of a tripartite typology of critiques,
consisting of: too early, too little, or too much. Taking each of these in turn,
we will start with the too early: this is the critique that neuroeducation is
a premature application of science. Of course, this critique is a variant of
the too little: neuroeducation is criticised for not being scientific enough,
on the grounds that it is a form of popularised science that, in actual fact,
deforms real science. The too much taps into other arguments: that incor-
porating too much neuro within education and parenting risks overlook-
ing how the latter are independent fields which should be guarded against
all forms of neuro-colonisation. Having said this, one should consider
whether these critiques, in actuality, gloss over what is truly disturbing
about neuroeducation? For I would argue that these aforesaid critiques
leave two important issues unaddressed, or may even erect two taboos for
critique. These concern, firstly, neuroscientific knowledge and, secondly,
the issue of education.
Let me explain the foregoing through reference to a symposium
themed around critically assessing the implementation of neuroscience
in parenting and family policy that took place in Britain last year.9 At the
end of the event one of the speakers summarised the day’s talks by mak-
ing two observations: (1) nobody is against neuroscience; (2) nobody is
against parental support or help. Does this not serve as a paradigmatic
exemplar of something that I flagged up in Chap. 1 of this book, that is,
of how the neuroturn threatens to mute us, to condemn us to the locked-
in syndrome? For, indeed, it seemed self-evident to me that on this par-
ticular occasion we were being politely but nonetheless firmly silenced:
make no mistake, these are the two no-go areas, neuroscience and education,
be as critical as you want about everything else, but these are untouchable.
9
“The uses and abuses of biology: neuroscience, parenting and family policy in Britain” held in
London, 28 March 2014, see http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/parentingculturestudies/research-themes/
early-intervention/current-projects/
But can one, for example, merely be critical of “neurologised parental

support” and, in turn, plead for a form of deneurologisation, or at least
for the use of high-level and properly scientific neuroscience? However,
to begin with, how would one operationalize education or parenting?
Would one not immediately take refuge in the older psychologising con-
ceptualisations? Or, perhaps, in the very act of trying to circumvent this,
one might also be drawn into essentialising and naturalising accounts
of education and parenting. In that scenario, of course, there is the very
tempting shortcut to biology, where straight away one finds oneself right
back in neurologising territory! In short, what I am suggesting through
the use of these examples is that there is no such thing as an unproblem-
atic conception of education, it will always be theory-laden. One should
not, therefore, refrain from a critique of the practices and theories of
education and parental support. Secondly, proclaiming neuroscience as
untouchable is equally problematic, because there is also no such thing as
pure neuroscience; rather, it also will necessarily be theory-laden. Let me
expand upon this point, by way of a thoughtful but, ultimately, limited
critique of neuroscience by the neurobiologist Steven Rose:
where in this tangle of neurons, synapses and systems should one look for
love, creativity, morals and even God? In each cell’s DNA, in individual
neurons, or in ensembles of cells? … To be sure, it is possible by stimulat-
ing particular brain regions to evoke sensations, memories, even emotions,
but this does not mean that the particular memory or whatever is physi-
cally located in the region, merely that activity in that region may be a
necessary correlate of the memory. The truth is that we don’t have a com-
prehensive brain theory that lets us bridge the gaps between molecules,
cells and systems, to enable us to begin to answer the question .... Until we
know this, isn’t it a bit pretentious to think we can deal with the really big
questions? (Rose, 2008)
Contra Rose, however, why should we think there is a consensus of what

“the really big questions” are in the first place? According to Rose, we do
not know how the brain correlates with love, creativity or morals. But
is it not equally the case that we do not even know what love, creativity
or morals are? Yes, of course, we have theories about them, different
theories, contradicting theories even, but they are far from universally
accepted, with their relationship to the brain merely yet to be explained.
Hence, if, as Rose suggests, stimulating the brain evokes sensations, mem-
ories and even emotions, is it not precisely here that old psychological theo-
ries rear their head? Love, creativity and morals are not only historical and
contingent, they are also, and perhaps above all, deeply embedded within
the psy-sciences. By using the psy-signifiers sensations, memories and emo-
tions, Rose demonstrates the limitations in his critique as he has to fall
back on psychology in order to make his point about the “big questions”
yet to be answered by the neurosciences. Moreover, in doing so Rose
repeats a fundamental and structural problematic aspect of neuroscience
itself: the inevitable silent reliance on the psy-sciences to theorise the link
between the so-called human (“the really big questions”) to the brain.
Consequently, in order to remobilise critique we must first reject the
declaration of the no-go zones, that is, we have to critically address the
so-called untouchables, which in the case of neuroeducation are neurosci-
ence and education, and in the case of Steven Rose are neuroscience and the
human. The first step I take in this critical endeavour is to problematize
such duality by bringing in the third, silent partner: psychology. The next
step, which I will undertake in the following sections, is to substitute
the dichotomy of the too little/too much critique for another dichotomy,
that is, the weak/strong axis. I will set out from the contention that edu-
cation is not in and of itself a strong enough discourse, hence it must
seek reinforcement from elsewhere. Therefore, if the once hegemonic
psychologising discourse is today more and more superseded by a neuro-
logical discourse within education, then the question concerns whether
neuroscience will prove to be a stronger partner than psychology was.
At the risk of showing my hand too early, I will nevertheless foreshadow
my conclusion by saying that neuroscience will turn out to be weak, but
precisely for that very reason, highly decisive and influential in the fields
of the subjective and the social. However, in order to fully grasp what the
phenomenon of neurologisation is about precisely, we will first have to
examine every possible configuration of the too weak/too strong dichot-
omies. The next section thus begins with the first classic weak/strong
coupling: education with psychology.
Weak Education?
Although psychology since its inception, that is, since its emancipation
from philosophy and its aspiration to be a real science (Parker, 2007),
has profoundly influenced theories and praxes within education and
schooling,10 it is only in the post-World War II period (especially from
the Cold War leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall) that one can speak
of a genuine psychologisation of the school.11 One could refer here to
evolutions within psychology (e.g., the cognitive revolution in psychol-
ogy in the 1950s and 60s and its evident orientation to education), but
perhaps it is more expedient to look at some of the key changes in the
field of education itself, which can be seen as antecedents to psychology
entering the school system. In the interest of clarity, my intention here is
neither to applaud nor simply condemn this psychologisation tout court;
rather, I am interested in exploring the conditions of (im)possibility of
the psychological discourse.
Let us hereto, to cite one example, consider how in Flanders a par-
ticular kind of psychologisation of education emerged firstly in religious
teaching. Up until the 1960s catechesis fairly unproblematically cen-
tred on Christian doctrine and its ontological claims (Pollefeyt, 2004).
However, due to an increasing secularisation driven by a rapidly changing
socio-economic and cultural climate in post-war Europe, this form of
religious education became untenable. This led to what Pollefeyt refers to
as the anthropological turn in catechesis, with its focus on the subjective
experience of the individual and its reliance on the human and the social
sciences: the class became a discussion group tackling contemporary issues
(Pollefeyt, 2004). However, I would argue that rather than the anthro-
pological, it is above all the psychological discourse which one finds in
catechesis textbooks, which often recite verbatim psychological theories
10
See here, for example, Pestalozzi’s plea to psychologise education (as discussed by Bowers &
Gehring, 2004), William James’ “Talks to the teachers on psychology” (James, 1925) or Edward
Thorndike’s valuation of “The contribution of psychology to education” (Thorndike, 1910).
11
For a general assessment of psychologisation see, for example, De Vos (2012b, 2013b) and Parker
(2007), for how psychologisation operates specifically within education, see Burman (2012) and
Ecclestone and Hayes (2009), and for how psychologisation has become central in schooling see
(De Vos, 2012b; McLaughlin, 2010).
and data pertaining to, for example, puberty (puberty and sexuality
became important themes in catechesis). Just think of the typical Who
Am I? books or learning units in religious education, with the obliga-
tory drawing of a centralised Me-figure. As a religious education book
from Northern Ireland literally states, its purposes are as such: that pupils
will “have considered the term identity and what it means” (Maggil &
Colson, 2008, p. 4).
Weak catechesis, strong psychology? Perhaps this is a general issue:
psychology is invocated to re-mobilise a stranded discourse, a theory or
praxis which has reached a limit or deadlock.12 In this sense, the psychol-
ogisation of catechesis can be seen as a prelude to the psychologisation of
education as such, which also reached crisis-point itself in the post-war
era. Indeed, one could argue that with globalisation, and the shift from a
Fordist production economy towards a post-Fordist knowledge economy,
the classic educational approach, grounded in the transference of knowl-
edge and an attendant regime of discipline, had run its course. After May
’68 education, quite simply, could no longer be the same, and it is here
that the psychological turn made its appearance.
Initially the psy-discourse found its way into the school via the para-
scholar services, such as vocational guidance and psycho-medico-social
counselling. However, it did not take long for psychology to colonise the
curricula. To again use the example of Flanders, the psy-discourse entered
the classrooms via the so-called attainment targets (the minimal learn-
ing outcomes). The government stipulated, for example, that 3 to 6 year
olds should be able “to speak about feelings such as joy, fear, sorrow, and
surprise” (see Vlaamse Gemeenschap, n.d.). Authors who would applaud
this thus want the school to become “an optimal care system which gives
every child maximum opportunity of a full and well-balanced develop-
ment of their personality” (Roelands & Druine, 2000, p. 79). These
attainment targets are evidently saturated with psy-terminology: referring
to social skills, assertivity, the ability to be respectful and tolerant, etc.
(see De Vos, 2008). Kathryn Ecclestone describes a similar movement
12
The psychologisation of unemployment, for example (e.g. the individualising psycho-social pro-
grammes aimed at the unemployed), testify to the impasse governmental labour policies find them-
selves in (Crespo & Serrano, 2010; De Vos, 2012b; Parker, 2007).
in the United Kingdom whereby well-being and mental health perme-

ated the classroom through what she perspicuously calls the “curriculum
of the self ” (Ecclestone & Hayes 2009).13
However, if at first glance this looks like strong psychology, a closer
inspection might afford another perspective. For if we look at the peda-
gogical methods developed for teachers operationalising, for example,
the Flemish attainment target of “emotional literacy”, we are presented
with learning material which aims at teaching the children “a more dif-
ferentiated vocabulary concerning emotions”, in order to “express feel-
ings in a more appropriate way” (Kog, Moons, & Depondt, 1997). It is
important to highlight here how the toddlers are turned into students of
psychology: nursery school teachers introduce them into the Elementary
Psychology of Feelings. This is the ultimate undertow of psychologisation:
implementing psychology in the school cannot but involve educating the
pupils in psychology. Weak psychology, strong education?
One could argue that psychology structurally leads to the embracing
of an educational paradigm: it is in this way that psychology establishes
itself as a scientific discipline. That is, through its theories and praxes,
psychology addresses the human being as homo psychologicus and hence-
forth produces the psychologised subject who views oneself as an object of
psychology. Psychology’s that’s what you are thus invites the modern sub-
ject to view itself (as well as others and the world) via the objectifications
of the psy-discourse. Hailed into the psychological discourse we come to
identify with the operator/agent position of scientific objectivations: we
become our own psychologist (De Vos, 2012b). Psychology, then, is in
itself a weak discourse: it structurally relies on the educational paradigm;
it has to be taught. In this way psychology is psycho-education; psychol-
ogy is psychologisation. My somewhat bold claim, therefore, is that psy-
chology cannot but enter the school, whether it be as an actual course or
as learning content. This is not only discernible in the field of affective
education—although obviously the affective turn is closely related to the
psychological turn—but also in the growing preoccupation with “mental
disorders” in education. ADHD as a phenomenon, for example, is based
13
Purdy and Morrison make a strong case against the “The Northern Ireland Revised Curriculum”
and its claim for scientific support in neuroscience, condemning it for being “another unwitting
step in a ‘curriculum spiral’” (Purdy & Morrison, 2009, p. 108).
upon masses of information and educational campaigns. In clinical set-

tings even the child itself is subjected to theory: you suffer from ADHD
and you know what that is …. Even cognitive psychology must enter the
classroom as part of the curriculum14: not only are teachers taught how
humans think, but the pupils themselves are also instructed in the theo-
retical basics of cognitive processes.15 In short: the modus operandus in
the psy-praxes is the administration and the implantation of scientific
knowledge into the subject’s life-world, imploring it to internalise this
scientific, objectifying gaze and turn it upon itself.16
Moreover, as the school became an integral care-centre, the other side
of this psychologisation almost inevitably involved an equally sweeping
pathologisation. That is, a focus on the personal and the subjective runs
the risk that everything which goes wrong within schools will be framed
through the same subjective and personal paradigm. This perhaps goes
some way to explaining the widespread fixation in schools on all sorts of
personality disorders. The prevalence of ADHD, autism-spectrum disor-
ders, dyslexia, dyspraxia is a testament to this (see for a critique Timimi,
Gardner, & McCabe, 2010; Timimi & Radcliffe, 2005). It is precisely
in the growing morbidity of these mental disorders within education
that one witnesses the shift from the psychological to the neurological,
as these disorders are predominantly viewed as neurological rather than
mental disorders—the development of matching pharmaceuticals (see
higher) also played a decisive role here. Psychology, it seems, even as it has
proved to be a very powerful and invasive discourse, has a fundamental
weakness: it cannot account for that which does not work; that is, it
cannot account for what thwarts its humanist ideals. The psy-discourse
14
So if, for example, behaviourism and later Carl Rogers’ positive existentialism were important
threads in education in the recent past (as one of the reviewers of an earlier draft of this chapter
remarked), then the next move would be to look there for traces of psychologisation also, that is,
for traces where pupils and students themselves were introduced theoretically into these
psychological theories.
15
See, for example, an educational brochure for 16-year-old pupils which contains a whole chapter
on “the learning brain” dealing with the basics of cognitive psychology and its correlate neurology
(Raeymaekers 2009).
16
This sets the implementation of the psychological discourse apart from that of the medical
discourse, for example. Even though the latter often goes together with medically educating
patients, the backbone of medicalization does not rely on it: screening and vaccination programmes,
for example, can adequately run entirely independently from this.
cannot think the flaws in the psyche on its own terms, so it would appear,
and it is this that fuels the turn to the neurological (De Vos, 2012b).
Weak psychology, strong education thus must be paired with weak psy-
chology, strong neurology. Or will we again need to turn this around? I will
take a closer look to this in the following section.
Strong Neurology?
The long-standing reign of psychology as the privileged partner of edu-
cation has, arguably, now been superseded by the neurosciences. In the
space of only a few decades the brain has become a crucial component
of attempts within education to seek reinforcement from the sciences of
the mind and behaviour. For many, education as an applied science can
no longer circumvent the physicality of the brain, that is, that to which
any psychological dimension, at least so it would appear, must be referred
back to. Neuroscientific knowledge has become integral to the ways in
which we have come to think of, and give form to, education and parent-
ing. The fundamental question to be answered, then, is what changes in
education, if anything does in fact change, when a hegemonic psycholo-
gising discourse is traded for a neurological one?
Psychology, for structural reasons, necessarily has had to deflect criti-
cisms that it is grounded upon competing and conflicting theories rather
than, as it as a discipline prefers to claim, empirically certifiable facts.
Hence, the vantage point psychology implores us to adopt in order to
view ourselves was never entirely beyond doubt. With the advent of the
neurosciences this limitation is seemingly solved, as it is no longer the
psychologist who can see inside us, but rather the fMRI scan, which,
compared to the partial and blurred imagery provided by psychologi-
cal theories, allegedly delivers uncontested, high-definition images of our
brain. Weak psychology, strong neurology.
However, the question immediately rears its head: how strong is neu-
rology? Can it unilaterally encompass the field hitherto covered by the
psy-sciences? A useful touchstone via which to confront this question is
precisely the burgeoning theories and praxes of neuroeducation, which
will rapidly return us to the observation that the weak/strong carousel has
not stopped quite yet. Take, for example, the “Brain Targeted Teaching”
project of Mariale M. Hardiman of the Johns Hopkins University. It
stems from neurological research demonstrating that while particular
threats impede learning, positive emotional experiences can contribute to
long-term memory (Hardiman, 2010). The programme promotes the use
of “Mood Management Skills”, a CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy)
programme with adolescent students:
Caught up in all of its contradictions it is often difficult for you to under-

stand that adolescence is simply a phase of your life. You are embroiled in
its passion and caught in its web. You may act before you think and jump
to conclusions before checking out the entire story. Amidst all of this con-
fusion, you may need a road map that helps you find your way through this
maze called adolescence. Mood Management is a skills-building program
designed to be your road map. (Langelier, 2001, p. 1)
Adolescents, then, are to be acquainted with neurological sciences. Of

particular significance is the strongly interpellative “you”, which, together
with the developmental approach, draws the “adolescent” out of his or
her life-world and summons them to adopt the theoretical perspective of
the neurosciences to look upon themselves. “Adolescents”, we are told
elsewhere, “can learn to closely examine their emotional response to a
given situation” (Sylwester, 1994, p. 64, my emphasis). One should not
overlook how neuroeducation is packaged in an educational form: it is
neuro-education (with a hyphen), literally educating the pupils and stu-
dents themselves in neurology. The educational neuroscience laboratory
Engrammetron at the Simon Fraser University, for example, not only
offers teacher/parent workshops and presentations, but also gives stu-
dent workshops. One such workshop entails: “How to study effectively:
Strategies that consider cognition, emotion, and motivation”. Whilst the
workshop “Brain, mind, and emotion” is designed “to acquaint school
age students with what neuroscience can tell us about brain functions,
specifically learning and the affective component of human existence.”17
Weak neurology, strong education.
17
http://www.engrammetron.net/outreach/workshops.html
In order to answer the question, where does this inculcation and/or

enforcing of this meta-perspective ultimately lead to, we need only refer
to the words of neuroeducationalist Carol Langelier herself: “Emphasis is
placed on teaching them to recognize when they are in their emotional
mind with the ultimate goal of learning how to exit from it” (Langelier,
2005, p. 4, my emphasis). Here we see in vivo the shift from the psy-
chological to the neurological. For, is the basic message of this Mood
Management Skills programme not that, at the same time that you are
called upon to contemplate yourself from the expert’s perspective, you
should attempt to supersede the psychological strata? You should reject
your direct psychological ways of reacting and, hence, de-psychologise
yourself! That is, through becoming a neuro-scholar, a CBT expert
of emotions fluent in the latest research on the issue, you become
de-psychologised.
But to be absolutely clear, this de-psychologisation was always already
at work within the actual psy-discourses themselves. This was because, dur-
ing the psychological turn the subject was hailed into a position beyond
its own psychology, turning it into a mere spectre that hovered above its
own psychology. But now, during the neurological turn, the subject who
hovers above himself is seemingly grounded by virtue of such down-to-
earth issues as heart rates, oxygen levels and adrenal glands secreting cor-
tisol. Does this signal the death knell for the psyche and the expiration of
psychology and psychologisation? As I touched upon in the introduction
of this chapter, the answer is no, if only for the fact that the psy-complex
has a long-standing tradition and expertise in psycho-education which,
as we can observe, is most readily offered in service to the expansion
of the neuro-discourses. It is primarily the psychologists who are eager
to spread the news in therapy settings, schools and in the media that
ADHD, autism, dyslexia and other disorders are not psychological distur-
bances but brain disorders. Here, again, the weakness of neuroscience is
apparent: it needs to pass through education. To put it bluntly, the first
lesson of any discourse on ADHD or other learning disorders (that it is
brain based) needs so much repetition precisely because decisive evidence
for their neurological basis is still lacking. Hence, neurology’s twin is neu-
rologisation; just as in the tradition of psychology, it interpellates us into
the scientific vantage point. We are once again hovering above ourselves.
Why Psychology Sticks

The fact that neurologisation is tributary to psychologisation compels us
to consider yet another couplet still: weak neurology, strong psychology. As
aforementioned, the neuro-turn is a long way away from representing a
complete and utter supersession of the psychological by the neurological
paradigm. In much the same way that I said that psychological signi-
fiers and concepts haunted Stephen Rose’s critique, I would argue that
the same thing is at stake in neuroscientific research itself, as it remains
incapable of shaking off its psychological heritage, which becomes par-
ticularly evident in the field of neuroeducation.
If research shows, for example, that pupils with better mathematical
skills use more of this or that part of the brain than their poorly per-
forming counterparts, then this can hardly be said to be the definitive
explanation. It is neither strong nor convincing enough to overrule the
typical hermeneutic explanations (or psychologising explanations) of bad
results at schools in terms of family relations (systems theory), or in terms
of oedipal transference (psychoanalysis). In fact, one could argue that the
fundamental reason why this or that brain region is used or not is not
explained per se with neurology and fMRIs—unless one takes the radi-
cal position that educational differences only reflect lesions, anatomical
malfunctionings or idiosyncrasies. Interestingly, a project aiming to get
pupils acquainted with the “fascinating world of the brain” deals with the
same issue:
Do we really understand how the brain computes that 9 times 6 equals 54,
or how they recognize the face of my boyfriend (without equivocating it
with that of the geography teacher), or how they can remember how happy
I was with my first little bike? Even after twenty centuries of research and
speculation we do not have the answers to these questions ready at hand.
(Raeymaekers 2009, p. 5, my translation)
In the end, neurology can only show us mute images, mere chemistry and
pure electricity: there is a lot to see, to count, to show and so on, but there
is not really something to know. It is there, as the quote implies, that clas-
sic psychology reappears: one could even argue that, alongside cognitive
psychology and developmental psychology, the much maligned Freudian

psychoanalysis is evoked: indeed, how else are we to interpret the pecu-
liar example of a brain that interchanges my boyfriend with the geography
teacher, if not along standard Freudian lines of love following the oedipal
scheme and education being a setting under the spell of transference?
This weak neurology, strong psychology is the logical counterpart, then,
of the earlier weak psychology, strong neurology. That is, neurology can-
not but evoke the psychological as its hermeneutic counterpart, while
psychology cannot but solicit something like neurology in an attempt
to fix its structural groundlessness (De Vos, 2012a). Here I argue against
Andrew J. David and against Paul Howard-Jones who, in their critical
assessment of neuroeducation, propose that psychology can stand on its
own, as it would be adequately supported by behavioural studies (Davis,
2004; Howard-Jones, 2008). Nor, I claim, can neurology stand on its
own; in fact, for some neuroscientists this is not even remotely prob-
lematic: Kenneth Pugh of the Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, for
instance, says in an interview: “psychology is a glue holding the system
together, mapping the direction in brain imaging, now, 5 years from now
and into the future” (Murray, 2000). Should we not conclude, then:
brain imaging is pre-mapped, or brain mapping is pre-imagined? What
appears to be sticking is the psychology.
Consider here, as an example, how Dumontheil and Blakemore
(2012) connect social cognition to the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC).
In their review of existing literature they focus upon research which maps
the brain regions involved with understanding irony, intentions, char-
acter traits, emotions such as guilt and embarrassment, and other issues
which are considered by Dumontheil and Blakemore (and the authors
they summarise) as neutral parameters or natural variables from which
brain imaging departs. We should firmly reject this, for the simple reason
that irony, intentions, character traits, emotions—nor the understand-
ing of them—are far from natural or independent variables; rather, they
derive from specific theories in the psychology of emotions. Simply put,
then, what is ultimately placed under the scanner is not the psyche as
such but, rather, psychological theory itself. Consequently, it is evident
that the neurological turn does not signal the death-knell for psychology;
in fact, the point of departure for neurological research is inevitably still
psychology and its sets of assumptions, which provide the initial material
and research base for neurology. Hence, also, the tautological risk: psy-
chology is supposed to underpin neurological research while the latter is
more and more evoked as the final proof of the scientific validity of the
psychological theories themselves.
Moreover, one could argue that fMRI, and similar imaging research,
necessarily depart from very basic and simple theories of the mind as
these have to be easily operationalised in the very basic and straightfor-
ward laboratory settings of neurological research. Both the very practical
restrictions of fMRI research (e.g., the test person has to lay down, the
head must be immobilised—technical problems which might be one day
superseded), and the basic rationale of brain imaging (parallelism and
correlationalism) thus demand a very straightforward, simplified theory
of the human.
In the research cited by Dumontheil and Blakemore (2012), for exam-
ple, social cognition is made operational via mentalising tasks assessing
the understanding of irony, the latter conceived as “separating the lit-
eral from the intended meaning of a comment” (Wang, Lee, Sigman, &
Dapretto, 2006, p. 108). In Wang et al.’s experiment we have a very
practical, binary point of departure: in situation A: the literal and the
intended meaning match; in situation B: the literal and the intended
meaning differ (Wang et al., 2006). This comes in handy in terms of
brain imaging, because fMRI also hinges on a binary division: regions of
the brain light up or do not light up:
Following the sincere or sarcastic comment, participants were asked to

decide whether the speaker really meant what he or she said. Yes/no
judgments were indicated by pressing a button with the index or middle
finger, respectively. (Wang et al., 2006, p. 109)
This ignores that irony precisely relies upon the blurring of such black
and white, on and off reasoning. The task given to an fMRI-immobilised
test subject could thus be thought of as rather unworldly and artificial,
and hence completely irrelevant to understanding a real human being.18
18
However, one should also take into consideration, in this respect, my comment in the introduction
to this book regarding how this artificiality might mirror our present-day condition.
At the very least, the term weak psychology takes on additional meaning
here: it points to a simplified, insipid and flat form of psychology. This
thin cardboard-esque psychology, moreover, is the very reason why the
sophisticated and high-tech neurosciences more often than not end up
like the proverbial mountain bringing forth a mouse: basing sophisti-
cated neuroscientific research on a flat psychology cannot lead far. In
the Dumontheil and Blakemore paper, for example, the social cognition
research allegedly reveals a decreased activation level of the MPFC region
in adulthood. This is then ever so tentatively explained as:
One possibility is that the cognitive strategy for mentalising changes

between adolescence and adulthood. For example, adults may rely more on
previous experiences to interpret social situations than adolescents, who
instead might base their judgement on novel computations performed in
the MPFC. This possibility may be related to the skill learning hypothesis
(Johnson, 2011), whereby one region first supports a certain function, but
another brain region may take over later in development, and according to
which the PFC may be particularly involved during the learning of new
abilities. A second possibility is that the functional change with age is due
to neuroanatomical changes that occur during this period. (Dumontheil &
Blakemore, 2012, p. 104, my emphasis)
Here, the ostensibly precise high-tech neurosciences end up engaging

in high speculation.19 As the psychology underpinning neuroscience is
itself weak, the resulting neuroscientific findings cannot but also come in
equally weak and indecisive terms.
This shared weakness, I argue, ultimately means that the contem-
porary neuro-psy-sciences fail to hit the contemporary psychologised
and neurologised subject that they seek to address. That is to say, they
fail to account for how their research and their theories inevitably and
structurally interpellate the subject to occupy the vantage point of the
neuropsy-sciences and thus becomes a meta-subject, beyond both the
brain (a non-human, non-experiential, non-phenomenological entity),
19
One should acknowledge, to the authors credit, that many others when dealing with the same
task of interpreting similar data, often trade this tentative way of writing for a firm and unambiguous
style.
and the mind or the psyche (in its turn a non-human, non-experiential,
non-phenomenological category). This problematic Von Munchausen
meta-subject—he who is able to pull itself out of the morass by its
own hair and thus transcends both nature and nurture—ultimately
reminds us of Kant’s equally paradoxical subject of education: “man
can only become man by education”. It is this very subject, however,
that the contemporary neuro-psy-sciences try to keep at bay, whilst,
paradoxically, simultaneously mobilising it. Consider the fact that in
neuroeducation man must become his brain in order to supersede it,
to gain a surplus from it, or, to put it more simply yet still, to achieve
profit from it. This is why, as I address in the next section, the educated
brain represents such a willing and easy target for the contemporary
market.
A Critique of Neuronal Economy

Let us begin with the observation that what education is, what it is good
for and what purpose it actually serves, is a question which, remarkably,
is either barely addressed or completely omitted from the field of neuro-
education. Consider, for example, the way in which the well-known and
widespread idea that the neurosciences reveal the relevance of affect in
education is taken for granted and/or seen as obvious in the literature.
The basic message of a paper by Mary H. Immordino-Yang and the well-
known neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, for example, is that we have
the wrong idea about learning: rational thought is not opposed to the
affective; the affective always already permeates rational thought and is
a necessary and inextricable part of it (Immordino‐Yang & Damasio,
2007). While the authors consider this a ground-breaking insight, our
initial reaction may be to simply shrug our shoulders: is this not old hat,
a commonplace insight? However, the real issue is perhaps that, given
that the authors want to sketch “a biological and evolutionary account
of the relationship between emotion and rational thought” (Immordino‐
Yang & Damasio, 2007, p. 3), they all too readily and uncritically con-
clude that addressing this issue is what education is about. By making the
brain the locus of educational praxis in this way, Immordino-Yang and
Damasio unwittingly transform the old dualistic nature versus nurture

discussion into the paradoxical, but just as dualistic, nature versus brain
dichotomy that I mentioned earlier. That is, in another apparent Von
Munchausen-esque gesture, educating the brain seems to be required
in order to confront nature. Perhaps this paradox is at work in many
contemporary disorders themselves, albeit in a reversed way: in the case
of ADHD, genderdysforia and autism, for example, nature (i.e., ideal
nature or nature as it supposedly should be), is thwarted by the impaired
or weak brain! The brain, then, is supposed to play tricks with nature and
it is on this same paradoxical level that theorists of neuroeducation place
education: the goal is to strengthen the brain to the point where it even-
tually overcomes its nature. Hence, the first question to be asked of such
supporters of neuroeducation might not be, what do you mean by ‘neuro’
but, rather, what do you mean by ‘education’?
At a minimum, it is evident that the cognitive-emotional divide, once
a central construct within the old public/private partition, is no longer
believed to be the bedrock of education.20 Formerly, in the period of
capitalist industrialism during which the nuclear family was the stan-
dard unit of living, the partition concerning education ran according to
the established public/private divide. That is, the school dealt with ratio-
nal thought, while emotions, if deemed to be unhelpful for attempts
to instil discipline and character in support of the rational project,
were supposed to be reserved for the realm of the home and the family.
Evidently, the psy-sciences played a central role in the construction and
grounding of this partition. The call, initiated towards the end of the
previous century, to bring emotions and other subjective matters into
education thus signalled that the educational division of labour was no
longer operating effectively. This led to a decisive and profound shift in
public forms of education and schooling. Formerly, education used to
be disinterested in the personal and the psychological, in the sense that
you were not probed on these terrains. Now, by contrast, in contem-
porary schooling everybody is duty-bound to bring the personal into
20
To be clear, I’m not endorsing a kind of naturalised difference between public and private. That
distinction is always contingent, historically constructed and ideologically grounded. I come back
to this issue in Chap. 7.
the equation; in fact, not doing so is readily considered as indicative of

problems or even disorders.21
Hence, the aforementioned crisis in education pertaining to what edu-
cation actually is, that to which the psy-discourses came to the rescue,
might in the first place concern a faltering partition of the public and
the private sphere. Why don’t you share your emotions with us, as Dr Phil
says, the echoes of which can be heard in the classrooms during circle
time. Hence, if the psy-sciences initially (co)constructed the realm of the
private and the subjective, then they also eventually came to deliver the
very paradigms through which this once ostensibly sovereign and private
terrain folds over, as it were, to the public and political domain. In other
words: (psycho)neurologising subjectivity means turning the private
inside-out to the public.
Do we not, moreover, end up being unable to conceive not only of edu-
cation, but also, more generally, of the public and cultural field as such?
Let us reconsider the aforementioned blind-spot within the psy-paradigm
which leaves it structurally unable to account for that which does not
work, and pushes it towards the neurological paradigm. Learning disabil-
ities, for example, are believed to be brain-based and heritable (Fletcher,
2012), and violence and aggression are considered as dysfunctions of the
neural circuitry (Davidson, Putnam, & Larson, 2000). Concomitantly,
today, any potential malfunctioning in the social or political spheres is
increasingly reduced to the biological and the neurological. Think of the
attempts to explain the success of right-wing rhetoric with the functioning
of the amygdala (see e.g., Connolly, 2002). Even if one professes an inter-
dependence of the biological and the cultural, problems and symptoms
seem to be only thinkable at the level of the biological (De Vos, 2013a).22
Whilst, for example, Connolly explicitly claims an interdependency of
nature and culture, and Davidson et al. point to environmental and social
influences, these authors converge around the position that the sole and
conclusive ground for explanation is the brain; the cultural is thus no
21
Of course, I am not calling for a return to a rational knowledge and disciplinary model within
education. My interest, again, is to look for the conditions of (im)possibility within, in this particu-
lar case, education.
22
I will expand upon this in Chap. 7.
longer thought of as being capable of harbouring problems in its own

terms. Hence: strong biology, weak culture.
However, and somewhat paradoxically, the central claim of neu-
roeducation is that, ultimately, biology is not that strong, for, as I
pointed towards earlier, it can be manipulated or, to use the proper
terminology, it can be managed by an educated brain. This is where,
surprisingly, Immordino-Yang and Damasio conceive of emotions in
a very technical, functional and cold-rationalistic way. When they
describe how patients with brain damage fail to put into use their
emotional resources, they note that they have lost “their ability to ana-
lyze events for their emotional consequences and to tag memories of
these events accordingly” (Immordino‐Yang & Damasio, 2007, p. 5).
Living becomes an issue of “managing life” using “emotional strate-
gies” (Immordino‐Yang & Damasio, 2007, p. 7). Here, the life-world
is academified: the lay person is viewed as a scholar, someone who tags
events, providing them with metadata and deals with them as if he was
an entrepreneur. Hence, strong education/culture/economy, weak nature/
life-world? The urgent question, as such, is if neuroeducation in this
way is not the ideal tool for the neo-liberalisation and mercantilisation
of the school. The fact that schools take the emotional on board can in
part be explained by the fact that single or dual working parents no lon-
ger have the requisite time to dedicate to the emotional regulation of
their children. But perhaps a more pertinent argument yet still, is that
it is precisely in this way that the emotional field can be put to use for
the particular surplus characteristic of the post-Fordist affect-economy
and post-Fordist market: that is, the direct commodification of social
relations and subjectivity through installing a neurologised subject in
charge of managing its brain.
In a paper by Darcia Narvaez on “moral neuroeducation”, for example,
this becomes particularly clear. As such, the paper is riven by a grand écart
between, on the one hand, serotonin, glucocorticoid, DNA synthesis and
the hippocampus, and, on the other, “agreeable personalities” and “child
cooperation and behavior regulation” (Narvaez, 2012, p. 148). Neuro-
education, educating the so-called layperson into neuroscientific theories,
is the paradigmatic attempt to close this gap. It is precisely here where
neuro-education turns out to be neuro-economy: the subject is turned
into the academically informed entrepreneur of his brain. Consider,
in this regard, how Narvaez defines morality within a spectrum of devel-

opment from “novice to expert”. She urges the layperson to read books
on “mindfulness” and “socialize with people who cultivate it” (Narvaez,
2012, p. 150). Narvaez thus speaks of “expertise”, “capacities”, “know-
how”, “flexible innovative responses” (Narvaez, 2012, pp. 149–150).
Here, the underlying humanistic psychology shows its true face: portray-
ing the pupil as an agent involved in “information processing, judging
action, taking action” (Narvaez, 2012, p. 150) seems to be, far from a
description of moral development, above all the description of the ideal
information worker within our digital era!
Conclusions
In concluding with a discussion of the role of the neuro-discourses in
the realisation of surplus in late-capitalism, this brings us back to one of
the central critiques against the eager embracement of the neurosciences
within education. That critique concerns the following questions: what
do we know more about now because of neuroscience? What do neuro-
scientists teach us that we did not in fact already know, besides telling
us where this or that ‘function’ is ostensibly located in the brain? In this
chapter, I have demonstrated that the surplus, above all, hinges on redis-
tributing positions. That is, neuro-education wants everybody, from the
teachers, parents, up to and including the child, to know about the brain.
And as we are turned into proto-neurologists ourselves, we can bene-
fit from this knowledge. Or, as Immordino-Yang and Damasio put it:
“The more people develop and educate themselves, the more they refine
their behavioral and cognitive options” (Immordino‐Yang & Damasio,
2007, p. 7). They literally speak of managing one’s physiology, mind and
life (Immordino‐Yang & Damasio, 2007, pp. 4 and 5) without taking
into account that neuroeducation culminates in neuro-education and its
aforementioned paradoxes which I have documented in this chapter (you
become your own Von Munchausen-like educator, your own pedagogue).
But here, of course, the question arises: is neurologisation not a mere
continuation of psychologisation? For we have already identified within psy-
chology the interpellation of the modern subject to understand itself, others
and the world as if he or she were a psychologist. In neuro(-)education,
this partition of discursive positions is repeated: everybody is called upon

to become a student of neuroscience. Nevertheless, a peculiar shift can be
discerned in this changing of the guard. Ramaekers and Suissa rightfully
argue that “more so than developmental psychological language, neuro-
psychological language has the effect of establishing the idea that it is now
possible to have ‘real knowledge’” (Ramaekers & Suissa, 2012, p. 20).
In other words, we have moved from the contingencies of competing
and conflicting psychological theories to the firm ontology of neurosci-
ence. And this, in contradistinction to the limits of classical psychology,
allegedly has the means to effect very tangible and material effects in
education. For example, the previously discussed “Mood Management
Program” literally claims that its nine-steps programme actually alters the
number and strength of synapses: “[i]t is exciting to realize that as adoles-
cents learn these steps, they are actually changing their brain” (Langelier,
2005, pp. 5–6).
Here we have it again: strong culture/education is believed to be capable
of changing nature/biology. Using current fashionable-terms such as epi-
genesis and plasticity, the aforementioned Narvaez writes that “individu-
als can modify brain malfunctioning through a change in activities which
modify neuronal functioning” (Narvaez, 2012, p. 149). Or, phrased oth-
erwise: fine-tune your brain, or, even, fool your brain in order to make
profit and extract surplus value from it. In much the same vain, Douglas
Chute, a neuropsychologist at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, expresses
his hopes in an interview:
that eventually his research team can use nIRS—a portable imaging form
involving a sensor clamped to the head—to find out if conditioned changes
in blood flow to various brain regions can improve learning performance in
ADHD children. In real time, children would watch on computer screens
how their blood flow changes as they approach learning tasks differently.
(Murray, 2000)
Somebody must be writing an app right now. But are we not here shift-
ing from heavy ontology to the virtual world of screens and avatars?23
23
Remember, in this respect, the brain-in-vat thought experiment discussed in the introduction of
this book.
At the least, the assumption that visualising your inner core would allow
you to transcend your hardware is not unproblematic, for it appears to
posit an unquestioned virtual vantage point from where, as if in some
control room, a homunculus steers and corrects the workings of the brain
by means of some unexplained, if not magic, contrivances.
In this respect it seems that neuroscience potentially has a far greater
effect than the old, inevitably speculative psy-sciences. Just consider how
Laurence Steinberg, on the one hand, proclaims in a very balanced fash-
ion that the relevance of brain science for policies and laws concerning
adolescents is far from straightforward, whilst, on the other hand, claim-
ing knowledge on brain development is important: “… because this is
part of what it means to be 15” (Steinberg, 2009, p. 747). But, and here
we arrive at a crucial point, is the problem here not precisely that neuro-
science, through its claim to provide the meaning of being 15, actually
risks taking away from the adolescent the experience of the very meaning-
lessness of being 15? That is, at the risk of psychologising, is not puberty
a privileged encounter with the fundamental alienation of the modern
subject? Being 15 in my estimation is not so much about the struggle
involved with what it means to be 15, but rather with its meaningless-
ness, or at the very least, it is about struggling against all the meanings
imputed by the vested authorities about being 15.
To take this a final and decisive step further, this might eventually be
the ultimate lesson of the booming neurosciences themselves. That is,
if I as a 15-year-old am told how my brain functions—this is the crux
of neuroeducation as we have seen, everybody has to know—is such a
knowledge not in danger of producing the question: if what I feel, desire
or do is dictated by my brain, does this not leave me like the proverbial
dog watching a sick cow? Or, maybe we could think of Actaeon here,
who, punished for having seen Diana naked, is turned into a stag and
subsequently attacked by his own hounds. As Philip Hardie writes: “He
would like to be absent, but he is present, and he would like to see, not
feel as well, the fierce actions of his dogs” (Hardie, 2002, p. 169). Is this
strange and troublesome absence/presence duality not equally opera-
tive within neuroeducational discourses, in the sense that in becoming
the educated brain one is also enjoined to be present with one’s own
absence? For, in the end neuroscience itself reveals to us the fundamental
alienation of the modern subject, the ancient wound of meaningless-

ness. Neuroscience eventually presents us with a zero-level of subjectiv-
ity: neuroscience takes apart the psychological entity we are imagined
to be. Even if the radical conclusion is that there is nobody at home in
the brain (see e.g., Metzinger, 2003), that there is no self (Churchland,
2013) or no Ego (Dennett, 1991), then this is not always made explicit
or pursued to its logical conclusion. The contemporary neurosciences
are a long way from delivering much forward momentum to ongoing
attempts to revive a fully fleshed-out subject or a factual agency, and
this is the very skandalon obfuscated in the neurosciences themselves.
In the end, the neurosciences, and this becomes particularly apparent
in the field of neuroeducation (structurally and inevitably?) succumb to
the temptation to know, finally, what it means to be 15, or more gener-
ally yet, what it is to be human. And as everybody is interpellated to
assume this knowledge, to look upon oneself from the perspective of the
neurosciences, this neurologisation brings into being a new, although
albeit this is not necessarily made explicit, unified image of the human:
the homo academicus, the agent looking with sheer amazement at the
colourful brain scans.
This return of the homunculus, the homunculus academicus homun-
culus academicus, becomes clear in Narvaez’s case, when she defines mind-
fulness as follows: “It means pulling oneself out of automatic responses
to familiar contexts and paying attention to the newness in the situation”
(Narvaez, 2012, p. 150). The Cartesian spectre, generally denounced in
the neurological turn as it presupposes some extra-neurological transcen-
dental notion, is still haunting the neurosciences. The unacknowledged
new homunculus, however, does not merely scrutinize sensory input and
information flows, but ostensibly is in control of the buttons that really
matter: switching brain regions on or off, controlling chemical flows, if
not by “singing, playing, dancing, laughing”, as Narvaez has it (Narvaez,
2012, p. 151), than with psychofarmaca.
Is this version of neurobics not a consequence of the pitfall of the so-
called mereological fallacy that is said to be threatening both popular and
scholarly approaches to neuroeducation? This fallacy involves ascribing
to the parts of a thing attributes that can be ascribed only to the thing
as a whole. That is, psychological attributes are allegedly attributed to
the brain while they can be intelligibly ascribed only to the human
being as a whole (Bennett & Hacker, 2003). This could be considered
as the point of origin of the construction of a homunculus supposed
to be capable of influencing and training its brain. If your brain is the
one doing the thinking, feeling and knowing, then this calls to life an
extra-agency mastering the brain and steering the thinking, feeling and
knowing. In his paper, “Three requirements for justifying an educational
neuroscience”, George G. Hruby considers the mereological fallacy as a
touchstone to differentiate between the “popular industry in brain based
educational methods, workshops, and materials” and the “serious schol-
arship and professional organisations dedicated to the coherent bridg-
ing of the neurosciences with educational research” (Hruby, 2012, p. 2).
Attributing behaviours anthropomorphically to the nervous system, he
writes, would be like saying that one’s digestive system is having dinner
(Hruby, 2012, p. 6).
However, the problem of the critique of the mereological fallacy is that
it still considers psychology as being strong enough to mean something
in its own right. In the same way that Stephen Rose’s recourse to the
psychological categories such as sensations, memories and emotions is
problematic, Bennett and Hacker’s uncritical use of the concept of “psy-
chological predicates” should be questioned. This is what is most often
overlooked in current attempts to debunk popular neuromyths and cat-
egorical mistakes in neuroeducation with the goal to save neurology and
put forward a better, more pure form of neuroeducation (Howard-Jones,
2008; Kraft, 2012; Schrag, 2013). See, for example, Howard-Jones’ argu-
ment that we do not always need neuroscience if psychology has proved
to do the job well (Howard-Jones, 2008), or Bakhurst, who, in arguing
that the “human mind is a psychological unity” puts forward psychology
in order to save us from the cold technological dehumanised neurohege-
mony (Bakhurst, 2008, p. 422). Also Hruby in his critique on neurol-
ogy returns to the alleged firmness of psychological conceptualisations
(Hruby, 2012).
However, ultimately, the true bearing of the mereological fallacy is
not as much, as Bennett and Hacker contend, that it “makes no sense
to ascribe psychological predicates (or their negations) to the brain”
(Bennett & Hacker, 2003, p. 72), a point condensed by Frank Vander
Valk as “the brain has no psychology” (Vander Valk, 2012, p. 11),
rather, the crucial question is: is there anything else which would have
a psychology? As aforesaid, due to the fundamental interpellative para-
digm of the (neuro)psy-sciences a surplus subject sees light which itself
has no psychology. It therefore makes no sense to ascribe psychological
predicates to no matter what or whom. As recently psychology migrated
from the person or the self to the brain, it shows itself to have always
been a symptom, the symptom of the subject of the sciences.
This means that one should not mistake the neurosciences as a threat
to subjectivity. For, precisely via its popularisations and alleged misap-
propriations, the neurological turn reveals itself to be a vigorous attempt
to save subjectivity, to build it up, to inflate it, or, to use the appropriate
term here, to flesh it out. While in Ovid the metamorphosis most often
entails, alongside the becoming voiceless, the loss of individuality and
humanity, it is to the latter that the neurosciences invariably seem to
cling. Just consider how the neurosciences (cannot but) deny the possibil-
ity that subjectivity can be flawed in its own right: for the neurosciences
the subject does not lose track of itself, it is always on track; when it is off
track, some brain lesion or dysfunction is present, or will be found. As for
neuroscience, there is nothing wrong with the subject, it is the ultimate
attempt to safeguard the Ego as the substantialisation of the psycholo-
gised Cartesian cogito.
The issue, therefore, is not to deneurologise education, nor is it for that
matter to depsychologise it, for in doing so we would only contribute
to the naturalising tendencies embedded within the neurologisation and
psychologisation of education itself. That is, in opting to link education
in the last instance to the nature of the brain, the current strands of
neuroeducation only repeat Rousseau’s de-educational programme, which
was based on the idea that education only needs to fulfil nature’s plan.
What is required to oppose this vulgar materialism—referred to as thus
because ultimately it is based on stuffing the ostensibly material with
psychological fillings—is a repositioning of materiality itself. That is, it
is only by rethinking materiality in relation to subjectivity that we might
be able to rethink and, indeed, re-invent education. Henceforth, in the
next chapter I will engage with the issue of the material brain, in order to
explore the possibilities for decentring materiality.
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3
The Material Brain: A Plea
for the Uselessness of Psychoanalysis
Introduction
There would appear to be an intimate connection between psy-theories and
practices, and political engagement and political critique. Psychologists
have been known, on occasion, to speak out politically when they are
forced to by their everyday clinical work. This occurred recently when
(alleged) changes or intensifications in symptomatology were linked to
shifting economico-political circumstances. Paul Verhaeghe, for example,
understands the rise of depression, ADHD, anxiety and other disorders
in relation to the global spreading of neo-liberal meritocracy (Verhaeghe,
2014). Does this not mean that, just as symptomatology is historically,
culturally and politically contingent, forms of subjectivity are also sub-
ject to metamorphoses? In this respect, Verhaeghe argues that the two
domains of the psyche and the political are closely interrelated: “different
social structures will lead to different processes of identity-creation and to
different mental disorders” (Verhaeghe, 2012, p. 55).
However, should we not also consider the possibility that in such a
scenario psychological discourse transforms into a political one as it reaches
its own limits? That is, psychology today can be said to be in crisis: with

Discontents, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50557-6_3
the rise of the neurological discourses and their stress on the material base
of behaviour and cognitions, the psy-factor, as such, has become redun-
dant. As psychology is but the function of something material, it itself
thus becomes superfluous and loses its own explanatory weight. Does
this account for a particular political turn in psychology, inasmuch as it
signals an attempt to recover meaning, agency, choice, subjectivity—all
of the things that make up what we would call the human realm—as
something to be understood in its own right?
However, to make matters yet more complex, one can also consider
the obverse observation, that is, that of political theory going psy when it
encounters its boundaries. Consider, for instance, the traditional recourse
to the psy-factor to explain how dominant ideologies are able to disguise
their strategies and methods as being merely obvious, if not natural. Or,
said otherwise, psychological mechanisms are invoked to elucidate how
people experience such ideological machinations in everyday life as self-
evident. Today, moreover, one could even go as far as to speak of politics
itself going psy, as such. This psychological turn within politics itself is fore-
most exemplified in the personalisation of politics with its concomitant
focus on character traits, emotions, or perceptions of both the politician
and the voter. Does this not bear witness to the fundamental failure of
a political analysis, or even more troublingly, of the withering away of
the political perspective altogether? The latter might be understood in
the light of the rise of global capitalism making the political factor, as
such, redundant. Politics, in effect, has become nothing but the function
of material forces today; it is the market and finance which ultimately
determine policy, not the politicians. Does this, in turn, account for the
psychological turn in politics, inasmuch as it signals an attempt to regain
some grasp on the impersonal volatile forces ruling the world?
In this chapter I argue that, in order to disentangle these dynamics
within the couplet of politics and psychology, it is important to transcend
this duality by taking the second term (the psy-field) apart and breaking
it up. After all, to begin with, in political theory (at least in the conti-
nental tradition) it is not psychology but rather psychoanalysis which
serves as a starting point for ideology critique. From Freudo-Marxism,
up to current attempts to transcend its deadlocks via an engagement
with Lacanian psychoanalysis (e.g., Slavoj Žižek, Ernesto Laclau, Alain
The Material Brain: A Plea for the Uselessness of Psychoanalysis 55
Badiou), the Freudian legacy in ideology critique can hardly be over-

estimated. Moreover, one can also observe an emergent political turn
within psychoanalysis itself, as the writings of Žižek and others not only
made cultural and political scholars turn to psychoanalysis, but also
directed psychoanalytic clinicians towards the political (Ian Parker, Paul
Verhaeghe, Lynn Layton). Arguably, then, the political turn is far more
central in psychoanalysis than in psychology, where it predominantly
affects the periphery (e.g., the field of so-called critical psychology).
Rather than being subjected to a political turn, mainstream psychology,
as I have argued in this book, has been swept away by a neurological wave,
with the psychological paradigm gradually being replaced by the neuro-
logical one within psychology departments. Neuroscience, which occu-
pies a central place in today’s psy-field, thus takes its place as the fourth
term of our matrix, alongside politics and ideology critique, psychology
and psychoanalysis.
As it stands presently, the loops and feedbacks between those four
domains are manifold. Addressing them—and this is the central con-
tention of this chapter—is wholly necessary if one agrees that Arthur
Rimbaud’s dictum, il faut absolutement être moderne (one must be abso-
lutely modern) today more than ever boils down to il faut absolutement
être materialiste (one must be absolutely materialist). However, to be clear
from the outset, the crucial question is: which materialism? I shall explore
this via a critical dialogue with Adrian Johnston, I will delineate what
kind of materialism a psychoanalytical point of view could or should
envision given the current developments in the other fields of politics,
psychology and neurology. But, first, I want to take a closer look at how
psychology and neurology intersect, so as to demonstrate how material-
ism is invariably accompanied by its shadow of virtuality.
The Neuropsy-Sciences: Materiality

and the Virtual (Re)turn
Let us begin with the observation that in the psy-sciences the neuro-
logical turn is perhaps more difficult to comply with than originally
imagined. As I demonstrated in the previous chapter, the neurosciences
themselves testify to the inveterate persistence—albeit often unac-

knowledged—of the psychological paradigm. Indeed, if in today’s
psy-sciences psychological signifiers (emotions, self-realisation, social
relations, etc.) are said to be substituted with purportedly purely neu-
rological ones (serotonin or oxytocin levels, for example), closer inspec-
tion actually reveals that, at the very least, in order to make sense of
the serotonin or oxytocin levels the neurosciences themselves patently
draw upon “pre-neurological” psychology. Consider Jaak Panksepp’s
(2005) taxonomy of the “emotional systems of the mammalian brain”,
in which he identifies four emotions systems (seeking, panic, rage and
fear) in conjunction with, in mammals, three additional systems (lust,
care and play). Is this not a classic instance of mapping psychology
onto brain charts? After all, and on this point I want to be as clear
as possible, emotions are not identifiable biological variables: what
emotions (or, for that matter, affects1) are or how they are differenti-
ated from each other is evidently the subject of (socio)psychological
interpretation.2
Hence, if it is generally accepted that pre-investigatory assumptions
incontrovertibly shape the outcome of neurological research, these are
not residual hangovers from non-academic common prejudices or lay-
person’s folk psychology; rather, they stem from academic psychologi-
cal theories themselves. It is, for example, psychology which provides
the basic terms (altruism, love, violence) for which the neurosciences
seek to retroactively establish the material basis. In order to devise trig-
gers for fMRI-research, a certain psychological theory of those first
terms is indispensable and this inevitably leads to circuitous loops
1
I’ll expand on this highly fashionable but equally highly contestable distinction in Chap. 7.
2
In this respect, we could immediately criticise Panksepp’s taxonomy by taking recourse to a
Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective. Lacan famously rejects the psychologising approach to emo-
tions, and proposes that there is only one affect that does not deceive, that is, anxiety (Lacan, 2004,
p. 41). In this way, any taxonomy of emotions is bound to be ridden by imaginary and symbolic—
and thus fundamentally deceptive—pre-conceptions. The question of whether anxiety itself could
be localized in the brain (be it in a specific area or in a dynamic network) loses its relevance in light
of Lacan’s argument that anxiety is “not without its object”. That object is not the alleged reality of
materiality of the brain but, rather, pertains to Lacan’s object a which directs us towards a different
understanding of reality and materiality. This is the argument I develop in the remainder of this
chapter.
and tautologies.3 Moreover, as neuroscience is structurally intertwined

with psychology, it is thus necessarily marked by the mechanisms
of psychologisation, leading, in turn, to a similar process of neurol-
ogisation whereby the lay person is invited to adopt the gaze of the
neuro-expert when looking at oneself, the other and the world at large.
Neuroeducation, as discussed at great length in the previous chapter, is
a case in point, educating both parents and children in the theoretical
basics of neuropsychology.
Hence, one radical critique might be that the neurosciences do not
realise their claim of materialism. It is not about neurological research
becoming psychologised in a secondary movement; neurology is always
already psychologised. The problem is not that the neurosciences effect a
complete reduction of the mind to the material; rather, the issue is that
they fail to do this. They fall back on psychological variables, openly and/
or covertly, and thus undermine their own claim that they simply deal
with the pure material basis of human issues. This is why in our squared
matrix the two terms of neurology and psychology constitute a problem-
atic pair: their seemingly natural and logical alliance becomes impossible
and unworkable as the two terms are always on the verge of collapsing
into one another.
However, instead of coming at this in terms of the weak/strong dichot-
omy, as I did in the previous chapter, here the guiding polarity will be
that of materiality and virtuality. For it is precisely there that the neu-
rosciences’ attempts to fully comply with the materialist condition runs
aground, as not only do the traditional psychological paradigms again
rear their head, but also materiality itself invariably flips over to virtual-
ity, as I alluded to in Chap. 1 of this book. It appears that the material-
ity of the brain rapidly leads to, on the one hand, imagery of hardware
and brain circuitry, and, on the other hand, software and information
processing. As such, it seems highly noteworthy that at the very same
moment that contemporary, mainstream intellectual doxa seeks to reduce
all that is human to the material realm—it’s not psychological, it is about
3
Saxe, Carey, and Kanwisher (2004), for example, ground their neurological theory of altruism in
developmental psychology, while at the same time the authors they refer to ground their develop-
mental theories of altruism in neurological views.
genes and brain matter—our lives are increasingly being mediated or,
moreover yet still, taking place in a virtual, immaterial environment. Or,
phrased otherwise: at the precise juncture that the human is all too read-
ily reduced down to chemistry, biology and even quantum mechanics,
subjectivity has concomitantly become a matter of moving through the
a-material virtual life-world of Facebook, Twitter, online gaming, avatar
worlds, e-communities and so on.
How can we understand this? Perhaps we could begin by say-
ing that there is clearly a drive towards the virtual within both actual
materialist theories and neuro-discourses themselves. From a neuro-
phenomenological perspective, for example, Francisco Varela explicitly
links “self ” to “virtual identity”. From the notion of emergence (which
designates how self-organisation at a certain level gives rises to a new onto-
logical level) follows that “de facto life is something in excess, a way of
being in nature which is not substantial but is, so to speak, virtual—effi-
cacious but virtual” (Varela & Benvenuto, 2002). Stressing the material
base of subjectivity and evoking the brain as its direct seat, thus rapidly
leads towards the virtual, not only in phenomenological approaches, but
also in classical philosophy of mind, such as in the example of the afore-
mentioned brain-in-vat thought experiment (see Chap. 1), in which an
isolated brain is connected to a computer in order to generate a virtual
experiential world.
Moreover, in the digitalisation and virtualisation of subjectivity and
the social world one can readily retrace the influence of (neuro)psycho-
logical theories. As Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, says literally:
I think that that’s one of the core insights that we try to apply to developing
Facebook. What [people are] really interested in is what’s going on with the
people they care about. It’s all about giving people the tools and controls
that they need to be comfortable sharing the information that they want.
If you do that, you create a very valuable service. It’s as much psychology
and sociology as it is technology. (Larson, 2011)
Simply put: Facebook, rather than being informative for (neuro)psychol-

ogy is, above all, informed by (neuro)psychology. Hence, those authors
who use Facebook as a means through which to understand something
about the (neuro)psychology of humans, are in danger of overlooking

how what they find is already shaped and informed by psychology, neu-
roscience and sociology. In this way, drawing upon Foucault’s (1978)
view of psychology as a technology of the human, cyberspace can be con-
sidered the quintessential application of psy-technology. Consider, in this
respect, William Bricken’s notion that “psychology is the physics of vir-
tual reality” and that psychology is a key tool for building realistic virtual
worlds (Bricken, 1991). As these virtual environments become an ever
more integral component of our lifeworld, one could argue that (neuro)
psychology, as a hegemonic discourse shaping a whole array of domains
(education, media, politics, economy, etc.), has become the physics of
reality itself, thus, ultimately, turning the latter into a virtualised reality.
Moreover, closer examination reveals how a virtualisation of the sub-
ject and its life-world is always already operative at the basic paradigmatic
level of the neuropsy-sciences: that is, in the processes of psychologisation
and neurologisation. Consider how the neuropsy-discourses inevitably
effect and even rely on a form of Althusserian interpellation.4 Their look,
this is what you are, gives form to subjectivity by allegedly revealing the
real material base: look, this is what you are, just look at the brain scans and
the gene charts. Fleshing out the homo neuropsychologicus you are said to
be, the neuropsy-sciences create a virtual self, a kind of avatar, redoubling
your life if not completely taking it over, making you in a way absent.
This creates the modern epistemological/ontological gap within subjec-
tivity: you are called upon to behold a scientific image of yourself. The
neuropsy-sciences have thus become integral to processes of virtualisa-
tion, precisely, yet paradoxically, by locating human subjectivity within
the supposedly hard materiality of the brain. The interpellation, look, this
is what you are, just look at the brain scans and the gene charts, positions
the neurologised/psychologised subject vis-à-vis its own pseudo-concrete,
virtual double. The question now, apropos the couplet psychology and
neurology being ridden by the materialist–virtual paradox, is whether a
psychoanalytic materialistic perspective can offer a way out?
4
See, once again, Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment and its central interpellative phrase
“Now that you know, how do you feel?” for an archetypal example of this. For an in depth analysis
see (De Vos, 2009a).
Psychoanalysis: Back to the Matter

Is psychoanalysis the privileged third party capable of providing some
clarity as to how one can truly be a materialist today? Considering the
tautological risk in the alliance between neurology and psychology, psy-
choanalysis could perhaps claim to be in a position to offer an alternative
research base for neurology, drawing on its own independent epistemol-
ogy. Or, more controversially: as valuable, exciting and relevant as neu-
rological research is for anyone involved in the praxis or theory of the
humanities, it requires psychoanalysis to save it from a psychology always
at risk of being lost in the mirages of psychologisation and, more recently,
neuropsychologisation.
However, who has to save whom here? For, more often than not, neu-
rological research is used precisely as an argument against psychoanalysis.
This, in turn, incites strands within psychoanalysis to claim exactly the
opposite: it is only with the advent of brain scans that Freud or Lacan has
finally been proven right. Be that as it may, if Lacan himself opines that
psychoanalysis is most probably not here to stay, then instead of relying
on neurology to save psychoanalysis, we should try to grasp what its with-
ering away—or perhaps the withering away of its eternal recurring—actu-
ally means, rather than leave the theorisation of its end to psychologists
or neurologists. As should be apparent, such a project must involve a
radical repositioning of psychoanalysis vis-à-vis materialism.
To propose one such form this repositioning could take, I will engage
with Adrian Johnston’s project of “transcendental materialism”, devel-
oped for the most part via a critical dialogue with the corpus of Slavoj
Žižek. Johnston’s reconfiguration of the relation between psychoanalysis
and the neurosciences is enticing and challenging in equal respects, set-
ting his work apart from similar projects. Johnston’s central claim, it could
be said, concerns the aforementioned “saving” theme: for Johnston, on
the one hand, the neurosciences could supplement “Freudian-Lacanian
psychoanalysis with a naturalist/biological account” and, on the other,
psychoanalysis could supplement the neurosciences “with a rich, sophis-
ticated metapsychological theory of subjects whose geneses, although
tied to brains, involve much more than bare anatomy and biology”
(Johnston, 2009, p. 32). But can psychoanalysis really put forward its
usability, as Johnston suggests? Indeed, if this usability is not self-evident
even at the level of the psychoanalytic cure—consider, here, how in a
Lacanian perspective curation can never be the goal of psychoanalysis,
but only come “as an added benefit”5—then readily promulgating such
a claim in relation to neurological research is problematic. Put simply:
fMRI-research on empathy and altruism will easily draw upon main-
stream psychological theories: indeed, a straightforward developmental
perspective or a cognitivist, evolutionary approach seem tailor made for
experimentation. By comparison, Žižek’s (2004b, p. 213) revaluation of
Kierkegaard’s interpretation of “love thy neighbour”—that is, the only
good neighbour is a dead neighbour—is considerably harder to put
under the scanner.
Quite apart from this issue of the (im)possibility of translating the
Freudian skandalons (the death drive, polymorph perverse sexuality, the
unconscious, etc.) into operative experimental conditions, the key ques-
tion concerns: what becomes of psychoanalysis as it enters the strategic
rooms of neurological research? Let us hereto consider Johnston’s dis-
cussion of the neuropsychological affect theory of Jaak Panksepp. On
the one hand, he criticises Panksepp for his “spontaneous Kantianism”,
presupposing pure instinctual emotions as “thinkable-yet-unknowable
noumenal things-in-themselves” existing beyond the epistemologically
accessible affective phenomena. To which Johnston opposes Hegelian
philosophy and Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalytic meta-psychology, as
these attest to a “thoroughgoing dialectical digestion of the natural by the
more-than-natural” (Johnston, 2009, p. 11). This approach allows us, for
Johnston at least, to avoid the postulation of a noumenal or natural core
in human emotions. However, defending Panksepp, Johnston adds that
instinctual emotions should be understood as affective expressions aris-
ing in exceptional circumstances where the primal constituents of human
bodily being come to light in their undiluted immediacy. For Johnston,
5
Lacan speaks of “la guérison comme bénéfice de surcroît” (Lacan, 1966a, p. 323).
it is precisely psychoanalytic and socio-political considerations which can

account for such circumstances, which he describes as:
brutal ordeals and overwhelming traumas as excessive “limit experiences”
violently unleashing unprocessed corporeal intensities pitilessly reducing
those who suffer these experiences to the dehumanized state of naked ani-
mality, of convulsing, writhing flesh. (Johnston, 2009, p. 12)
However, does this not mean that in certain circumstances the unme-
diated noumenal does lay itself bare, with psychoanalysis serving as one
of the foremost tools for making sense of it? By talking of “convulsing,
writhing flesh”, is Johnston not presupposing, beyond Hegelian dialectics,
a basal unmediated natural core of the psyche? Psychoanalysis here seems
to become a usable trauma-psychology, a device for experimentation and
scanning. Hence, just as the dyad of neurology/psychology is susceptible
to collapsing and becoming unworkable, neither is psychoanalysis play-
ing the ministering knight necessarily a viable solution, as it is here that
psychoanalysis threatens to dissolve into the psy-sciences by becoming a
psychology; the psychology of the noumenal—with flesh and trauma as
the central references. Hence, despite the perspicaciousness of Johnston’s
attempt to make sense of the current developments in psychoanalysis,
neurology and ideology critique, Johnston nonetheless risks falling prey
to psychologisation. For example, in his attempt to link contempo-
rary neurological research on affect and emotion with psychoanalysis,
he bypasses the aforementioned top-heavy heritage of the psy-sciences
in these neurological approaches to emotions. This leads him to accept
the anti-Freudian notion of “unconscious affects” bringing him ever
closer to the psychologising neutralisation of the Freudian skandalon par
excellence: the watering down of the unconscious into a subconscious,
conceived as the virtual reservoir of non- or subconscious thoughts and
feelings. However, the unconscious, certainly in a Lacanian reading,
does not constitute a parallel, positive in-depth psychological reality but,
rather, a profound negativity structurally pre-supposed at the surface of
discourse, which accompanies, colours and, above all, thwarts each con-
scious manifestation of thought or feelings.
One could argue that Johnston, with his dramatic and pictorial account
of convulsing and writhing flesh—in an almost Hieronymus Bosch
style—evokes above all the virtual and the Imaginary, as opposed to the
realm of matter and the Real. This turn to the flesh and trauma, shared by
others such as Cathérine Malabou (see for example Malabou, 2012a) is
at the least questionable: as if somehow in our late-modern urban world
a physical trauma is lurking just around the corner.6 Comparisons can
be drawn with the survival guides teaching the twenty-first century city
dweller tips and tricks in the event he or she encounters an alligator. Does
the fantasmatic realm of trauma and the concomitant convulsing, writh-
ing flesh, not also serve as the basis for Hollywood disaster movies and
their predilection for showing raw and unmediated life? Brutal ordeals,
fight or flight, adrenaline pumping through the veins, dilated pupils,
increased blood supply to the heart and the skeletal muscles: do we not all
know the neurophysiology and neuropsychology of real palpitating life?
As such, the epistemological stance of understanding the so-called
normal and regular via the abnormal and irregular is not alien to
psychoanalysis; quite the contrary, it is one of its fundaments. However,
the question in this respect is whether it is really the bump on the head, to
put it somewhat colloquially, or the brain lesion which is to be considered
as the via regia to knowledge about the human. Looking upon everything
that can go wrong or lead to deadlocks in one’s life, or considering today’s
calamities at a social, economic, or financial level, it is evident that there
are more suitable candidates than the bump on the head through which
to analyse the normal via the symptomatic. The basis of brain damage
appears too restrictedly narrow to be elevated to the central point of refer-
ence for understanding the subjective, the social and the cultural. If only
for the fact that it is here that the three terms of psychology, neurology
and psychoanalysis are at risk of collapsing and merging into each other,
some caution is warranted.
To conclude, the question of how psychoanalysis can be more materi-
alist is not put to rest by connecting it to neurology. Not only is psycho-
analysis on the verge of becoming a psychology there—specifically, a form
of trauma-psychology—but it also risks getting caught in virtualisation;
that is to say, getting caught in the imaginary mirages of the brain-man
6
See Chap. 5 where I critically engage with the work of Malabou.
with its natural and instinctive affections rising out of its convulsive flesh.
At the very least, it is clear that a psychologised version of psychoanalysis
is not going to save the neurosciences from (bad) psychology. However,
admittedly, Johnston would likely concur with this statement, given that
the connection he proposes between psychoanalysis and the neurosci-
ences is one which is situated in nature itself, or more specifically yet still
by way of Lacan, that which is “in nature more than nature” (Johnston,
2014, p. 139). It is this which constitutes the basis of his transcendental
materialism, which, in turn, raises the question of whether this specific
recourse to matter and nature enables Johnston to effectively steer clear
of psychologisation and, if so, whether or not it can thus be said to offer
a viable option from which to reposition the life sciences, humanities and
psychoanalysis?
Should Nature Save the Humanities?

Johnston’s main point is that nature is not some whole, well-balanced
unity which is fully equal to itself; rather, he equates nature with a “barred
Real”, which testifies to a “weakness of nature”. Moreover, given that
nature is a fragmented, “unbalanced ensemble of conflicting elements” it
becomes “self-sundering”, which is to say it gives rise to “the more than
natural” and the “denaturalised spiritual” (Johnston, 2013a; Johnston &
Gratton, 2013, p. 173). This is, ultimately, where Johnston situates the
paradoxes of the human as genetically programmed for epigenetic reprogram-
ming and neurally hard-wired for more-than-neural rewiring (Johnston,
2015b, p. 154),7 which forms the basis of his support for the humanities
project against what he sees as certain indefensible scientistic reductions:
If nothing else, the epigenetics of the human organism generally and

the related neuroplasticity of this organism’s central nervous system
7
Johnston writes: “In yet other words, and to employ the simplistic nature-nurture pair, the human
natural Real is a nature naturally inclined towards the dominance of nurture over nature—evolu-
tionarily pushed into pushing back against evolutionary pushes, genetically pre-programmed for
epigenetic reprogramming, and neurally hard-wired for more-than-neural rewiring” (Johnston,
2015b, p. 154).
specifically—these recently established and exemplary life-scientific facts

are central to my, Catherine Malabou’s, and Žižek’s overlapping yet distinct
efforts toward early-twenty-first-century reactivations of the legacies of the
dialectical materialist tradition—are paradigmatic instances of intrascien-
tific grounds for indicting as scientifically indefensible scientistic reduc-
tions of non/extra-scientific subjects and disciplines (those of the humanities
and social sciences) as epiphenomenal, fictional, illusory, unreal, and so on.
(Johnston, 2015b, p. 151)
However, one should not overlook the fact that, because this more in
nature still derives from nature itself, for Johnston the final word or ulti-
mate jurisdiction is very much within the purview of the natural sciences.
That Johnston refers to epigenetics and neuroplasticity as “established and
exemplary life-scientific facts” is also telling in this respect, as does this not
mean that, ultimately, if one wants to understand what is in nature more
than nature, that which arguably should be the terrain of the humanities,
then one cannot but cede final authority to the life sciences? At the very
least, Johnston’s position marks a preparatory step towards “one structure
to rule them all”, as Pluth astutely put it (Pluth, 2013, p. 92).
However, one should also stress that Johnston does not stop here, but
rather proceeds to argue that the natural sciences do not have an unmedi-
ated access to nature:
To refer again to epigenetics and neuroplasticity as quintessential instances

here, these are structures and dynamics situated “extimately” (to adverbial-
ize a Lacanian neologism for the intimately exterior, the internally exter-
nal …) within the natural sciences and, thus, signal these sciences’ needs
for non/extra-scientific explanatory complements and supplements
(including those concerned principally with the historical, the social, the
cultural, the linguistic, the conscious, the unconscious, and so on).
(Johnston, 2015b, p. 151)
However, does taking recourse to Lacan’s concept of “extimacy” in

order to contain the tension of this double bind of “life-scientific
facts” and “non/extra-scientific explanatory complements and supple-
ments” suffice in this instance? Whilst the argument that the first sci-
ence’s facts are entangled or stained with extra-scientific complements
(themselves originating in the “more-than-natural” outgrowth of

nature itself ) would appear to end any debate on the matter, my con-
tention is that it does not entirely quell a nagging suspicion that, from
Johnston’s perspective, the final and full explanatory weight remains
with the life sciences and their—albeit dirty—empirical facts of epi-
genetics and neuroplasticity. Indeed, taking such a position would be
like using a balance-sheet to argue the point that there is more to life
than money. For Johnston, eventually, there is only one game in town
and the problems begin to mount and become yet more evident when,
in explaining why he is not a naturalist, he makes a move which, I
would argue, leads him further and further astray from his professed
loyalty to psychoanalysis.
Let me expand on this: Johnston starts by articulating his materialist
position in relation to Giorgio Agamben’s well-known recourse to the dis-
tinction in ancient Greek between, on the one hand, zoē, which concerns
the simple fact of living that is common to all living beings (animals,
men, or gods) and, on the other hand, bios, which indicates the form or
way of living proper to an individual or a group. Johnston proceeds to
argue, in accordance with Agamben, that zoē as “bare life” is “produced”
instead of something simply given, which is to say that humans, at the
default level, are beings of bios as opposed to creatures of zoē (Johnston,
2013a, p. 193). This is a valuable and insightful point, but it is at this pre-
cise juncture that Johnston proceeds to a more problematic ontogenetic
and developmental argument, as he, drawing upon Damasio’s distinction
between emotions and feelings, puts forward the notion of an “incom-
plete denaturalisation”, which he considers to be constitutive of human
forms of subjectivity:
In human beings, the zoē of bare emotional life—this life doesn’t disappear
with the advent of the bios of feelings and the array of their accompanying
conditions of possibility, but is only partially eclipsed and absorbed by the
mediating matrices giving shape to bios—is fractured, like Damasio’s core
self, into unsublated brute, raw basic emotions (which manifest themselves
solely in rare, extreme conditions) and sublated feelings as sociosymbolically
translated emotions (or even, following Žižek, as affective states aroused by
the gap between emotions and feelings). (Johnston, 2013a, p. 193)
Johnston extends this argument further by stating that “the life 1.0 of zoē”
resists being incorporated without remainder into the “not-wholly-natural
defiles of bios as life 2.0”. In other words, the earlier versions are not entirely
erased by “updates”, which means that all kinds of bugs, glitches and loop-
holes are generated “by the unsynthesized layering of these materialized
temporal-historical strata” (Johnston, 2013a, pp. 193–194).
Hence, when one unpacks Johnston’s argument we find that what is

in nature more than nature (leading to the aforementioned “non/extra-
scientific subjects and disciplines” and the “non/extra-scientific explana-
tory complements and supplements” of the natural sciences) represents
the way in which nature resists subjectification and culturalisation. Or,
phrased otherwise: whilst Johnston does concede that zoē might be (co)
produced by bios, ultimately, the only way in which he can delineate
this is by arguing that zoē is that which remains after bios has come in.
Therefore, zoē is the unmediated, the residual remainder, the unsublated
brute, the raw and the basic which manifests itself “solely in rare, extreme
conditions” (see quote above). We are back, once again, in the realm of
the “writhing flesh”, that which is potentially laid bare by some trau-
matic event, unearthed by unmediated reality itself. In Johnston’s view,
all mediation can potentially be wiped out, thus showing that the sym-
bolic and the cultural are too weak to completely colonise or overwrite
the Real qua raw flesh and bare emotional life. This point is important,
as it is here where Johnston ends up adopting an ontogenetic and devel-
opmental conceptualisation of the Real in conjunction with a classical
logic of representation, which, as I will demonstrate later, is at odds with
psychoanalysis. For Johnston, when it comes down to it, the Real is that
which resists symbolisation: it is the excessiveness of nature, the excess of
nature at the limits of culture and the Symbolic, which means that this
prior state (life 1.0) is always on the verge of resurfacing in extra-ordinary
circumstances.
This is problematic for a number of reasons. To begin with, from here
it is altogether wholly unconvincing to argue, as Johnston does, that there
are analytical terrain which the hard sciences are ill-equipped for tack-
ling (in Johnston’s own terms: “the historical, the social, the cultural,
the linguistic, the conscious, the unconscious”) and that these would
thus constitute a proper, positive domain for the humanities themselves

(which then covertly or openly would inform the natural sciences). For,
if one looks closely at the so-called human sciences, especially psychology,
it immediately becomes apparent that this is precisely what these very
sciences have been struggling with since they first saw light in modernity,
that is, they not only lack a proper domain, but also lack sufficiently
firm and proper paradigms from which to tackle their respective fields.
Psychology, for example, if the reader will permit a somewhat sweeping
historical statement, has always had a notoriously difficult time in trying
to define the psychological or the psyche. Short of its own paradigm, the
psy-sciences have had to endlessly browse the shelves for second-hand
paradigms. It is for this specific reason that the figure of the psychologist
can be viewed as a true daemonic8 master of metamorphoses, as he or
she seemingly transforms at will into a quasi-priest, quasi-doctor, quasi-
salesman, and so on and so forth. Resultantly, if Adrian Johnston wishes
to indict scientistic reductions “as scientifically indefensible” on the
grounds that these would render the terrain of the humanities and social
sciences into something epiphenomenal, fictional, illusory or unreal,
then perhaps we need to consider the notion that this, in fact, is the very
kernel of the humanities inasmuch as the terrain of the humanities actu-
ally are illusory and unreal.9
This raises an opportunity to demonstrate the unique value of psycho-
analysis, which can be considered to be neither a natural science nor a
psychological discipline, and thus not a human science: psychoanalysis is
perhaps best understood as the praxis and theory of the epiphenomenal
and fictional. To truly value this field of the illusory and the unreal, to
do justice to its own particular form of reality, to its material weight we
might say, one must reject Johnston’s argument that nature resists sym-
bolisation. Johnston’s classical logic of representation, in which nature
8
In Ovidius it is only gods and demons that can switch back-and-forth between metamorphoses,
while mere mortals in most cases cannot undo their metamorphosis.
9
If the neurosciences put the humanities under pressure, threating to colonize their fields with its
invading paradigms, then it can also be said that the neurosciences only lay bare the always already
existing aporia of the humanities. Consequently, the neuro-turn does not engender a crisis within
the humanities, it merely unearths a pre-existing crisis. It is this which represents the great virtue of
the neurosciences, and should perhaps be their raison d’être.
exceeds representation, should be contrasted to a proper psychoanalytic

approach, in which “in nature more than nature” is understood in its own
right and not apportioned to either nature or culture. That is to say, the
“epiphenomenal, fictional, illusory, unreal …” is the index of what Lacan
calls the Real, a domain which undermines both the humanities and the
sciences. In contradistinction to Johnston’s understanding of that which
is “in nature more than nature” along naturalistic and developmental
lines, the radical and historical argument is that the Real for us modern
subjects is but a function of modernity and the advent of modern science.
After all, the subject of psychoanalysis is neither that of nature, nor of the
humanities; rather, as Lacan notoriously defined it, it is the subject of the
sciences:
There is no such thing as a science of man, and this should be understood

along the lines of “there’s no such thing as an insignificant savings.” There
is no such thing as a science of man because science’s man does not exist,
only its subject does. (Lacan, 2007, p. 728)
The declaration that psychoanalysis does not deal with the psychologi-
cal, sociological, or anthropological man, but instead with the subject of
the sciences constitutes a serious refutation, at least in my estimation, of
Johnston’s argument that both the natural sciences and the humanities
stand to benefit from philosophical and psychoanalytic insights.10 If one
takes seriously Lacan’s point, as I think we should, then it becomes clear
that the Real of the psychoanalytic subject has absolutely nothing to do
with the mythical writhing flesh or the ostensibly unsublated remainder
of Johnston’s “life 1.0.” and its “established life-scientific facts”, which,
according to Johnston, ground the epigenetic and the plasticity of the
“more-than-material/natural subjects” of the humanities (Johnston,
2013b). As the Real of psychoanalysis actually pertains to the non-
existence of “science’s man”, psychoanalysis, in the final instance, should
10
Johnston’s position is as follows: “It also would be a profound disservice to so many other areas of
investigation (in the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities) standing to benefit,
however much they would acknowledge this or not, from philosophical and psychoanalytic
insights” (Johnston, 2015a, p. 167).
thus be understood as both the theory and praxis of this gap between
science and the impossibility of a science of man.
Here, one might be tempted to cut the thread between philosophy
and psychoanalysis, and instead look to revive that other traditional alli-
ance between philosophy, political theory and ideology critique. After
all, modernity not only spawned the modern subject, it also gave birth
to modern politics. At this juncture, then, we must return to the fourth
term in our squared matrix, politics and ideology critique, in order to
evaluate whether it is the term which can resist the turbulences of the
materialist–virtual vortex, as well as guaranteeing that the other terms
within the matrix remain in place and do not collapse into one another.
Ideology Critique and Virtual Political

Economy
For those perceiving themselves as the ideologically and institutionally
embattled enemies of purportedly megalomaniacal bulldozing scientists
and their legions of slavish academic and media minions, the (in)human
must be defended against this barbarous onslaught without ceding the
slightest bit of ground. (Johnston, 2015a)
This is not only a firm characterisation of his critics, but also a resolute
dismissal of many contemporary political and ideology critiques of neu-
roscience, especially those Foucaultian approaches which target the neu-
rosciences as the crown jewel of a new regime of biopolitics. Of course,
Johnston is right when he admonishes us for our all too hasty confla-
tion of biological science with biologistic ideology ( Johnston, 2012/13).
But while I find myself agreeing with Johnston on this point, indeed
many of these critiques are overly simplistic if not outright misplaced at
times, not to mention often defending the questionable jurisdiction of
the humanities, he himself comes dangerously close to exempting the life
sciences, especially the neurosciences, from a structural and far-reaching
political critique. Indeed, it has become standard practice to rebuke cri-
tiques aimed at the neurosciences by arguing that what these critics in
fact target has relatively little, if not nothing, to do with real and proper
science. Whilst, at times, these staunch defenders will concede that there
might be some (human all too human) regrettable exaggerations within
neuroscience, unfortunate misunderstandings as findings are applied in
other fields, and even outright ideological misuse, these are castigated
as unfortunate aberrations which will eventually be removed from the
core of neuroscience. And, indeed, even neuroscientists themselves often
criticise the popularisations and misuse of neuroscience (e.g., O’Connor,
Rees, & Joffe, 2012).
But is this the whole story? Does the real question not concern
whether, in fact, these unfortunate problems and deplorable alliances
with contemporary oppressive politics are symptomatic of problems
inherent within neuroscience itself? And, in much the same vein, what
if Johnston’s staunch advocacy and intrepid defence of the neurosciences
actually misses the really existing neuro-turn, if one will permit me to put
it in such a manner, which is unmistakably sweeping through an ever-
expanding range of areas of our contemporary life-world? Think of the
neuro-turn within education which I discussed in the previous chapter,
or, to cite another example, how in social care institutions the diagnostic
range for children and youngsters has been narrowed down to only a few
ostensibly brain-based disorders, such as ADHD (Attention Deficit and
Hyperactivity Disorder) and ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Within a
multitude of societal domains, from psychiatry, the workplace, the sports
club up to and including the retirement home, the traditional psycholog-
ical paradigm is being substituted for a neuroscientific one, which urges
us to view ourselves, others and the world through the following dictum:
we are our brain. The argument that this pervasive neuro-turn and its
unmistakably unemancipatory, depoliticising and even desubjectivising
tendencies is something that only concerns the media, commerce, or
neoliberal politics—an argument which serves to position the figure of
the conscientious and unflagging scientist as the beautiful soul—might
be the ideological gesture par excellence. It is so, because in much the
same way that nature is never just nature, science is never just science.
And, as such, a critique of the neuro-turn, both, within and outside aca-
demia seems wholly warranted.
But let us start off by problematizing any presuppositions that
ideology critique will offer us either the final stabilisation of our
aforementioned quadruple matrix, or a ready solution to the question

of how to be a materialist today. Beginning with the issue of mate-
rialism, even the most cursory of glances at contemporary political
economy would observe that there has been a marked shift in terms
of the partition of the material and the virtual. As Michael Hardt and
Antonio Negri posit, post-Fordist production is no longer aimed at
the production of concrete and material goods but, rather, at the direct
production of relationships and ultimately social life itself (Hardt &
Negri, 2004, p. 109). This does not mean that tangible products do
not matter anymore, only that they play a secondary role in the pri-
mordial production of subjectivity and social relations. According to
Hardt and Negri (2000), within globalisation, the hegemony of pro-
ductivity, wealth and the creation of social surpluses takes the form
of cooperative interactivity through linguistic, communicational and
affective networks. Hence, if in fact post-Fordism is concerned with
the direct production of subjectivity and social relations, are the media
thus not wholly justified in framing a financial crisis in neuropsy-terms
such as the nervosity and volatility of the markets, or to speak of the
manic-depressive trader? Even in a serious Cambridge study the levels
of cortisol and testosterone on the trading floor in the City of London
were assessed (Coates & Herbert, 2008). Both the media coverage and
the cortisol study testify to how the hegemony of immaterial produc-
tion and the virtualisation of economy seems to lead linea recta to psy-
chologisation and neurologisation,11 trading an economico-political
analysis for a neuropsychological one.
Here the material–virtual vortex again rears its head, as ideology cri-
tique cannot be the strong holder, the terms of the matrix collapse once
again into each other. Just consider how in late-capitalism, in conjunc-
tion with the concomitant de-politicisation, ideology has become an
almost obsolete term. That is, even politics itself has been cleansed of
the political factor, reduced to so-called good governance. Not only has
11
I use the terms psychologisation and neurologisation in a slightly different way here than in the
previous section (where it concerned the imposition of the neuropsychological on modern subjec-
tivity). In this paragraph, I primarily designate with psychologisation and neurologisation how
neuropsychology comes to dominate other praxes and discourses. On how these two aspects are
interconnected see (De Vos, online first, 17 October 2014).
political idealism become outdated, then, but, on the whole, politics

leaves the decisions that matter to the purview of the market, restrain-
ing itself to administrative micro-management. Here, on the one hand,
the neuropsy-sciences serve as a tool to render these opaque workings
of global economy pseudo-intelligible by personifying and (neuro)psy-
chologising them: depoliticisation thus goes hand in hand with psy-
chologisation and neurologisation. But, on the other hand, the role of
the neuropsy-sciences is far more primordial: that is, it is important to
grasp that it is here where biopolitics, as the “administration of bod-
ies and the calculated management of life” (Foucault, 1978, p. 140),
takes the form of psycho and neuro-politics. If the birth of psychology
is unmistakably linked to the advent of biopolitics, then it is clear that
in late-modernity, where production primarily concerns subjectivity
and social relations, the neuropsy-sciences take centre-stage shaping
the very modes of production, commodification and consumption at
this historical juncture; biopolitics becomes a neuro-psycho-political
economy.12
Should Psychoanalysis Save Everybody?

If politics and ideology thus become intermingled with neuropsy-
discourses, one could engage in another little thought experiment: in
the same way that psychoanalysis has been mobilised to replace inferior
forms of psychology that underpin flawed neuroscience, could psycho-
analysis not also be enjoined to provide an alternative metapsychology for
a different kind of emancipatory politics (defending the human without
ceding any ground, as per Johnston’s quote at the beginning of this sec-
tion)? This is not my position, of course; rather, my contention is that
psychoanalysis, precisely because it has historically refused to be reduced
12
Of course, here the Foucaultian concept of biopolitics is altogether too limited, as one could
argue that what the neuropsy-complex demonstrates, contra Foucault, is that it is not only forms
of sovereignty which are in play, but also issues pertaining to infrastructure and state-apparatuses
(such as those involved in management and policies concerning education, parenting, mental
health care, employment, etc.). In this respect, see Agamben (1998) and my own critical assessment
(De Vos, 2013b).
to a psychology, has the potentiality to form the basis of a radical and

uncompromising critique of today’s neuro-psychopolitics whilst resisting
the temptation to offer any alternative to it. To make this point, let me
return to the privileged relation of psychoanalysis to ideology critique.
Even though Freud himself was careful not to tread on overtly political
grounds, his writings on culture and religion have had a profound influ-
ence on political thinking. Psychoanalysis, it could be argued, revealed
how the modern subject was essentially a psycho-political subject, if one
will permit me to render this in an admittedly simplified fashion: as the
subject of its drives, the modern human is always already connected via
the libidinal component to the broader community (e.g., Lacan’s formu-
lation of desire as desire of the Other). One author who formulated this
succinctly was the historian Christopher Lasch, precisely in his seminal
critique of so-called therapeutic culture. Lasch can be said to have for-
mulated a theory in which subjectivity unites in itself two registers: the
psychical and the political (De Vos, 2010). That is, Lasch’s critique of
therapeutic culture centred not on the diversion of attention from social
problems to personal ones (i.e., from real issues to ostensibly false issues),
but rather, targeted the obscuring of “the social origins of suffering”
(Lasch, 1978, p. 30). Or, phrased otherwise, the problem with therapeu-
tic culture is that it psychologises the psyche, with the latter being the
relation between the subject and the Other.
From this, one can surmise that for psychoanalysis, first, the psychi-
cal and the political are by no means two separate domains, rather they
are fundamentally intertwined. And second, while in therapeutic cul-
ture there is an attempt to reduce the psycho-political subject to the
psychological individual of mainstream psychology, psychoanalysis, alter-
natively, will maintain, alongside the intertwinement of the two, the fun-
damental irreducibility of the two dimensions. This could be understood
via the Freudian concept of Spaltung: that is, one way to conceptualise
the fundamental dividedness of the subject or the psyche is to under-
stand it as the split between the political and the subjective or the psychi-
cal. Whilst psychology claims to be able to close this gap with science
and expert knowledge, psychoanalysis can only put forward its skand-
alons. These Freudian non-concepts, such as the unconscious, death drive,
polymorphic perversity, etc., far from being scientific notions,13 testify

to the fact that the psychical and the political are two sides of the same
coin of subjectivity; ultimately, it is impossible to look upon the two
faces simultaneously.14 Resultantly, one could argue that, vis-à-vis our
squared matrix, psychoanalysis and politics are fundamentally incompat-
ible to begin with. Even if some consider it possible to envision a politi-
cal project from (neuro)psychological concepts such as emotions, affects,
or cognitions, this obviously cannot be underpinned by psychoanalytic
skandalons such as the death drive. Hence, if one is compelled to depart
from clinical practice and speak out in political terms, then one enters a
field where the “gold” of psychoanalysis loses its value; in other words,
the political analysis must then be done again. And mutatis mutandis:
politics and ideology critique are not simply to be imported to use in the
cabinet; there, similarly, the analysis must be started again.
Is the principal tenet of the interventions proposed by Adrian Johnston
and Cathérine Malabou, then, not the supposition that this structural
deadlock can be superseded? The position of both is that, first, the brain
sciences are capable of re-grounding psychoanalysis within materialism
and, second, that brain theory is the buoyancy device supposed to re-
float an ideology critique which has run aground. With respect to the
first contention, Malabou’s argument is that the Freudian endeavour
was above all situated in, and informed by, the biological knowledge
of its time. Due to the relatively unadvanced state of biology, however,
Freud had to devise his own theory and praxis of the psyche, expressing
the wish that one day the two disciplines would come together again.
Malabou contends that, given the spectacular advances of the neurosci-
ences, this time has arrived (Malabou, 2012a). Although such calls for a
second encounter between the disciplines seems justified, the important
question concerns how one should imagine this encounter. To begin
13
Even though Freud tried to situate psychoanalysis fully within a scientific paradigm, his continual
struggle with this positioning led Lacan to propose that psychoanalysis was most certainly not a
science like the others (Lacan, 1966b).
14
In Žižek’s understanding of the term, we are dealing with a parallax here: the apparent displace-
ment of an object caused by a change in observational position (Žižek, 2006b).
with, one cannot contend that the two disciplines parted ways merely to
develop in splendid isolation. As aforementioned, the neurosciences are
fundamentally and structurally—although not always openly—linked
to the broader psy-sciences. Moreover, if one is willing to agree that
mainstream psychology is always in one way or another an answer to
Freudian psychoanalysis—Freud’s theory was inaugural and thus every
psy-theory thereafter must either refute, amend, or simply ignore psy-
choanalysis—then one cannot but conclude, then, that the neurosci-
ences are also in an important sense affected by both the Freudianisms
and the anti-Freudianisms (and everything between those two). Such
a concession immediately complicates calls for a second rendezvous
between psychoanalysis and the neurobiological sciences. Indeed, it
would be illusory to think that today’s neurology constitutes for psycho-
analysis a virginal and pristine partner. It is for this precise reason that
if psychoanalysis thinks she is in a position to save the neurosciences
from “bad psychology”, then she is unwittingly drawing herself into an
unavowed psychologising discourse.
It is, moreover, precisely there that psychoanalysis loses her potential
radicality as a resource for critical theory and ideology critique. To put
it in Foucaultian–Agambian terms: there where psychoanalysis claims to
connect to the natural and the convulsing flesh, she claims to speak from
the position of life itself and, grasping human life as bare life, she risks
reproducing the very stance of biopolitics. At the least, Johnston and
Malabou’s elevation of brain theory into the core of ideology critique
is highly problematic. For example, it is Malabou’s contention that the
emancipatory potential of the so-called plasticity of the brain gets expro-
priated by mainstream ideology via reconfiguring it as flexibility. And,
looking at contemporary political and emancipatory struggles, flexibility
is undoubtedly an important issue—consider, in this regard, the signifier
“flexicurity”. However, should we not also maintain that behind this dis-
course lurks the older, more basic theme of the expropriation of the com-
mons which, in actual fact, is what is ultimately at stake? If we focus upon
the flexicurity discourse in Germany in the opening decades of the sec-
ond millennium, for example, what should actually be denounced is the
exploitation of cheap labour, the maintenance of a financial hegemony
and the exportation of surpluses to the periphery of the EU leading to a
debt crisis in those countries. As said earlier, we do not exactly require the
detour of the bump on the head here.
To conclude this section, the critical issue for psychoanalysis, then, is
not to claim to be able to offer, in Johnston’s words, “a rich, sophisticated
meta-psychological theory” usable for the other terms in the matrix (psy-
chology, neurology, or ideology critique) but, rather, to make explicit the
very impossibility of such a multi-employable meta-psychology. The true
relevance of psychoanalysis, besides its importance as a radical critique
of psychology (and of neuroscience, for that matter, inasmuch as it is
inevitably modelled in one way or another on psy-paradigms), derives
from its ability to critique the manifold political entanglements of these
neuropsy-discourses, as they structurally fail (remember Lacan’s “There is
no such thing as a science of man because science’s man does not exist”,
I cited earlier) to address the modern subject as a divided psycho-political
subject. Is it not here in this gap, in this very structural impossibility of
a self-enclosed subject that we should attempt, from a psychoanalytic
perspective, to develop a truly materialist account, one, moreover, which
could serve as an alternative starting point for ideology critique? As such,
I think that Adrian Johnston is correct in his assertion that presently psy-
choanalysis is solicited concerning its claim to be a materialist theory. For
Johnston, psychoanalysis should renounce any anti-naturalist material-
ism; he writes: “a materialism entirely divorced from the natural sciences
… is materialist in name only” (Johnston, 2009, p. 32). The crucial ques-
tion, however, concerns what to offer as an alternative to this divorce, a
marriage de raison? Should we not once again place a wager on the very
impossibility of the liaison—remember the words of Lacan: il n’y a pas de
relation sexuel? Hence, which materialism, then, for psychoanalysis?
Towards a Decentred Materialism

Johnston sees the reconciliation of psychoanalysis with the neurosciences
as a dialectical process, one which would eventually lead to a general
revision of the materiality of the human and the body. But is it not at
this precise point that he threatens to lose sight of the specificity of a
psychoanalytic approach to materiality? Psychoanalytic materialism,
I claim, concerns a decentred materialism: that is, not the materiality of

the convulsing flesh, but the materiality of the Real or, more specifically,
as I will explain below, of the Lacanian object a. At the very least, the fact
that the very particular notion of the Real in psychoanalysis constitutes
a fundamental breach with psychology and the neurosciences remains
unaddressed in Johnston’s analysis.
Let us explore this in more detail. Materiality in the psy-sciences seems
to be, as aforementioned, invariably linked to epistemology. In an attempt
to schematise: in the mainstream psy-sciences the object of study—the
lay person—is commonly conceived as someone who misunderstands
him or herself: that is, through his or her particular folk psychology or
folk neurology he or she is always in some sense mistaken. As already
mentioned in Chap. 2, we owe such notions, broadly speaking, to the
Enlightenment, which produced the idea that the human being has the
wrong idea about the world and about him or herself. However, despite
the Kantian correction, that Das Ding an sich (the thing-in-itself ) is not
knowable, the ontological ambition to reveal the ultimate nature of the
world has never fully been given up. As Alenka Zupančič writes, modern
science claims not to make ontological claims while at the same time
failing to recognise that it is nevertheless still making them (Zupančič,
2012). In fact, especially within the psy-sciences, I argue, this insatiable
drive to reveal the naked human being has remained the driving force.
Man, a machine, a sophisticated animal, a function of its selfish genes,
a constellation of convulsing writhing flesh, and so on. Here, invariably,
some kind of hard materiality appears at the horizon of epistemology.
This could be branded with the label of vulgar materialism: the erroneous
assessments that supposedly characterise the lay person are corrected with
something tangible; that is, the lack in knowledge is filled with the mate-
rial substrate of things, the latter allegedly directly accessible to science.
This is precisely what Johnston’s transcendental materialism veers danger-
ously close to: as aforementioned, whilst acknowledging that the natural
sciences do not have an unmediated access to nature, Johnston neverthe-
less ends up grounding his more in nature than nature in the “established
and exemplary life-scientific facts” of epigenetics and plasticity, hence,
in fact, claiming an unmediated access by science to the materiality of
things themselves.
It is here that psychoanalysis fundamentally differentiates itself from

the neuropsy-sciences specifically, and from academia in general. For,
even if psychoanalysis also eventually posits a materiality, hers appears
in a profoundly different place. Although psychoanalysis starts from the
same assumption, that people have the wrong idea about whom or what
they are, it does not envision a truth underlying the illusion; rather, it
presupposes a truth and thus a materiality, within these illusions and fan-
tasies themselves. Lacan contends: the subject mistakes itself and this
concerns the Real. Appearance, so Lacan continues, is not our enemy,
it points to the Real (Lacan, 1962, 07/03/62). Does this not mean that
the materialism of psychoanalysis concerns a materialism of the lure (“la
leurre”) and of appearances? Consider how Lacan, in respect of this Real,
mocked scientists who reduced sexual attraction to albumin and other
chemical substances. Along the lines of Freud’s “glance on the nose”,
Lacan evokes the duvet (down) on the forearm of a woman: something
which could induce a shiver right through another person faced with this
pure manifestation of her existence. This, in turn, leads Lacan to say that
sexual attraction is about bringing the lure into play: “ce leurre c’est sa
réalité même” (“this lure is its very reality”; Lacan, 1962, 07/03/62). At a
minimum, we are on totally different ground here to the idea that the lay
person is afflicted with a flawed folk psychology, which the mainstream
(neuro)psy-sciences attempt to trace back to the hard wired brain and,
for example, pheromones. For psychoanalysis, the “as if ” stance not only
functions as if it is real, resulting in a performative reality but, as Žižek
puts it, the “as if ” is the thing itself, “it has an actuality of its own” (Žižek,
2010, p. 285). This means that love or the idea of free will, for example,
are not merely performative mirages but, rather, because of their illusory
status, have a massively operative and, hence, material weight.
One can note here how psychoanalysis already connects with a cer-
tain tradition of ideology critique. Consider, for example, how a Marxist
approach involves not an analysis of subjective illusions, but of objective
illusions: illusions which ground our reality in the facts. Marx concluded
that, if one tries to unearth social realities (money, for example) by strip-
ping them of their mystifying veils, one does not end up eventually with
the hard materiality itself, but again with, as he calls it, the metaphysical
subtleties and theological niceties (Marx, 1988, p. 163). The illusions of
social reality, such as money and religion, therefore, are objective illusions
(Žižek, 2006b).
At this cross-section of the psychical and the political, psychoanalysis’
ontology of the subject opens up to what I call a decentred materialism,
namely the materialism of what Lacan calls the object a. Let me explain
this. For psychoanalysis, subjectivation is essentially a social event involv-
ing the subject and the Other, and necessarily passes through language.
As the subject cannot but constitute itself in relation to the Other, in
relation to language, this means that the subject is never fully equal to
itself, it is only constituted discursively via, what in Lacanian parlance
we would refer to as, a signifier representing the subject for another signi-
fier. That is to say, the ground of our being is speaking, but the spoken
can only ground itself in yet more speech. This means that the big Other
of language is also never fully equal to itself, which is to say that the big
Other, just like the subject, is also incomplete: the Other, for Lacan, is
“barred”. In other words, the human continues to speak precisely because
he or she can never completely succeed in saying it all, something will
always remain unsaid, something always eludes our discursive grasp. This
is why in psychoanalysis the subject is called the subject of lack. It is at the
site of this discursive void that the subject is related to that which, in the
phantasmatic sense, embodies its lack: the object a as the object-cause of
desire. This is where, I claim, the Real comes in to play within the site of
subjectivity, and with it a specific kind of materiality. That is to say, fol-
lowing Žižek, I argue that this object a concerns that which I am referring
to as a decentred materiality. As Žižek writes:
Is not Lacan’s basic materialist position that the lack itself has to be sustained
by a minimum of material leftover, by a contingent, indivisible remainder
which has no positive ontological consistency, but is simply a void embod-
ied? Does not the subject need an irreducible pathological supplement? This
is what the formula of fantasy ($ ◊ a, the divided subject coupled with the
object-cause of desire) indicates. (Žižek, 2003, pp. 152–153)
Thus, if, as is well-known, Lacan couples materiality to the signifier—the

signifier as that which is both resistant to sense and materially constitutive
of it—then one might be justified in saying that this very materiality of
the signifier resides precisely in the object a. Lacan himself appears to point
in this direction as he expounds upon the subject of the signifier:
Conveyed by a signifier in its relation to another signifier, the subject must

be as rigorously distinguished from the biological individual as from any
psychological evolution subsumable under the subject of understanding.
In minimal terms, this is the function I grant language in theory. It seems
to me compatible with historical materialism, the latter having left this
point unaddressed. Perhaps the theory of object a will also find its place
therein. (Lacan, 2007, p. 743)
As the human being is a “speak-being”,15 its materiality does not concern

the biological as such, nor the psychological for that matter; rather, Lacan
suggests that, in the last instance, it concerns the object a. In order to flesh
out this decentred materiality of the object a, it is perhaps instructive to
draw upon another passage from Žižek’s work. Žižek points out that the
old Catholic strategy to guard men against the temptation of the flesh
might miss what is truly at stake in terms of the Real. In this strategy,
men were prompted, when in front of a voluptuous feminine body, to
imagine how it would look in a couple of decades; or to imagine what
lurks now already beneath the skin—raw flesh and bones, inner fluids,
half-digested food and excrements:
Far from enacting a return to the Real destined to break the imaginary spell of
the body, such a procedure equals the escape from the Real, the Real announc-
ing itself in the seductive appearance of the naked body. (Žižek, 2009, p. 134)
For Žižek, the decaying body is reality, as opposed to the spectral appear-
ance of the sexualised body which is the Real. One takes recourse in the
decaying body in order to avoid the deadly fascination of the Real and its
threatening vortex of jouissance.
It is this specific approach to the Real and materiality, then, that makes
that psychoanalysis is not the ultimate metapsychology to either the
neuroscience or ideology critique (or for that matter, for politics itself ).
15
Lacan’s “parlêtre” means literally “speak-being”.
Positioning psychoanalysis in that position would surrender it to pro-

cesses of psychologisation and neurologisation, processes to which psy-
choanalysis precisely is called upon to offer a concise critique for.
Conclusions
One of the most crucial Lacanian insights is, as aforementioned, that the
subject of psychoanalysis is the subject of the sciences. Modern subjectivity
cannot be cut loose from the objectivations of science. Simply put, the
subject of psychoanalysis is not the subject who responds to albumin or
serotonin levels, but the subject who says: “oh my god, is that it?” Or,
“is it only that?” Modern subjectivity, then, is situated at the horizon of
knowledge of the sciences; it arises as a kind of surplus out of the question,
to put it in Agambian terms, what is it to be the subject of one’s own desub-
jectivation (Agamben, 2002, p. 142)? It is this point that psychoanalysis
should refrain from psychologising or filling up; rather, it should appre-
hend subjectivity in its radical and decentred materiality of the object a, as
it is understood in the formula of the phantasm as the fundament of the
psyche, the object-cause of desire, the motor of the psychical economy.
For psychoanalysis, as such, materialism is not about the really existing
out there, but instead, as Žižek puts it, about the ontological incompleteness
of reality (Žižek, 1999, p. 60). The fundamental rupture or antagonism,
then, is not between nature and culture, but that which already thwarts
reality as such. Here, one can discern a minimal, but nonetheless crucial,
difference with Johnston’s work, which also situates an inconsistency, but
one in matter and nature, elevating this inconsistency to the very condition
of possibility for a more-than-material subjectivity to arise immanently out
of a material ground. “Weak nature,” Johnston writes, produces “more-
than-natural subjects,” which autonomise themselves of the heteronomous
determination of nature (Johnston, 2011, p. 169). Whereas, for Žižek at
least, this ontological incompleteness of reality evokes a third domain,
neither-natural-nor-cultural, a non-human and non-natural field which
actually precedes and makes possible the ex nihilo eruption of human
subjectivity, Johnston (2012/13), on the contrary, refuses to understand
this as a separate domain or as a realm in its own right. For him the final
analysis is nature, albeit “weak nature”. Building upon Žižek’s position and
contra Johnston, I would situate in this virtual third domain the decen-
tred materiality of psychoanalysis. Indeed, has not the specific approach
of psychoanalysis—one which constitutes its very value—always been to
transcend the dichotomy of nature and culture in order to open up a differ-
ent realm for the subject and its object, that is, the subject and its decentred
and material correlate? Rejecting this lineage, Johnston has to place all the
weight upon the weakness of nature and presuppose a primordial breach in
the Real. Is this not, from a Lacanian point of view, however, highly prob-
lematic? Is it not only via Logos and the symbolic register that nature turns
out to be not-All? In that respect, the barring of nature, as Johnston refers to
it, should be understood as both primordial and as an effect of the symbolic
register. The so-called “Nagträglichkeit”, the après-coup, is a true time-knot:
nature’s not-all, then, gives rise to subjectivity and the symbolic only insofar
as this not-all is always already the effect of the subjective and the symbolic.
However, so as to be absolutely clear on this point, Johnston does occa-
sionally nod to Nagträglichkeit and perceives his transcendental material-
ism as a new development retroactively “creating its own past” (Johnston
& Gratton, 2013)16 and even goes as far as to conceive of a materiality of
the fictional (Johnston & Gratton, 2013).17 However, Johnston nonethe-
less continually returns to his trump card of objectively and empirically
established scientific facts, in order to ground the Nagträglichkeit and the
materiality of his transcendental materialism. Johnston thus, in the last
instance, clings to a genetic and developmental perspective. That is, the
weakness of nature is the first thing to account for, from which the rest
can subsequently be explained and from which all things subjective start:
… “nature” along the lines of the naturalism of the natural sciences, as the
factically given spatio-temporal bodies and processes of the physical uni-
verse (or universes), is the lone, zero-level baseless base of this ontology.
(Johnston & Gratton, 2013)
16
Johnston writes: “Following Žižek’s employment of Freudian-Lacanian Nachträglichkeit/après-
coup, I perceive transcendental materialism as a new development ‘creating its own past’ in the
form of a history that explicitly comes into view only retroactively, after the fact of the advent of
this newness” (Johnston & Gratton, 2013).
17
Johnston writes: “fictions actually steer concrete instances of cognition and comportment, they
are causally efficacious. And, hence, they are far from epiphenomenal qua eliminable fantasies …
In other words, subjects and their (virtual) realities are concrete, real abstractions that not only walk
amongst us, but, in essential fashions, indeed are us” (Johnston & Gratton, 2013).
Here once again, despite the quotation marks, the point of departure
is the empirical facticity of the spatio-temporal: the natural sciences
are the first sciences able to empirically ground the theory of tran-
scendental materialism. In this respect, it is significant that Johnston’s
nod to Nagträglichkeit is juxtaposed with an allusion to something else
which opposes it: according to Johnston, we must move beyond Lacan’s
indictment of phylogenetics and clear the space again for “the historical
genesis of human socio-symbolic configurations”, so as to address non/
prehuman natural history from a Darwinist perspective (Johnston &
Gratton, 2013). This relapse into speculation on phylogenetics, on how
man became man, however tempting it might be, must be rejected, not
only for the fact that it neutralises the radicalness of the psychoana-
lytic Nagträglichkeit, but also along the same lines of Lacan’s critique
of introspection: “on se raconte des contes” (one tells oneself stories).18
That is, here we enter the realm of mythology: Ovid’s in the beginning
there was chaos, thus becomes Johnston’s: in the beginning nature was
weak.19
In opposition to this, could one not put forth the simple point that
nature has but one problem, it has to be symbolised? Hence, if as afore-
said, the main problem with Johnston’s foregrounding of the weakness
of nature is that it keeps open the possibility that the neurosciences are
able to teach us something about subjectivity in a direct and unmedi-
ated way (e.g., in terms of epigenetics and plasticity), the radical coun-
terargument is that the brain has but one problem, it has to be brought
18
Consider the tedious and repetitive reference to our alleged past as hunters and gatherers, as if the
whole of human history can be traced back somehow to this surmised critical episode in human
evolution.
19
Perhaps one will allow me to discern the following positions in relation to mythology and cos-
mology. Firstly, we have Johnston, whose recourse to the biological sciences and the life sciences
leads to a genetic and perhaps, we might even say, a vitalist approach, as he grants the final word
and ultimate jurisdiction to the natural sciences. In contradistinction to this view we find Žižek’s
flirtations with quantum physics. This amounts to a kind of parallelism, inasmuch as the same
mechanisms are discerned at the quantum level as in the realm of the subjective-symbolic, which
eliminates the aforesaid hierarchy of jurisdiction. Alongside this we find a third position—which I
only briefly mention here because a full engagement lies beyond the scope of this chapter. I am
referring here to Alain Badiou’s philosophy and, more specifically yet still, to Ed Pluth’s defence of
it: here the relation between nature and the human-historical world is considered as a non-relation,
or at least, as an un-eventful, meaningless relation (Pluth, 2015). Considering the issue of
to light by neuroscientists who, in this very act of illumination, subse-

quently fall back upon psychology, in a perpetual loop which engen-
ders numerous unacknowledged paradoxes and inconsistencies. And, as
argued, the addition of psychoanalysis instead does not work, for there
the very gold of psychoanalysis turns into something else. The only
remaining wager is not to unearth, because it lays at the surface but,
rather, to point to the basic non-psychology of modern subjectivity and
its decentred materialism. For, above all else, to repeat this once again,
psychoanalysis is a radical critique of psychology: one that shows not
only the fundamental impossibility of psychology as a science, but also
shows how this deadlock is the very kernel of modern subjectivity: the
core of the psyche is a void, psychical in its non-psychology and material
in its non-substantiality.20
This critique of psychical economy, if I am allowed to call it this, could,
ultimately, serve both as a warning that one should not be all too eager
to close the gap between psychoanalysis and both psychology and the
neurosciences, and as the basis for psychoanalysis’s radical non-usability
for current post-Fordist biopolitics. For, contra Hardt and Negri’s sugges-
tion that post-Fordism’s direct production of subjectivity and social rela-
tions is truly direct and unmediated, I argue that it does not take place
in a naturalised vacuum of humankind. On the contrary, the discourses
of mediation involved are precisely to be found in the psy- and neuro-
sciences. If, as Brian Massumi contends, the capitalist logic of surplus-
value production takes over the relational field, hijacking affect in order
to intensify profit potential (Massumi, 2003),21 then it is clear that the
neuropsy-sciences are the tools which make the extracting of this surplus-
value possible.
jurisdiction in terms of this latter position, one could argue that jurisdiction is diverted to a purely
mathematized science: ontology, for Badiou, is essentially a mathematical matter (the knowledge of
the natural real is ultimately within mathematical formulas). The crucial question here concerns
how far the jurisdiction of psychoanalysis qua decentred materialism extends? Whilst the standard
answer would likely limit its jurisdiction to the psychoanalytic cure, the wager put forward here is
that, as the human is a speak-being, the jurisdiction of psychoanalysis thus covers the entire sphere
of the human as such, which is to say the sphere of what is in the human-more-than-the-human.
20
On non-psychology see also De Vos (2010).
21
For a more critical engagement with Massumi, see Chap. 7.
In this respect, using the neuropsy-sciences to understand contempo-

rary forms of the subjective and the social becomes highly problematic.
Here, it might be worthwhile recalling Adorno’s seminal critique of astrol-
ogy, in which he argued that the obscure and blindly accepted logic of
the supernatural reflects the “opaqueness and inscrutability” of social life
under the capitalism of big concerns (Adorno, 2001). Have current neu-
rologised discourses not replaced astrology, with the neuronal level serving
as a new form of blind fate? Consider Malabou’s contention that “the great
metaphysical teaching of neurobiology today” is not to consider brain
damage as an isolated possibility, rare things that happen in hospitals, but
as a constant possibility (Malabou & Vahanian, 2008, p. 9). Or, alterna-
tively, the inhumanness of the brain preferred over the inhumanness of
humanity? As such, the neurosciences permanently run the risk of serving
as a pseudo-concretisation, attempting to make tangible and manageable
today’s virtualised reality; that is, a late-capitalist life-world held under the
sway of an immaterialised global economy. Through its attempts to make
sense of our antagonism-ridden, seemingly immaterialised First Life, neu-
rologisation thus realises a second virtualisation, a Second Life.
But, of course, the question then becomes: can psychoanalysis’ object a,
and its associated decentred materiality, really provide the basis for alter-
natives? Should one even not consider the possibility that, historically
speaking, psychoanalysis has had a particular, and far from emancipatory,
position precisely as the vanishing mediator of the transition from Fordist
to post-Fordist production? As psychoanalysis was distorted, negated and
dissolved into the (neuro)psy-sciences it ultimately formed the basis for
these sciences to both transmit the rationale of dematerialised post-Fordist
production, and to provide the paradigm with the tools of expropriation
to cash in the surpluses. Put differently: psychoanalysis’ historical func-
tion within the matrix was that of providing Capital with the basic skan-
dalons which, after reification via their incorporation within mainstream
(neuro)psy-sciences, became capitalism’s driving force.
Above all else, it is clear that a political emancipatory project cannot
evade the psy-question of what is the human. Ideology critique cannot not
deal with psychology, neurology and psychoanalysis, without ever finding
in those disciplines the ultimate answers of what constitutes the human.
On the other end of the spectrum, those currently operating within (the
clinical praxis of ) psychoanalysis itself will inevitably be prompted to
assume a political position; and the temptation to resist is to make this

political leap via the short circuit of the neurosciences, as this not only
prepares the ground for psychologisation and neurologisation, but also
curtails the specific critical potential of psychoanalysis.
The argument I am putting forward here is that, of course, the natural
sciences and life sciences have something to say to us (by which I am
referring to those in academia who operate outside of the natural science
disciplines), but not only is there a basic, unsolvable and even founding
antagonism between these two worlds (one that leads to misappropria-
tion, popularisation, commercialisation and ideological recuperation),
one should also make sure that the lingua franca between those worlds—
understood as an impossible and structurally failing interface—is not
psychology (nor psychologised philosophy, nor psychologised psycho-
analysis in service of philosophy) but, above all, politics. The neurologi-
cal turn, then, is a false solution to the parallax of the psy-field and the
political field, which undermines any subversive potential of a decentred
materialism for both psychoanalysis and critical theory. If at this histori-
cal juncture, however, this battle appears to be lost, with psychoanaly-
sis on the verge of disappearing, it should at the very least vehemently
defend its uselessness for both the life sciences and for any positive politi-
cal project, that is, it should not cede any ground whatsoever to defend
its uselessness qua uselessness.
Of course, I should stress that this uselessness of psychoanalysis is not
without its potential effects. If historically the subject has been concep-
tualised as an imaginary delusion of ideology (see for example Althusser,
2006; Foucault, 2002) or as a delusion of the brain itself (see Daniel
C. Dennett, 1991, or Thomas Metzinger, 2003) then the strength of
psychoanalysis lies in showing how subjectivity is a material factor. In the
next chapter I hope to expand upon the critical potential of this position
specifically by delving deeper into the imaginary of the brain sciences
themselves, that is, by focusing on their reliance on the brain qua image.
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4
The Iconographic Brain: An Inquiry
into the Culture of Brain Imaging
Introduction
Nothing captures our imagination quite like the real, in terms of its desig-
nation as the heavy material coordinates of reality. If one were to oversim-
plify this and perhaps even, dare I say it, engage in a little psychologisation
oneself, then we could ask whether this is not precisely what Ovid’s
Metamorphoses are about? That is to say, the ancient myths could be under-
stood as numerous attempts to represent in imaginary and pictorial form
the whole panoply of forces and powers that steer the vicissitudes of natural
and human history, as well as the individual human lives featured within
it. What the human cannot understand, what escapes its discursive grasp,
he tries to counter with images. Does this not also aid our understanding
of what the neurosciences are, inasmuch as they also impel us to imagine
and depict the human? Can the neuro-turn, particularly brain imaging,
not thus be said to constitute an attempt to grasp the real of the human in
an imaginary form, pinning him or her down to the iconographic brain
image? Clearly, in brain imaging it is the visualisation itself which appears
to have become the index of understanding: once we are able to localise
being in love, believing in God, or having this or that political leaning

Discontents, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50557-6_4
on a brain chart then we are seemingly done. Pictorialisation has become

synonymous with the analysis of a given phenomenon. At the very least,
visualisation appears to be the hallmark of the passage from the psycho-
logical episteme to the neuro-scientific one. As the sociologists Nikolas
Rose and Joelle M. Abi-Rached put it, the now widespread notion is that
the technologies of visualisation finally and objectively reveal the physical
basis of human mental life within patterns of activity in the living brain
(Rose & Abi-Rached, 2013). Or, phrased otherwise, we are now able to
see what we always already were. The connection of “the psychological” to
the brain ostensibly appears to pass through the image. Psychology used
to be speculative and theoretical, surmised from introspection, second-
hand accounts, or via psychological experiments attempting to apply the
natural-scientific mathematisation model to the study of human behav-
iour. Whilst this resulted in a relatively broad range of competing and
often contradictory psychological models, neuroscience now promises to
unify the field, with the visualisation of the brain being a crucial catalyst
for any such unification: the core of our being is captured in a picture.
For some, this visual link is to be understood quite literally: science writer
Rita Carter contends in Mapping the mind, for example, that the brain of
a person driven by obsession is “frenzied” while a “depressed brain” shows
a dull glow (Carter & Frith, 1998).
At first glance, this would appear to run parallel with Ovid, who, after
all, also rendered Hunger and Envy within an imaginary and visual form.
Indeed, neuroscience has similarly grappled with issues such as Love and
Empathy by making these visible on brain scans. But perhaps this is as far
as the parallels go, as a particular element at work in the structure of visu-
alisation in mythological works such as Ovid’s might be made redundant
by brain imagery. Let me explain what I mean by this. If the visual register
plays a key role in the imaginary work of mythology, then this has been said
to engage the reader in a specific way, for the reason that any imagination
and visualisation is redoubled in the mind of the reader of works such as
Ovid’s. As Patricia Salzman-Mitchell writes, reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses
represents a challenge to the imagination of its readers as it impels us also
to imagine and visualise in our minds the fantastic array of shape-shifting
forms (Salzman-Mitchell, 2005). So, if in our simplified scheme above, the
metamorphosis of psychological man into neuronal man passes through
An Inquiry into the Culture of Brain Imaging 93
the figural and the pictorial—brain science visualises the real of the human
being—then it is here that the parallels with Ovid end. For, given that these
brain images are scientific in derivation and thus bear the mark of objectiv-
ity and materiality, then does this not suspend what we as readers of Ovid
have to do, namely, to reimagine the imaginary, to revisualise the visualisa-
tions? The scientific imaginary is so strong that in processes of neurologisa-
tion we merely repeat and reproduce them: we passively consume the brain
images depicted in glossy magazines and on the internet, and redistribute
them yet further via our ever proliferating social-media networks.
Moreover, the ubiquity of the brain image and the strength of its
interpellative powers—its digital and virtual reiterations resembling the
Marilyn Monroe prints (De Vos, 2013c)—not only no longer solicits our
participatory imagination, but also increasingly defies any resistance to
the image. The scientific verdict that concepts such as Love and Empathy
are visualizable in this or that particular part of the brain reportedly puts
an end to the discussion, because neuroscience is deemed capable of say-
ing all that needs to be said: all we need to know is that it is brain based.
Does this also mean, then, that there is no longer any need to take
recourse to the old psychologisations as we once did? However, if issues
such as Love and Empathy are, indeed, as argued in the previous chap-
ters, far from natural, ahistorical real categories, then this might represent
a decisive shift vis-à-vis the Ovidian framework: whereas Ovid requires
post-imaginative work, there is actually pre-imagination involved in
neuro-imaging. That is to say, neuroscience and neuro-imaging cannot
but depart from a kind of prior mythology of the very issues it wants to
grasp. Consider again Love and Empathy, and specifically how in main-
stream approaches these are grounded in the mythology of evolution-
ary psychology and its speculations on the so-called hunter-collector,
for whom, at least so we imagine, erotic attachment and social bonding
became central to the survival of his or her genes. The question here,
simply put, is whether the conceptual framework we use to enlighten our
dark prehistory does not say more about ourselves and our present condi-
tions than about our past.1
1
See also my remark in the previous chapter regarding how Adrian Johnston wants to reserve a
place for Darwinist phylogenetics in his transcendental materialism.
However, this chapter is concerned less with pre-imaginative work,

than it is with the imaginative procedures within the neurosciences
themselves, because it is there, above all else, that the non-accounted for
paradoxes come to the fore. Let us begin with a crucial question: if the
neuro-turn hinges fundamentally on the attempt to visualise the human,
then can it itself account for what appears to be a primordial human pas-
sion for the pictorial itself? If this paradox, of brain imaging as the visuali-
sation of the visualising human being, leaves us at risk of getting further
and further lost in a hall of mirrors—and, most importantly, leaves us
susceptible to falling back on a psychological and psychologising under-
standing—then seeking refuge in the particular theories of iconography
and iconology that I draw upon in this chapter might help us avoid the
vortex of the imaginary and psychologisation. It is only from here that we
will truly be able to begin the arduous work of scrutinizing the Ovidian
power of the brain sciences, that is, the power of the neuro-gaze and the
neuro-imaginary to transform psychological man into neuronal man.
In accordance with the previous chapter, the primary point in all of this
is to refrain from understanding the Real, and its relation to the Symbolic
and Imaginary registers, in a naturalising way. Most importantly, and con-
trary to the simplified scheme this chapter started out with, we should
reject the idea that images come in to play because the Symbolic fails to
fully master the Real. In contrast, the Real, in the Lacanian sense of the
term, is not that which precedes and eventually resists the Symbolic and
the Imaginary; rather, the Real is the very residual excess of our entry
into the Symbolic and Imaginary. The Real is, in other words, the après-
coup, the Nagträglichkeit of the Symbolic and the Imaginary. From the
moment the human becomes a speak-being, to use Lacanian parlance,
the Real is not that which the Symbolic tries to master but, rather, that
within the Symbolic which defies its own reflective grasp and runs amok
(e.g. in the lapsus lingua, the symptom, the dream, etc.), which is where
the imaginary comes in.2 One might even go as far as to argue that
the Imaginary is in itself, in actual fact, the Real of the Symbolic: that
is, the return of the repressed. We should keep in mind that the return
of the repressed is not about the ostensibly natural or untameable real
2
See, in this regard, the logic of representation, which I address in Chap. 6.
persisting in spite of, or resisting even, the Symbolic; rather, the return of
the repressed concerns the un-natural, the non-nature of the human, the
excess, if you will, of the human being within Logos. The Imaginary, and
the image also, I contend, constitute one of the primary manifestations of
the Real; it is one of the privileged places where one encounters the Real
qua the return of the repressed. Taking into account the previous chapter,
this also means that it is the image which perhaps harbours a decentred
materialism, that which is more real than the real. This material weight of
the image thus might be of critical importance—I am cognisant of the
fact that in taking this position I am going against the grain of the tradi-
tional rejection of the image within humanities-based critique—for our
attempts to conceive of possibilities for resistance against the hegemony
of the neuro-turn and its powerful visualisations, which avoid falling back
into psychology and psychologisation.
In order to pursue this path, we first must try to understand how the
brain, as one of the most glaring and fascinating images of our times, has
come to play a pivotal role in processes of subjectivation.
The Brain Image as an Interpellation

of Subjectivity
The primary aim of this chapter is to probe the powerful interpellative
allure of brain images. The eagerness of the press in this visual-centric
time and age, where the image (especially the digital image) is a privi-
leged commodity, is one thing, but the other more pertinent question is,
what is the status of the image within wider culture, and more specifi-
cally, within scientific culture and science itself? For even though brain
imaging is not the sole method within brain science, it most certainly
takes a central place—just consider the exponential rise of fMRI studies
since 1990 up until now (Logothetis, 2008; Rose & Abi-Rached, 2013).
Hence, if Jerry Fodor (1999) argues against oversimplifying localisation
research and questions why we are spending so much time and money on
it, then to truly understand this requires delving deeper into the power of
imaging and into the power of the image itself.
The anthropologist Joseph Dumit argues that the brains we encounter

in magazines and newspapers, on television, in a doctor’s office, or in a
scientific journal “make claims on us” (Dumit, 2004, p. 5). Indeed, the
omnipresence of the brain image in contemporary culture cannot but
have effects on how we see ourselves and society. Louis Althusser’s (2006)
perniciousness concept of interpellation might be useful here: one could
say we are interpellated by the brain images. We are called upon to answer
them, to subjectivise ourselves in relation to them. This is the Althusserian
“surplus in the recognition”: interpellation, as an ideological operation,
produces a subject. In the case of the brain image, then, its message, look
this is what you are, can be said to engender a subject: oh, really, is this me?
Or as Dumit puts it:
As people with, obviously, one or another kind of brain, we are placed

among the categories that the set of images offers. To which category do I
belong? What brain type do I have? Or more nervously: Am I normal?
(Dumit, 2004, p. 5)
One can already discern here a question so obvious that it risks being
overlooked: can the neurosciences account for the surpluses it invokes qua
subjectivity? That is, if the brain sciences and, more particular yet, those
involved in brain imaging, are engaged in both researching subjectiv-
ity and producing subjectivity, then how to account for the multifarious
short circuits and circularities that this entails?3 At the very least, if the
brain qua image has a particular saliency within contemporary culture,
then it is clear that it will also have surplus effects in scientific culture
and in science as such. In this respect, Anne Beaulieu (2002) notes that
the argument that pretty pictures above all serve popularisations does not
3
One could object that neuroscience does not necessarily deal with subjectivity per se; some
branches are restricted to investigating the general principles of the neural system. One could also
put forward the counter-argument that not all neuroscience research results in or aims at the pro-
duction of brain imaging. However, clearly even the most basic of neurological research cannot but
impinge upon the dimensions of subjectivity and the psychological. After all, the locus or terminus
of neural tissue is the brain, and the latter is, arguably, the very organ of subjectivity, regardless of
how the latter is conceptualized. Moreover, this so-called basic neurological research undoubtedly
also produces scientific data which is then subsequently used in brain imaging. At the bare mini-
mum, then, questioning the function of the image within the broader brain sciences might be of
value to those branches not directly involved with the psy-factor or with imaging as such.
account for the ways in which these representations also pervade research
environments. The latter can hardly be understood as taking place in a
vacuum; or as Simon Cohn (2008) has put it, research environments are
not a non-space.
However, in returning to the notion of the brain image as an inter-
pellative force at the level of the subject, the question then arises as to
whether the interpellative process can be fully apprehended within a
strictly Althusserian framework of imaginary misrecognition? Although
the ubiquitous brain imagery does undeniably present us with a glaring,
unified and Gestalt-like image to identify with, one can no longer frame
this, à la Althusser, as offering the illusory promise of being an autono-
mous subject. In fact, is not the message the brain images convey, rather,
the exact opposite: look, you are nothing but this automaton? Patricia
Churchland, for example, in spite of the fact that she rejects the “neu-
rojunk” of “free choice/self is an illusion”, argues that making decisions,
going to sleep, getting angry, being fearful … are just functions of the
physical brain (Churchland, 2013b). At the least, then, the interpellation
of brain science seems far removed from an Althusserian conception of it
as rendering people unfree by endowing them with an illusionary sense
of freedom, agency and causality. Rather, brain science and its images
actually deconstruct these categories and, most importantly, deconstruct
the subject itself: you are not even unified but rather, as it were, sliced up
by the brain image and dispersed in the neural network. Let me be clear,
the issue is not to disparage this aforementioned deconstruction, nor to
attempt to resurrect some kind of unified or agential extra-neural subject;
rather, I am concerned with understanding the unexpected intricacies of
the interpellation of brain images.
The key issue lies in discerning how the message carried by the brain
image, look, this is what you actually are, once it has permeated popular
culture, not only invites us to identify with the icon, but also invites
us to adopt the iconography. That is, what one is actually being called
upon to identify with is not the brain image as such, the paradoxical
Gestalt signalling the end of unity and agency but, rather, the perspec-
tive of neuroscience itself. We are, as also argued in the previous chap-
ters, being hailed into the position of the neuroscientist observing the
brain. Hence, if brain imagery does indeed bring into being a subject,
this is very specifically an academic subject: inasmuch as brain images and

neurological signifiers structure our self-understanding from the academic
vantage point we are called upon to adopt.
This allows for an altogether different critique from the well-known
Foucaultian strands that argue that (popular) neuroscience discourses
encourage particular kinds of selves who are then more or less amenable
to certain political agendas (see e.g., D. Johnson, 2008; N. Rose, 2006).
By way of contrast, I argue that via the process of interpellation, the
subject shifts position from the neuro (psychological) object he or she is
said to be, toward the external observatory position, in order to identify
with the neutral and sovereign position of Academia. Hence, whereas in
Althusser’s notion of interpellation individuals respond to ideology by
recognising themselves as subjects, our scheme pertaining to the interpel-
lation inherent to processes of neurologisation shows that it is precisely
in the adoption of the ostensibly neutral and naturalising scientific gaze
that ideology comes into play. That is, it is in the alleged neutral, objec-
tive and natural portrayal of mankind—here I follow Slavoj Žižek4—that
one finds ideology at its purest.
But we should not stop here, for is this position not a virtual position
by virtue of the fact that it places us in a transcendental, non-existent
vantage point? One encounters here a remarkable peculiarity overlooked
by neuroscience and perhaps also in its manifold critiques: as demon-
strated in the previous chapter, it is only a small step from material-
ity to virtuality. Unquestionably, despite its claim to be the materialist
approach par excellence, the neurosciences increasingly find themselves,
albeit for the most part unknowingly, in the virtual dimension. Consider
the notion that the mind is but the software of the brain and might
one day be uploaded to a computer.5 Although these fantasies have often
been contested, at the very least they demonstrate how the neuroscien-
tific approach most readily solicits the virtual. A number of critics have
also touched upon this theme, such as Allan Young who argues that we
have entered the era of “Human Nature 2.0.” (Young, 2011), or Jan Slaby
4
“The stepping out of (what we experience as) ideology is the very form of our enslavement to it”
(Žižek, 1994).
5
See e.g., Kurzweil (2005), for a discussion see Chalmers (2010), and for a critique Nicolelis
(2013). See also, in this respect, my preliminary remarks on these issues in the Chap. 1.
who notes that the concept of mirror neurons has come to function “as
a neural Wi-Fi that links us up to form various social networks” (Slaby,
2013a).
In this regard, it is noteworthy that the European Union launched a
huge research programme entitled “The Human Brain project” (HBP),
the aim of which was to design a super computer which could provide
us with an in silico brain. The goal of the project is thus to build a new
information computing technology infrastructure capable of integrating
all the available data on the brain, in order to arrive at “detailed computer
reconstructed models and simulations of the brain”.6 As said in a promo-
tional video:
Through this new in silico neuroscience, there will be nothing we cannot

measure, no aspect of the model we cannot manipulate, there will be no
question we cannot ask.7
However, the true problem of this unabashed ambition to “gain funda-

mental insights into what is means to be human” (Walker, 2012) might
not be that it would lead to in silico knowledge losing sight of the real,
concrete and embodied human being. The real issue, rather, might be
that it fails to understand that it deals with an always already virtual-
ised subject. Just consider how, by virtue of the interpellative procedures
described above, contemporary subjectivity is always already necessarily
marked by the scientific imagery, and entails a subject that shifted posi-
tion to the virtual academic vantage point from where it contemplates its
avatar, that is, the neuropsychological object it is said to be. In a similar,
and not altogether unrelated, way, a neuroscience in the grip of the image
and virtuality might fail to grasp that today’s subjectivity always already
passes through image culture and virtuality, as these increasingly define
our life-world and personhood (just think of social media, apps and other
rapidly evolving ICT applications). The project, then, runs the risk of
6
As stated on: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/nl_BE/discover/the-project/research-areas
7
https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/nl_BE/discover/the-project/research-areas; https://www.you-
tube.com/watch?v=_UFOSHZ22q4
getting lost in the mirages of the virtual, as it mistakenly supposes that it

is modelling a pure fleshy, material subject.
Hence, a central aim of this chapter is to disentangle some of these
short circuits and circularities in today’s neuroscientific image culture.
If, as a consequence of these circularities, brain imaging is, indeed, at
risk from getting lost in virtuality—as exemplified in the unquestioned
assumptions of the HBP—then the question of how one can resist the
compelling interpellative force of such brain images, all the more power-
ful in their digitality and virtuality, becomes all the more urgent. But, as
will become clearer, the question of resistance should not be one which
is strictly posed in relation to the subject necessarily, for if subjectivity is
in fact something which cannot be cut loose from the reigning and hege-
monic icons and iconographies of its times, then it would be a mistake to
look for a subject beyond the image. In such a scenario, and in line with
the philosophical tradition of Immanuel Kant that combines subjectiv-
ity with critique (sapere aude positions the modern subject as a critical
subject), the question of what might form the basis of a viable critique
of the hegemony of neuroscientific virtualised image culture, becomes
an altogether different one. Indeed, from a Kantian perspective, critique
is far removed from some kind of subjective, psychological notion. That
is, if for Kant, the modern human being was to use his/her own reason
(as opposed to complying with tradition and power), the fundamental
issue became a kind of reflective critique: that is, the discerning of the
conditions and boundaries of thinking itself (Kant, 2005). In relation to
brain imaging, then, the central question becomes: what are the condi-
tions and boundaries of imaging itself? Or, said differently, what resists
it? Hence, resistance here is not in the first instance conceived as the
subject opposing the alleged deterministic or reductive implications of
the technological gaze8—for example, the negative psychological effects of
neuroimaging—but, rather, as that which delimits (neuro)imaging from
within. This resistance, the chapter will argue, and somewhat unexpect-
edly perhaps, derives from the image itself. It is only from there, I will
subsequently claim, that the actual deterministic or reductive potentials
8
For an assessment of these kinds of resistance against neuroimaging see, for example, Whiteley
(2012).
of the technological gaze and their ideological bearings can be discerned

and eventually criticised.
But, in the interim, there is considerable preliminary work to be done:
the first task is to inquire further into the close connection between brain
image culture and virtuality, which I do by beginning with a conspicuous
remark from Jean Baudrillard.
“The Spectacle of the Brain” and Virtuality

All that fascinates us is the spectacle of the brain and its workings. What we
are wanting here is to see our thoughts unfolding before us—and this itself
is a superstition. (Baudrillard, 1988, p. 36)
We want to see ourselves, we are fascinated by the made visible brain,

that thing that does all that psychological stuff of thinking, wanting and
desiring. Perhaps this is why we denounce the idea of rational agency,
free will and love altogether. Because when we observe ourselves, via
the image of the brain, we take a position outside or beyond cognition,
will and desire, and from this place the latter appear as nothing other
than mere chimeras. The Althusserian surplus in recognition is, as such,
that precise point beyond our own psychology: the spectacle of the brain
engenders the spectator, a paradoxical and emptied out agency outside
of itself.
However, evidently, this particular organisation of the gaze was already
in place within old-fashioned, pre-neuroscientific psychology. Indeed, the
latter, from its very infancy in the scientific age, attempted to establish
itself as a technology for the visualisation of the human—just consider
the one-way mirror, the Gesell Dome or, for that matter, the use of hid-
den cameras. These technologies amount to the construction of an exter-
nal gaze from where one is allegedly able to see the true face of human
beings. Even the use of statistics in the psy-sciences can be understood in
terms of the same visual register: the numeric data in the end contributes
to the visualisation of human behaviour within charts and graphics. It is
from within the dominance of this visual register that the so-called lay
person is addressed: look, this is what you are. Hence, already by virtue of
the process of psychologisation, modern man is interpellated to adopt the

external gaze and look upon the imagery of homo psychologicus that he or
she is said to be. Such a procedure is then repeated through the neuro-
scientific interpellation: you are presented with an image of your alleged
final ground and this redoubles you in, on the one hand, your brain ava-
tar and, on the other hand, a more obscure and not always acknowledged
position (an additional you) from where you contemplate yourself.
Of course, one can take a step back further still from modernity and the
advent of the sciences and argue, with Jacques Derrida, that the human
being dwelling in Logos is always already “tele” from itself (Derrida,
Stiegler, & Bajorek, 2002): this concerns the fact that as a speaking being
the human being is separated (epistemologically and ontologically) from
itself. Or as Jacques-Alain Miller puts it, the mere fact that one speaks
always already transforms “what is” into a fiction (Miller, 2002). It is at
this precise point, where Logos allows the human to make an abstraction
of what he or she experiences, that images comes into play. Language
allows the envisioning of the world, of others and oneself.9 In Logos there
is always the gaze and the other scene and it is in this sense, moreover,
that human existence, as a cultural, discursive and social issue, arguably
has always encroached in one way or another into the domain of virtual-
ity. Suffice to think of the historical (religious or other) constructions of
an imaginary space or time, entailing either a pre-world, a beyond-world
or a parallel world (e.g., the Greek mythology, the Christian concept of
paradise, the colonial image of the Americas).
However, to amend this diachronic meta-perspective with a syn-
chronic one, in modernity this scheme can be said to receive a very
specific turn of the screw. With Kant denouncing access to “das Ding
an sich” as foreclosed, the image was bound to take up a more central
role than ever before. When modern science, and with it modern man,
renounced all claims to have unmediated access to reality or being, the
reign of the image truly began. For, as the Flemish philosopher Marc De
Kesel argues, in modernity the image loses its pre-modern grounding
9
Consider, here, the Greek concept of “exphrasis” which originally concerned not only visually
describing art, but language in the broadest sense. As Hermogenes, a second-century ce Greek
rhetorician, argued in relation to the literary description of a landscape or a person: it “brings
before the eyes the sight which is to be shown” (Mitchell, 2005, p. 3).
and its connection with reality: it is no longer real or natural and, hence,
newly unbound, starts to proliferate in an unseen way (De Kesel, 2007).
The seemingly unstoppable multiplication of images has to ward off the
lack of a firm ground in ontology. Modern image culture does not oper-
ate as a form of mediation between us and the real, but engages in a
frenzied process of constituting a virtual space and reality on top of the
gaping ontological abyss. It is in this respect that De Kesel argues, given
that modernity signalled the end of any claims to a direct connection to
being, we have henceforth become addicted to images: “we only exist
insofar if we succeed in imaging ourselves” (De Kesel, 2007).
It is at this specific point that the paradox of brain imaging comes in:
brain images are believed to show us how real, natural and organic we
are, how we are all made of flesh and blood, but structurally fail to ful-
fil this promise. As endlessly multiplying digital constructs, rather than,
say, mediating between us and our material self, they actually draw us
further and further into virtuality. To develop our understanding here,
it is perhaps expedient to draw upon Baudrillard’s phrase concerning the
real more than the real. Baudrillard uses this phrase to describe the obses-
sion with the real so integral to the mythology of our ultra-mediatised
society. It is this voracious demand for reality, truth and objectivity that
he sees at work in live reporting, the newsflash, the high-impact photo,
the eye-witness report, etc. It is the “truer than true” which counts, or
“the fact of being there without being there” (Baudrillard, 1998, p. 34).
Cyberspace, and more generally, virtuality, I claim, is the ultimate locus
of this real more than the real. To illustrate this, let me use an anecdote:
I met someone at a social occasion, and after having spoken about what
each of us did for a living, she subsequently asked how my name is spelled
so that she could google me online. To use Sherry Turkle’s quip: instead
of taking me at face value she wanted to take me at my “interface value”
(Turkle, 1995). In other words, today, the real more than the real resides
in the digital sphere, within cyberspace. For example, as we are all now
well aware after Edward Snowden’s revelations, knowing what people or
organisations really think or are up to requires that you skim and hack
digital networks. This real more than the real, then, as the very definition
of the virtual, is also a central element of neuroscientific imagery. The
crux of the neuroscientific findings as they are crystallised in the brain
image is that, as Baudrillard puts it, “I was not there”: the brain imag-
ery essentially poses the paradox of “being there without being there”
(Baudrillard, 1998, p. 34). The brain has its own reality, a reality which
we ourselves have no part in, where we are not present. This is especially
tangible in Robert Nozick’s well-known thought experiment, in which he
asks whether we would be willing to plug our brain into a supercomputer
that would provide us with any experience we desire (Nozick, 1974).
Intended as an argument against philosophical hedonism, Nozick’s
experiment above all shows how the brain, precisely by pushing to virtu-
ality, cannot but pose the question of “being there” in all its paradoxes.
Nozick’s computer would generate experiences and realities which would
be both ours and not ours. The brain confronts us with a truth and a real-
ity from which we, potentially at least, are ourselves absent.10
Now, if this issue is more or less acknowledged by neuroscience itself,
the question nevertheless still remains: would the recourse to the brain
sciences themselves be wholly adequate for our attempts to assess this
paradox? For Patricia Churchland, for example, seemingly it is. With
little or no fuss she observes that one’s love for one’s child is simply a mat-
ter of neural chemistry, although she does acknowledge, with a certain
witticism, “[c]oming to terms with the neural basis of who we are can
be very unnerving” (Churchland, 2013a). How should we understand
Churchland’s seemingly casual use of the notion of “unnerving?” Is she
inferring that even the deconstruction of our self can be accounted for in
neural terms? Or does it imply a more unsettling conclusion: the brain
un-nerves us, that in the end it de-brains us. Even if one could dismiss this
as mere metaphorical hair-splitting or an exercise in pedantry, the ques-
tion nevertheless remains: can the absence of agency, or of subjectivity as
such, and the resultant uncanniness this provokes within a “subject” fully
be accounted for by the neurosciences themselves?
10
One could connect this to Actaeon, who after seeing what no mortal should see (Diana’s nudity)
and being turned into a stag, is also in the grip of the absent presence. As he is attacked by his own
dogs and fails to convey to them that it is him, Actaeon, as Philip Hardie writes (as already cited in
Chap. 2), “would like to be absent, but he is present, and he would like to see, not feel as well, the
fierce actions of his dogs” (Hardie, 2002, p. 169). In a similar vein, commenting on the metamor-
phosis of Myrrha, Hardie succinctly writes: “the product of every metamorphosis is an absent
presence” (Hardie, 2002, p. 82).
To be clear, interesting and important contributions abound which

deal with this selflessness (e.g. Daniel C. Dennett’s, 1991 “deconstruc-
tion of the so-called Cartesian theatre” and Thomas Metzinger’s, 2003
“being no-one”).11 However, what characterises these attempts is that
they, ultimately, do not (or cannot) take into account what this basic
issue of selflessness means for the subject itself. To put it more concisely
still: they fail to see how being without a fully fleshed out ego or Self
is, in actual fact, the phenomenological and existential core of subjec-
tivity as such: the alleged neuroscientific demystification only serves to
deconstruct its own chimeras. At this point, however, another troubling
question emerges: must we then take recourse to the old psychological
models in order to grapple with not only the “psychological” effects of
brain imaging, but also with the psychological effects of having/being a
brain? Am I here not stumbling upon the horizon of brain imaging, or
the point of resistance I was searching for? That is, it is the subjective and
the psychological, so it would seem, that might be the critical component
of the brain sciences and its production of images. In order to consider
this possibility and, ultimately, reject it, in the next section I will more
substantively question how the recent shift from psychological models to
neurological models seemingly runs parallel with the shift from analogue
image culture to digital and virtual culture.
From the Psychological Portrait

to the Disembodied Brain Image
It is tempting to propose that the psychological will never dissolve
without remainder within the neurological. Consider, for example, the
argument that brain imaging techniques only envision coarse psychologi-
cal traits and that issues such as the ephemeral reminiscing that passes
through the mind like a soft breeze, the revelatory moment of suddenly
understanding something in a whole new light, the subtle gesture or
the intricate glance exchanged between two people, will forever elude
11
For more on my critical engagement with Dennett, see De Vos (2009), and for more on my criti-
cal engagement with Metzinger, see De Vos (2015).
visualisation and digitalisation. However, if there is one thing that the

rapidly evolving digital imaging technologies have showed us, it is that
what is considered to be analogue and non-scannable today will be fully
computable and chartable tomorrow. Take as a case in point the devel-
opment of automatic emotion recognition systems which analyse faces
(still photos or moving faces captured by a camera) in order to determine
emotional states,12 or think of the first rudimentary attempts to visualise
thought (see e.g., Cowen, Chun, & Kuhl, 2014). Notwithstanding the
fact that these examples testify to the aforesaid unquestioned assump-
tion that what can be visualised can be understood, not to mention the
equally unfounded assumption that what we attempt to visualise are real
and natural issues, the rapid progress and evolution of the technologies
of visualisation are beyond doubt. Consequently, it would be foolhardy
to argue against the notion that even a single goose bump will eventually
have its correlate in the chemical or electrical status of the nervous system
and thus be, as a result of the continually evolving technology, fully mea-
surable and digitisable.
However, the French authors Fogel and Patino do proclaim that digi-
talisation has a frontier, that is, while they acknowledge that any innova-
tion will eventually be exceeded, they do argue that:
the only sustainable element is the connection. A login added with a pass-
word to access a network: this is the lightweight baggage that everyone is
guaranteed to carry tomorrow. (Fogel & Patino, 2013, my translation)
Is this the ultimate frontier of digitalisation: login and password, the out-
stripping and mark of subjectivity proper, or good-old analogue psychol-
ogy as both condition and exception of the digital and the virtual? Login
and password, inasmuch as they allude to a certain intimacy or a secret
even, can be said to pertain to old-fashioned psychology; that is, to the
psychological agalma. Although, of course, passwords in the end are not
exactly exempt from digitalisation, inasmuch as the computer does know
12
See, for example, the website “Visual recognition”, a spin-off of the ISLA laboratory of the
University of Amsterdam: http://www.visual-recognition.nl/. Although, of course, this could very
easily be criticised on the basis of it being an overly artificial assessment of emotions, in which they
are divided into a limited array of fixed categories.
them after all. But this can still at least be considered within a psychologi-
cal framework: your password is only known by the Big Other (to use the
Lacanian term), albeit a technological Other. However, it would appear
that the days of the psychological, semi or pseudo-analogue password
are truly numbered, as today more and more electronic devices are acti-
vated with biometric keys, such as scanning your iris or your fingerprint.
Biometric access seems not only more secure but also more idiosyncratic
than the analogue-psychological password. The ultimate step here will
be for the digital to connect, not to the potentially digitisable flesh but,
rather, to the digital of the human body itself. That is, the ultimate bio-
metric access would appear to be our genetic code: to enter, please lick
here! Or, alternatively, the digital network directly connected to the digi-
tal of the human?13
At the very least, the conclusion to be drawn here is that your unic-
ity is not psychological, which is to say also that it is not this which
resists virtualisation and visualisation, and, for that matter, neurologisa-
tion. The digital brain image is thus the looking glass through which
psychological categories (such as free will, love, empathy, etc.), become
neuroscientific issues. The psychological is in this way gradually emptied,
becoming, on the contrary, bio-neurological and, in turn, (potentially)
fully scannable and digitisable, if not wholly digital as such. Hence, as
it becomes indisputable that thinking, willing, desiring, or even Marcel
Proust’s madeleine-experience for that matter, all depend on things going
on somewhere in the brain, then it would appear to make little sense to
hold on to a psychology which is rapidly melting away.
It would seem, ultimately, that we have to agree with the presump-
tuous ambitions of the HBP: when modelled, the brain becomes fully
malleable and answers to any question. With digital brain imaging, then,
we have made ourselves visible and, hence, seemingly fully accessible. In
psychological imagery the human subject had its dark side, the spoken
pointed to the unspoken, the thought to an un-thought, consciousness
to an unconsciousness. The digital brain image, in contrast, allows poten-
tially full access: just move the cursor, zoom in or zoom out, set the angle,
adjust the parameters, change the colours and so on. The Harvard Medical
13
See Eugene Thacker’s claim that biology is always already digital (Thacker, 2004).
School, for example, offers a free online MRI atlas which simultaneously
shows horizontal, sagittal and coronal sections through which one can
navigate, whilst displaying any level of the hemispheres, brainstem and
even some spinal cord, all the while using different MRI weighting (T1
or T2) and PET too.14 In principle, then, there is no blind spot, no inac-
cessible area; at the most there is a sub-consciousness which, in turn, can
be made visible.
In this way, the brain image is not a psychological portrait. Portraits have
traditionally been viewed as revealing some insight about the figure repre-
sented in the portrait (Ayers, 2011) and opening up some interior space
(Pearl, 2010). For Drew Ayers, photographs, while depicting embodiment,
potentially uncover the truth of things, so that they—and it is here that
he leans on Roland Barthes and André Bazin—expose “the inner workings
of an object or person” (Ayers, 2011, p. 297). Similarly, Shawn Michelle
Smith contends that the portrait was believed to be able “to depict the
inner soul of an individual in a representation of external countenance”
(Smith, 1999, p. 60). Hence, the portrait, belonging as it does to the realm
of the imaginary, not only points to the real of the body, but also functions
as, to use Ayers’ terms, “both [the] index and icon” (Ayers, 2011, p. 301)
of the inner person depicted within the image. Simply put, the truth-value
of the portrait concerned the psychological: the soul.
This is not at all the case with brain imaging: it does not begin with the
depiction of a supposed embodiment, which then serves as the index of the
terra incognita of the psyche as the supposed core of the human. Rather,
brain scans show and lay bare, more or less accurately and probably more
and more conclusively in the near future (the very base of) the psyche,
or at least that which has previously been referred to by that designation.
Sigmund Freud’s “andere Schauplatz” has seemingly been tracked down
and lost its independent status. Or, as Churchland has it: “I am who I am
because my brain is what it is” (Churchland, 2013b, p. 11). In this way the
brain image is not a portrait, a representation that points to something else;
rather, it is a pure self-reflective image, a pure index or icon of the Real itself.
In the end, then, it is not only psychology that is evacuated, but also
the body. Ayers sees this at work in the so-called DNA portrait (whereby
14
http://www.med.harvard.edu/AANLIB/cases/caseNA/pb9.htm
commercial services offer “personal DNA pictures” based on the analysis

of a sample of your DNA) in which, he argues, the body as surface is lost
(Ayers, 2011). Precisely the same form of dis-embodiment, I contend, is
at work in the brain image as it proliferates in wider culture. After all, is
the paradigmatic brain image within the everyday public sphere not that
of the singled-out brain, presented to us as faceless, sexless, classless, race-
less and, ultimately, bodiless? Just consider Daniel Amen’s online SPECT
gallery,15 which depicts a panoply of more or less colourful schematised
brains. Or consider how governmental and other campaigns connected
with brain research, whether in terms of their academic or non-academic
communication most often use logos figuring isolated brains.16 But per-
haps the most salient example of these segregated brains is the increasingly
popular images of the connectome: as most of them lack the contours of
even the skull or of the brain cortex itself,17 they seem the ultimate trope
of the bodiless stand-alone brain. Even in (f )MRI brain scans, in the
particularly rare instances in which we see a nose, lips and especially eyes,
does it not all too quickly become uncanny if not utterly obscene? At the
least, and contra Casini (2011), one could argue that brain images are
not portraits as they do not look back—the latter property, according to
Nancy (2006), being characteristic of late modern portrait photography.
It is precisely here that certain paradoxes begin to announce them-
selves. Starting with the most important one: when shown one’s own
photograph, one often finds it difficult to identify with, whereas the digi-
tal brain image appears far less problematic to relate with, as it is sup-
posed to represent you at your most natural. As BBC journalist Evan
Davis puts it, after having an MRI scan of his brain:
I’m just fascinated by the pictures … That’s my brain? That’s my head ….

That’s quite a good picture isn’t, you could recognize it as me (my
transcription).18
15
http://www.amenclinics.com/the-science/spect-gallery
16
E.g., the BRAIN initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJuxLDRsSQc
17
http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/gallery/
18
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8241000/8241440.stm
But, precisely because you had no access to your psychological-

analogue core, your psychology, in turn, had an intuitive weight and
presence that you could claim. Access to your bio-neurological unic-
ity, contrastingly, is wholly possible and relatively unproblematic as
it is mediated by the digital brain image, but it reveals to us that any
intuitive subjective weight and presence are merely illusory, or better
yet, virtual. Or in the words of the artist Susan Aldworth, “You can
look INTO my brain but you will never find me”; the brain image
signals a non-presence or perhaps even the weightlessness of the psy-
chological: “I am both in my head, and out of my brain” (Aldworth,
2011). Even if Aldworth, at first glance, appears to look for a Self
beyond the brain scan, she can eventually be said to situate this sur-
plus outside the psychological realm: while undergoing a cerebral
angiogram (for medical reasons) she relates how she herself watched
the produced images on a computer screen:
Looking up at the screens, I could see the inside of my brain with my

eyes—my brain was working, while I was looking inside it. I will never
make sense of that moment. (Janes, 2000)
Jacques Lacan’s reconfiguration of Descartes’ cogito-dictum as “I

think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think” (Lacan,
2001, p. 183), could thus be paraphrased as follows: my brain is where
I am not, therefore I am where my brain is not. Is this not also related
to the fact that the compelling interpellative power of the brain image
concerns not so much the injunction to identify with the brain as
such, but, as noted prior, to identify with the academic gaze? I am
where I am looking at my brain. Is the conclusion, then, not that
there is still an “andere Schauplatz” after all, albeit that this is an
empty and virtual space, or, more precisely, an empty and virtual
point. If this is indeed the case, then this warrants a closer scrutiny
of the structure and the dynamics of the gaze, starting out from that
sovereign place and then delineating the ways in which the brain is
subsequently constructed as a particular powerful and central icon
within contemporary culture.
The Iconographic Brain and the Data-Gaze

But, firstly, if I refer to the brain as iconographic, then what exactly is an
icon? As Susan Buck-Morss explains, the icon should be understood in
its Christian-Platonic lineage: that is, it is precisely at that point where
the relation between ideal forms and earthly forms presents us with the
enigma of their connection that the icon comes in. Buck-Morss’ central
example is that of sovereignty: “The sovereign is an icon in the theologi-
cal sense. He (or she) embodies an enigma—precisely the power of the
collective to constitute itself ” (Buck-Morss, 2007, p. 172). This enigma
can be comprehended as follows: constituted power cannot but be its
own ground, it has to be its own constituting power. Or, to put this in
terms of the law, the law, as it founds a community, necessarily has to
be called into life (and sustained within its life) from a position before
(and beyond) the law. The closing of this circle, Buck-Morss contends,
demands a miracle: “and the icon of the sovereign figure provides it”
(Buck-Morss, 2007, p. 172). The icon thus can be said to cause a short
circuit; an impossible but effective closure of sovereignty and the law
whereby they paradoxically constitute the very ground on which they are
standing upon.
Is not the same issue at stake in relation to subjectivity? For must
the subject not also assume its own subjectivity, whilst lacking the very
grounds on which to do so? Especially since the advent of modernity,
from that moment when God was no longer able to provide indisputably
the final ontological guarantees, the subject must be both the constituted
and the constituting subject. Hence, the subject too requires an iconic
relay between its ideal and earthly form. This function today, I suggest,
is no longer fulfilled by the abstract icon of the Soul, but by the concrete
and science-based brain image. Having become dominant within con-
temporary popular culture, the iconographic brain serves as the impossi-
ble bridge that traverses the ontological abyss on which the human being
founds itself. The brain image makes visible, embodies and fleshes out the
essence of the human being, thus short-circuiting the enigma of subjec-
tivity. But, of course, if the specificity of the icon is such that it performs
its function by transposing an impossibility into the register of the image
and the visible, the question then becomes: which gaze in particular is
mobilised?
Within the Christian-Platonic iconography it is the transcendent gaze
of the figure of God that is at play. Recall Walter Benjamin’s argument
that in Homer’s time the human was above all an object for the gaze of the
Olympic Gods (Benjamin, 2008). Similarly, in this respect, Žižek refers
to the gigantic Aztecan figures of animals and humans that could only
be seen from a viewpoint far up in the sky (Žižek, 2002). The gaze that
an icon mobilises thus goes back to the gaze of a transcendent instance.
Buck-Morss, in this regard, demonstrates that the roots of today’s mod-
ern “empire of the gaze” (as she refers to the “global media industry”)
can be traced back within the history of Christianity.19 In this respect,
it is clear that the central ambiguity of Christian iconography, that is,
of a non-material God becoming flesh, does indeed return in cerebral
iconography: after all, the brain image does show us both a material and
a non-material, virtualised human subject.20 The main difference, how-
ever, is that we have substituted the omniscient eye of God with that of
Science and that the latter mobilises a particular kind of interpellation.
As argued, the brain image very specifically calls upon us to adopt an aca-
demic point of view from which to look back upon ourselves, others and
the world itself. Since modernity, then, the human is both the subject and
object of and for the sciences and their Archimedean Gaze.
But, of course, immediately one then raises the question, how does
science, and more specifically brain science, construct this gaze? In this
regard, Amit Prasad perspicaciously argues that, although the new medi-
cal imaging techniques share some similarities with “nondigital visuality”,
they do not involve “seeing” in the traditional sense: MRI, for example,
is not based on the reflection or absorption of light or other electromag-
netic waves (Prasad, 2005). Rather, digital brain-imaging techniques rely
19
Buck-Morss argues that while, on the one hand, Christianity took over much of Roman iconog-
raphy, on the other hand, once the Roman Empire was Christianised, the connection allowed a
transcendent claim for sovereignty (Buck-Morss, 2007).
20
This religious lineage perhaps goes some way to explaining why a number of authors have dis-
cerned a religious component to neuroscientific imaging. Slaby, for example, points to the ritualis-
tic and quasi-religious connotations of the fMRI-procedure, in which the operators take on the role
of priest-esque figures (Slaby, 2013b).
on measurements and computations. Hence, as Beaulieu points out, neu-

roscientists concerned with basic, non-clinical research (e.g., functional
imaging) often rail against the reduction of neuroimaging to its picto-
rial component. They claim to do quantitative and experimental work,
as opposed to visual and observational work. Concerning the images
they produce, they argue: “They’re not pictures, they’re statistical maps”
(Beaulieu, 2002, p. 59). The common answer to the question concerning
why one goes from measurements and data to pictures is that visuali-
sations are used because of the complexity of the quantitative data. As
Beaulieu writes: neuroscientists argue that in the end vision is the sensory
modality with the broadest bandwidth (Beaulieu, 2002). Following from
this, one could go on to argue that, it is only by making the computer’s
datasets accessible to the human being through the medium of the image
that contingencies come in. But are we really starting off with non-visual
data? Is the visual, therefore, only a secondary detour, one that ultimately
testifies to the fallibility of human understanding and its preference for
the pictorial? If that would be the case, then one might seek to avoid the
image as much as possible; would not, for example, in the future, a full
computerised diagnosis of a tumour no longer require the detour to the
visual realm and the clinician’s gaze?
However, a closer examination of the rationale of the different brain
imaging technologies might suggest that the primordial data are always
already affected by the visual register. Just consider how the basic prem-
ise of imaging technology is the consideration of the brain as a three-
dimensional, spatial object. Measuring, then, is a matter of, as Beaulieu
describes this in relation to PET technology, establishing a relation
between the space of the brain inside the scanner and the space of the
digital image. That said, Beaulieu contends that, notwithstanding the
reluctance or ambiguousness vis-à-vis the visual, much of the empirics
of brain imaging is achieved by using “pictorial conventions” to render
space (Beaulieu, 2002). Hence, data are not only de facto spatial, they are
also always already embedded in the visual register. It is therefore not a
question of a secondary translation of non-visual or non-pictorial data.
Moreover, given that Beaulieu, drawing on Andreasen et al. (1992), notes
that in brain imaging technology the observer is technically incorporated
into the machine (Beaulieu, 2002), should we not thus infer that the
measurements are made, the data is gathered by teleporting, as it were,

the gaze of the observer into the scanner?
Hence, as it has already been argued that for the computer to gener-
ate the data, a substantial amount of editing has to be carried out (see
e.g., Ortega & Vidal, 2007; Slaby, 2013b), it is my contention that this
editing starts precisely from the incorporation of a subjective perspec-
tive within the technology. That is, the scanner’s vantage point, I claim,
is akin to the way a human eye would peer into a sliced-up body part.
Consider also how, as Prasad remarks, the noise and the inconclusive
data have to be filtered out with the help of the so-called reference
or body atlases comprising ideal or normal types of human cerebral
anatomy (Prasad, 2005).21 Does this active and productive construc-
tion of the image not again presuppose an agent, not to mention a
particular, anthropomorphised gaze? The especially versatile gaze of the
scanner, going from axial, to sagittal to coronal (with further differen-
tial viewing based on the differences in relaxation times of hydrogen
atoms after magnetisation, or in terms of proton density), is in the end
constructed as if a human subject were the carrier (or in the appropri-
ate Latin term, the subjectum22) of the gaze. In short: the data-gaze of
the computer is modelled upon the model and the abstraction of the
(super) human gaze.
It is precisely this, of course, that complicates the process of interpel-
lation I described earlier, in which the brain image evokes a subjective
surplus within the process of recognition, that is, the surplus of the iden-
tification with the scientific gaze. To begin with, the fact that we have
built a human-like gaze into our scanners, undermines the argument that
21
In this respect, De Rijcke and Beaulieu stress that brain imaging is about relating individual data
to brain atlases and their data-sets: it is not a process of comparing, they argue; rather, individual
scan-data are processed in relation to the “average brain” (De Rijcke & Beaulieu, 2014, p. 136). Or,
phrased otherwise, an individual brain is not compared with a standard brain, but is actually con-
structed as an image starting from the brain atlas. From here, De Rijcke and Beaulieu point to the
“normative potential of brain scans” (De Rijcke & Beaulieu, 2014, p. 133).
22
I rely here on Marc De Kesel’s etymological remark on the origin of the word subject; subjectum
in Latin, or hypokeimenon in Greek, meaning platform, ground, carrier etc. (De Kesel, 2009,
p. 22).
the problems only really begin with brain imaging and its popularisation
in the media. The idea that, as brain images become more widespread,
the so-called folk psychological gaze of the layperson easily goes astray
and requires additional guidance from the expert (who has the appropri-
ate way of seeing the image as condensed and rendered data) is deeply
flawed in two respects. Firstly, as aforesaid, because the alleged pristine
data are always already visual, inasmuch as they are the result of the sci-
entific gaze; and secondly, because one risks skipping over the fact that
it is precisely with this gaze that the modern subject identifies him or
herself via the process of interpellation. That is, the alleged spontaneous,
folk psychological gaze of the layperson (easily derided by the senses and
seduced by the image) is but a mere fiction. If the layperson is, in fact,
fooled by images, then it is precisely in his position as a proto-academic
subject. Layperson and scientist share the scientific outlook on the world,
as both are subjected to the visual register.
To this scheme, just one more twist is needed, the twist of the vir-
tual, which is provided by Prasad’s argument that the new medical imag-
ing techniques represent a “cyborg visuality” (Prasad, 2005). In other
words, it is precisely through the intricate connection of data with the
visual in brain imaging that the virtual comes in. Consider Prasad’s point,
reached through recourse to the work of Anne Balsamo, that in imag-
ing technologies the human body seems to have lost its materiality and
instead becomes a visual medium (Prasad, 2005). It might be appropri-
ate to suggest that, by virtue of the technological data-gaze the human
turns into an immaterial dataset and becomes its own avatar. Hence, in
contradistinction to one of the neuroscientists cited by Beaulieu, who in
his rejection of the visual contends: “So once the field grows up [and]
becomes less interested in mapping, it will be numbers” (Beaulieu, 2002,
p. 77), my argument is, rather, it will be virtual.
However, within this complex assemblage one other crucial issue
remains: what is the status, then, of the brain qua image? Does it still have
a meaning of its own and if not (as it is merely one of the points within
the schema of the gaze), how are we then to understand its interpellative
force? These questions concern the iconology of the brain.
Toward an Iconology of the Brain Image

Iconology, following the seminal understanding of Erwin Panofsky
(1972), differs from iconography: while iconography is descriptive,
the linking of artistic motifs with themes, concepts or conventional
meaning, iconology concerns the interpretation of the images’ mean-
ings. That is, as Panofsky writes, iconology “is apprehended by ascer-
taining those underlying principles which reveal the basic attitude of
a nation, a period, a class, a religious or philosophical persuasion—
qualified by one personality and condensed into one work” (Panofsky,
1972). For Panofsky, this level of “intrinsic meaning” is to be under-
stood as somehow beyond the conscious volition of the individual art-
ist. However, for my attempts here to construct an iconology of the
brain image, William J.T. Mitchell’s recalibration of Panofsky’s ideas is
crucial. Mitchell can be said to have substituted the issue of the basic
attitudes of a nation, period, etc., with the question of what the image
itself wants (Mitchell, 2005). That is, for Mitchell, iconology does not
concern the interpretation of the images’ meanings, but the interpre-
tation of the images’ desires. The seminal question is thus: “what do
pictures want?” (Mitchell, 2005). Arguing against the dominant per-
spectives that approach visual culture interpretively and rhetorically,
Mitchell wants to assess what pictures mean and do, and account for
the transfixing power they possess on their own terms. For Mitchell,
images are not merely inert objects conveying meaning but, rather,
they are like living organisms, things that have desires, needs, appetites,
demands and drives all of their own.
From here, the question can be asked: what does the brain and/or the
brain image want? Or, put differently, what is the lack which fuels its
desire? Hence, if, as aforementioned, the brain, as an index of the real,
lacks both a body and a psyche, then it can be argued that it is from
here that the brain image receives its interpellative power. That is, the
brain image solicits us to furnish it with a body and a psyche, it solicits
us to embody it. Through that process, the brain image becomes both
the index and icon of its own lack. It is in this precise sense, then, that
it can be said to function as, to use Baudrillard’s term, a simulacrum.
A simulacrum, in Baudrillard’s conceptualisation of the term, is neither
a symbol nor a reproduction of something else: it is, rather, the ersatz

of something that was always missing, something which is (necessarily)
lacking. Therefore, it is precisely as the semblance of an ultimate Real that
the brain image is capable of capturing our fixation and transfixing us.
Or, as Baudrillard observes:
Any system that is totally complicit in its own absorption such that signs
no longer make sense, will exercise a remarkable power of fascination.
(Baudrillard, 1990, p. 77)
It is this lack of the brain image specifically, its being without body and
psyche which fascinates us and interpellates us to become its subject and
subjectum.
But, in the interest of clarity, it is important to stress that the brain is
a simulacrum precisely because it is the ersatz of the absent psyche: there
was never, to use Baudrillard’s terms, an original to begin with. For, it can
be argued that the modern psyche represents nothing but a signal of the
human being having lost any of its ontological ground since the advent
of modernity. In fact, the emergence of modern psychology during the
Enlightenment corresponded with an epochal problematisation of sub-
jectivity itself. In one respect, the subject was at risk of being engulfed
by the massive objectifying potential of the sciences, while in another
respect, it was only science that could offer it the necessary reference
or anchoring points hitherto provided by God and religious discourse.
The psyche, ultimately, stands for the very ontological abyss laid bare
by modernity. This forms the eventual background story of our meta-
morphosis into our brain: if Philip Hardie contends in relation to Ovid
that every metamorphosis results in an “absent presence” (Hardie, 2002),
then it is precisely this that, having become our brain, allures us so much.
One way in which this notion of the brain image as the transfixing
simulacrum of (neuro)psychology can be apprehended, is via Adorno’s,
McLuhan’s and Baudrillard’s conception of late-modern media as being
characterised by a predominance of form over content (Taylor, 2008). We
appear to be fascinated by the form, the sulci, the gyri, the deeper struc-
tures, etc., and are not so concerned by the fact that this form can only be
filled with the rather meagre (non)content of psychology (which reduces
us to individuals with a limited if not standardised behavioural, cognitive

and emotional life). If the neurosciences can be said to be reductionist,
then this is because the reduction has already been done at a prior stage.
Psychology has always already been in the business of trading content for
forms (empty forms barely concealing the structural absence of content),
which are ideally suitable for subsequent mapping onto the brain. Even
if this mapping of psychology to the brain is done in a sophisticated
fashion (trading neo-phrenology with a dynamic network approach and/
or attributing plasticity to brain-processes, for example) the neurosci-
ences nevertheless always remain susceptible to regressing back within a
correlationist-reductionist scheme.
The issue of the brain requiring filling in by (the paradoxically empty
forms of ) psychology resonates strongly with the fact that, via virtual
and image technologies, our life, relationships and work increasingly take
place on virtual platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. For, is
not our presence on these social media sites also fleshed out with psy-
chology? We like or no longer like, we have friends and networks, we
have a life-line, we have events. In other words, social media technology
prompts us to act like decent subjects: that is, we are called upon to act
like the scale models of the humans envisioned by the psy-sciences. In
this way we are literally stuffed to the brim with psychology. Do you like
this? Why do you not like this? Do you want to share it, put it on your lifeline?
Remember, it’s your mother’s birthday in a few days and so on. Our virtual
double cannot remain empty, it has to be fleshed out in psychological
terms; our virtual avatar needs to be dressed, very specifically, in psycho-
logical robes.
This filling up of the empty virtual space with psychology, not sur-
prisingly, is precisely at hand in the rationale of the aforementioned
HBP. More specifically, it is cognitive behavioural psychology which is
called upon to flesh out the silico brain:
Neuroscience and medicine both require an integrated multi-level under-

standing of brain function in the context of cognition and behavior. The
HBP ICT platforms would provide a new foundation for this kind of
research. Once brain models have been integrated with a simulated body
acting in a simulated environment and trained to display a particular
competency, neuroscientists would be able to systematically dissect the

neuronal mechanisms responsible, making systematic manipulations and
measurements that would be impossible in the lab. (Walker, 2012, p. 25)
Hence, returning to the desire of the brain image, do we not find our-
selves in precisely the same situation as the story Pinocchio? That is, the
imaged and virtual brain desires to become human and it wants to be
fleshed out with psychology. Neuroscience needs psychology and, argu-
ably, has a preference for mainstream cognitive and behavioural psychol-
ogy as these provide rather clear-cut models through which to construct
the architecture of the neuro-virtual scene and to position its avatars
within this scene.
But, of course, the significant aspect of all this is that the HBP is not
that far removed from everyday life: indeed, if the programme intends to
study simulated bodies in simulated environments, is this not what every-
day life is actually like in contemporary societies? After all, are not the
“variables” under research “perception and action, decision-making, goal
oriented behavior, navigation, multisensory perception, object recogni-
tion, body perception …” (Walker, 2012, p. 25) not precisely the same
variables that in a very concrete and material way structure our actual
lives? That is, whether in education, parenting, schooling, work, etc., it
is these items that we are continually told matter, these items that both
structure what is done (and what we ourselves do) and form the basis
on which we are evaluated. But, once again, this clearly pervasive and
all-encompassing structuration of our life-world, where psychologisation,
neurologisation and digitalisation intersect, should not be viewed apart
from the process of interpellation which is so central to it. That is, every-
body here is hailed into adopting the external point of view: the toddler
knows what empathy is and why it is important, the parent knows the
theoretical background of positive reinforcement, the manager instructs
his workers into the brain-based psychology of being goal-oriented and,
finally, we all know that the digital age represents both a challenge and an
opportunity for our Self/Brain.
So, again, the question arises: should we concentrate our critical efforts
upon finding ways to protect the human from these forms of (neuro) psy-
chologisation, visualisation and virtualisation? To stand firm and assert
that the human (or the revolution) will not be fMRI-ised? However,
I contend that what should concern us, in actual fact, is not so much
the possible mismatch between the human (as he or she would alleg-
edly really be) and the virtual but, rather, the potential gap within the
imaginary itself: the gap between the imagined, analogue-psychological
human, and the virtual, digital-neuronal human. For, as I’ve hopefully
made clear, any attempt to defend a supposedly real or true human would
inevitably only lead to recourse to another version of psychology or meta-
metapsychology, which, in turn, would unwittingly lead to yet another
virtualisation. To look for a subject beyond the image and the psycholo-
gised imagery is thus a dead-end.
Resultantly, it is perhaps expedient to follow Mitchell’s suggestion that
there is something in the image itself which resists digitalisation (Mitchell
& Smith, 2008). Mitchell argues, on the basis of a series of paintings
including René Magritte’s famous “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”-painting
(picturing a pipe together with the caption “this is not a pipe”), that the
picture “offers a presence and insists on an absence in the same gesture”
(Mitchell & Smith, 2008, p. 39).23 Is this not precisely what the brain
scan does also? It appears to offer a massive, ontological and fully fleshed
out human being, whilst simultaneously serving as the personification
of the notion that there is nobody at home in the brain as such: in fact,
if anything, the multi-coloured charts signal that the ghost in the brain
has fled. But Mitchell also adds that, beyond this dynamic of presence
and absence, images also testify to an excess, an additional density or
plenitude, a kind of “surplus” of presence (Mitchell & Smith, 2008). In
the brain image this surplus manifests itself in a very specific sense: the
brain knows, feels and experiences more than we think (or know, feel and
experience). Subconsciously, allegedly, archaic emotions are in play, com-
putations are done and cognition is mobilised all without us having the
faintest clue of what is happening (see e.g., LeDoux, 1996; Libet, 1999).
And it is here where the ghost in the brain seems to reappear, albeit as a
sort of homunculus inhabiting our skull. The psychology allocated to the
brain in the end cannot be ours; it is the brain’s.
23
This is strikingly similar to Hardie’s aforementioned understanding of the metamorphoses in
Ovid as constituting an “absent presence”.
In this way, one could say that the function of today’s neuropsy-
discourses is above all to contain and to tame this extra brain-man gone
wild, this psychological Übermensch living inside our head. That is, they
strive to neutralise the troubling excess of subjectivity and lead it back
to the calmer waters of mainstream psychology. Mitchell himself perspi-
caciously tries to see in the “pictorial turn” in the twenty-first century a
“biopictorial turn”, pointing to “the production of copies, simulations,
or reproductions of living organisms and organs, and along with this,
a resurgence of ancient fears about ‘doubles,’ evil twins, and the loss of
identity” (Mitchell & Smith, 2008, p. 46). Concerning these “biocy-
bernetics”, Mitchell contends that the enigma and the defiance for our
understanding is that, while, on the one hand, image culture is today
fully digitalised, on the other hand, there is something of the dimension
of the analogue sticking in the image itself:
[O]n the one hand, we live in the ‘digital age’, and, on the other, …
images—analog signs, mind you—have now taken on a new and unprec-
edented power. We will not be able to keep our bearings in the new visual
and mediatized worlds that are opening before us unless we grasp firmly at
both horns of this dilemma. (Mitchell & Smith, 2008, p. 46)
Indeed, even if imaging today has become fully digital—and hence only
now the unbound reproductive potential of the image (and hence its
indestructibility) is fully unleashed—the image remains, at its functional,
phenomenological level, analogue. This is why a picture, given that its
digital format in the end does not coincide with the image itself (the
Gestalt-like form),24 is not “googleable” as such. To illustrate this fact:
I once found a (rather iconic) image on a website, albeit without the
proper citation information: subsequently, I wanted to reuse the image in
a paper and thus required a reference regarding the source of the image.
However, to my annoyance, I have to admit, I found myself faced with
the impossibility of googling it directly, so I had to take recourse to dis-
cursive descriptions of the image. However, in the interim Google has
developed “Google Image Search”, which allows you to search for other
24
Mitchell also stresses the need to distinguish between the image and the picture (Mitchell, 2005).
images by uploading or dragging an image into the search box itself. This
represents an attempt to try to get a grip on the analogue character of the
image but, evidently, Google Image must also draw upon other aspects
which do not pertain strictly to the image as such: the search is based
on captions, meta-tags, data found on the webpage where the image is
located, and to a certain extent image recognition (using e.g., colour pat-
terns). Experimenting with some self-made and on the spot generated
images (which obviously have no discursive tags or connections what-
soever), does generate some results which show vaguely similar images
(colour patterns do seem to be the main criterion); however, ultimately,
this testifies to the tenacity and the resistance of the analougeness of the
image.
It would appear, then, that we have to conclude that Logos (destined
to go virtual and digital) does in fact have its remainder, its excess, and
that this is precisely the image qua analogue image. The brain image is,
ultimately, not digital, but analogue. As aforementioned, in order to shift
from brain data to brain images the human gaze must be brought in: the
human factor, in other words, is the image. The movie The Matrix illus-
trates this point nicely: in certain scenes the virtual life-world of the ava-
tars becomes visible in its true form, that is, as green data (the so-called
“digital rain”), scrolling down over the screen.25 The central idea of the
movie is that in order for the digital to come alive, that is, to become
image, the human factor is required. Again, the human factor is the
image and the gaze it presupposes (from where the image is produced),
which, on the one hand, makes digitalisation and virtualisation possible,
whilst, on the other hand, resisting full digitalisation by introducing the
analogue into the virtual. If in pre-modern times image culture was tribu-
tary to the Christianisation of Roman iconography (Buck-Morss, 2007),
today the two central forces that define our present-day virtual image
culture are science and the corporate media. Any viable resistance and
critique will have to start from the fact that, in this digital day and age,
the medieval dictum “The primordial rose abides only in its name; we
hold names stripped” no longer holds, today it is the stripped images that
we hold on to.
25
Of course this is still image based language.
Conclusions
We owe the instantiation of the academic vantage point that structures
(late)modern subjectivity, a vantage point that this chapter has dem-
onstrated is central to the operation of brain image culture, to René
Descartes’ epoché, his contemplative retreat from the world in order to
be “more a spectator than an actor in all the comedies that are played
out there” (Descartes, 1996 [1637]). Descartes’ positioning of himself
in the theatre seat, so to speak, constitutes the point of departure for the
modern objectifying gaze, which, in turn, creates the imagery and the
scene that is looked upon. Continuing the dramaturgical metaphor, it is
immediately apparent that the visual culture we live in needs scenarios
and scripts in order to structure and organise both what is seen and what
happens within the scene. For Descartes, this was his “provisory moral”:
searching for truth and suspending all certainties, he adopted a provisory
code of morals in order to be able to locate himself in the world. For the
late-modern subject, I would argue, this is the specific function carried
out by the neuropsy-sciences, in the sense that, via the medium of the
brain images, they flesh out the scripts that structure what we perceive
and how we navigate our way through the scene (De Vos, 2013b). It is
only through full acknowledgment of the fact that any analysis of this
scheme will invariably culminate in the irreducibility of both the gaze
and the image (and its stubborn analogue-ness) that any critical position
can arise from where to assess the reductive and bio-political entangle-
ments of that scheme.
Let me end this chapter, then, with a reference to an artwork that, in
my opinion at least, represents an attempt to hold on to the image qua
image, that is, to the analogue as the very skandalon of our digital times:
the Flemish artist Jan Fabre’s work “Madonna”. In a remarkable version
of what for Buck-Morss is the icon par excellence, the Madonna with
child (Theotokos, the point between divinity and humanity), Fabre’s pieta
portrays the artist himself as the figure of the dead Christ. While Fabre
depicts Maria’s face as a skull—the skull of early modernity, reminiscent
of the pre-modern memento mori and the modern drawings of Vesalius—
the artist, as the son of god, depicts what we could understand as the late-
modern equivalent of the skull, that is, the brain. However, remarkably,
the brain is not positioned inside his head but, instead, is almost casually
held in the right hand of the son-figure. Such a gesture fully elevates the
brain into the position of an icon, in the sense that it is not coextensive
with the subject itself but, rather, the subject’s excess. At the most, one
could say it is the point of liaison between the subject and the human as
such. The brain appears precariously close to dropping out of the hand of
the figure of the artist, and falling onto the ground. This could point to
the vulnerability of the human, for example, the vulnerable brain, but it
could also be drawing attention to the fact that the brain, having become
an icon, is inevitably always on the verge of slipping out of one’s hand.
Each and every icon, it could be said, begs for iconoclasm whilst simulta-
neously resisting it, by virtue of it being analogue. Therefore, perhaps, in
the whole installation in Vienna, the majestic pieta is surrounded by four
giant (if not obscene) cerebellums, each of which is adorned with a reli-
gious attribute or artistic (auto) reference. One might be forgiven here for
interpreting the multiplication of these massive, heavy, analogue brains
in a Freudian way: the proliferation of the brains signals the absence of
the psyche.
Whilst one could certainly draw the connection between Jan Fabre’s
Pieta and the Celebrated Brain, that is, the brain as something to be
worshipped and glorified, let me first go in another direction. The ques-
tion I want to ask before anything else is whether the proliferation of
the faceless brain images represents a denial of the human as a sexed and
sexualised being? In the end, then, does the brain not constitute the ulti-
mate fetish, the complete and utter denial of castration and, indeed, of
sexuality tout court? This is what I will explore in the next chapter entitled
“The sexual brain”, through an extended critical engagement with the
work of Cathérine Malabou, specifically her attempt to trade sexuality
with what she calls cerebrality.
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5
The Sexual Brain: Against
Neuro-Plasticity
Introduction
An established idea within popularised and mainstream instantiations of
the neuroturn is that it is now finally possible to touch upon the real
without mediation. Or at the very least, while modern science purports
to not engage with issues of ontology, it fails to recognise and accept
that, from a critical perspective, as writers like Alenka Zupančič observe
(I made this reference already in Chap. 3), it is nevertheless still making
strong ontological claims (Zupančič, 2012). Indeed, even in the more
sophisticated approaches, which fully acknowledge the mediation of a
language based, techno-scientific apparatus, it is still invariably believed
that when one assesses reality we are not necessarily plagued by an irre-
ducible ambiguity resulting from this same mediation. That is to say, one
claims that the standards, protocols and evidence-based methods are
capable of containing, or even, for some, solving this ambiguity. In brain
imaging, for example, one banks upon standardisation, automation and
data-aggregation from neurolabs across the globe, all of which is believed
to substantially reduce ambiguity and, in turn, allow us to deal with,
reduce, or even transcend this discursive and technological mediation.

Discontents, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50557-6_5
It is precisely here, in matters relating to human and social affairs, that we

are instructed to leave behind our discursive baggage and trade-in our old
transcendental and idealist positions for techno-scientifically establish-
able patterns and principles, to use Rens Bod’s terms (Bod, 2013) about
the (granted, scientifically constructed ) facts of life.
Should we not refer to this as psycho or brainporn? That is to say,
don’t concern yourself with the perfunctory introductory stories, let’s just
jump straight to the carnal issues, which we are now perfectly capable
of charting with our mathematically rendered data and digital imaging
techniques. In evidence-based clinical psychology now, for example, it is
the statistics that ultimately decide which therapeutic protocols are to be
followed. Consequently, there is no longer any need to understand why
or how certain interventions work, as the raw naked data tells us every-
thing we could possibly need in order to proceed; so, no unnecessary
stories or superfluous anecdotes please!1
Here, from this logic of the obscene in the Baudrillardian sense, that
is, the obscenity of the all-too-visible (Baudrillard, 1988), the obvious
question that is raised is what happens to sexuality? If we have indeed
become our brain, then does the sexual also become cerebral, that is, does
sexuality also become fully understandable in terms of the brain? Or,
alternatively, can the sexual be conceptualised as that which resists the
aforesaid migration to the cerebral and, as such, can thus be said to con-
stitute an outside, a transcendentality to the brain? Or even more contro-
versially yet still, instead of understanding sexuality as something natural
that resists the brain, might we not think of the very metamorphosis of
the human into its brain as a sexualised process in itself, one that warrants
a careful Freudian and Lacanian scrutiny?
When framed in this way, these two provisional remarks serve to ques-
tion the principal arguments of Cathérine Malabou, who, starting out
from the neurosciences, aims to develop a non-transcendental dialectal
materialism centred on her reworking of the Hegelian notion of plastic-
ity. For Malabou, there simply is no outside, no transcendentality to the
brain. From here, Malabou puts forward the argument that the Freudian
1
This, of course, connects especially well with the technocratic tendency inherent to contemporary
post-political politics: never mind archaic ideologies, let us get on with doing what we have to do!
The Sexual Brain: Against Neuro-Plasticity 131
notion of sexuality as a cause (for psychic structures or symptoms) should

today be superseded and traded in for the notion of cerebrality. It is this
turn which I will question and challenge in this chapter. But, first, let us
set the scene by way of some introductory remarks.
To begin with, while Malabou herself often uses the concept of
metamorphosis,2 especially in relation to her concept of plasticity
(Malabou, 2009), her positions appears altogether removed from Ovid
for whom sexuality unmistakably is an important, if not an entirely cen-
tral, motive. Sexuality, desire or simply attempting to escape seduction or
rape, are prime movers in Ovid’s metamorphoses. Consider how Jupiter
changes himself into the figure of Diana in order to conquer Calisto,
or Tiresias, for that matter, who after having hit a couple of copulating
snakes with a stick is transformed by Hera into a woman; not to mention,
of course, Actaeon, who after stumbling by chance upon the nude Diana,
is turned into a stag and subsequently devoured by his own hounds. At
the very least, then, we could say that sexuality is a causal factor for Ovid,
something which steers the process of metamorphosis.
Today, however, and this is not only the case in Malabou’s philosophical
project but something inherent to the neuroturn more generally, sexual-
ity has lost this determining status; rather, when it comes to causality it is
now the brain, the great usurper, which claims full jurisdiction over such
matters. Whereas Freud understood psychic processes through the libidi-
nal and sexual economies, even the latter are now understood in terms of
the biological and biochemical processes governing the brain (Malabou,
2013b). However, one should not gloss over the specific paradoxes engen-
dered by this paradigm shift; indeed, the first thing to take note of is how,
remarkably, the cerebralisation of sexuality leads to a form of desexualisa-
tion. That is, as the brain becomes the seat of sexuality, the subject itself
does not necessarily need to be involved, thus becoming desexualised.
Consider, in this respect, how fMRI brain scans lay bare erotic inclinations
we ourselves are not necessarily aware of, or how olfactory stimuli (caused
by so-called pheromones) supposedly influence our behaviour outside of
any conscious awareness on our part.3 Does this not suggest that we think
2
See Malabou’s book on Heidegger, for example (Malabou, 2011b).
3
Of course, one could consider these examples as just one of many instances of the “subconscious”
processes in our brain, but I would argue that sexuality is, in actual fact, an expedient means
of the brain as something that is sexual in our place or on our behalf, in

turn, leaving the human subject itself somehow remote from all these neu-
ronal and hormonal processes?4 If this is indeed the case, then surely the
question then becomes: are we, as brains, still sexual creatures, or are we
closer to Ovid’s characters who metamorphosed into desexualised birds,
trees or rocks? As Jean-Didier Vincent, who is cited by Malabou (2013b),
puts it: the sexual apparatus itself is not a necessary component of being in
love. In other words, you don’t need your genitals to fall in love. Of course,
we knew this already, if only by virtue of courtly love, but today it is not
only our genitals but our whole body up to and including our subjectivity
which has been made redundant, as they turn out to be nothing more than
an appendix of the brain. The brain, at least so we are told, takes care of a
lot of things without us knowing it, without us having any part to play in
it. Consequently, contemporary conceptualisations of the sub/unconscious
turn us into unneeded guests, whose only role is to contemplate with fasci-
nation that wonderful organ that is the brain.
However, does this not mean that the brain itself has become our par-
ticular genital of choice? After all, when it is excited it fills with blood in
order to transport oxygen and turns red-hot on the fMRI scan. Although
admittedly she does not use these terms, this is nevertheless precisely
what Malabou (2013b) points towards, when she suggests that the brain
itself has become a new erogenous zone: that it is capable of being excited
in a specifically sexual manner. Most importantly, Malabou sees here a
major change vis-à-vis the old Freudian scheme, which posited that all
parts of the body were capable of becoming an erogenous zone except
for the brain. From a Freudian perspective, then, the brain can be said
to function as a site of “capitalisation” for the libidinal economy, that
is, a hub from where the circulation of pleasure is directed, but which
itself remains outside of this circulation. The validity of this scheme is
challenged by contemporary neurobiology, according to Malabou, as it
has come to conceive of the brain itself as an erogenous zone. That is to
say, because neurobiology understands the brain as the source of every
through which to explore common-sensical, if not outright lazy and outdated, conceptualizations
of the sub/unconscious.
4
Once again, we could understand this in terms of interpassivity (Pfaller, 2000; Žižek, 1997).
sexual excitation, there is no longer a place for an autonomous sexual

drive directed from a supposed outside, such as there was in Freud’s for-
mulation. Malabou celebrates the way in which the head loses its tran-
scendental status here, which is to say it loses its status as an outside.
But perhaps we could also consider another possibility here, for although
Malabou does speak of a certain sexualisation of the brain, she fails to
consider the possibility that the brain, rather than becoming an eroge-
nous zone per se, has actually become an erotic object. Such a position
would entail that the brain is not so much the site of sexuality, the source
as it were, or that which constitutes sexuality but, rather, the (displaced)
partial object around which the drive circles. One tentative example that
points towards this being the case comes from a phenomenon—albeit,
admittedly, a vague and heavily contested phenomenon—called ASMR
(Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), defined by Wikipedia as “a
perceptual phenomenon characterised as a distinct, pleasurable tingling
sensation in the head, scalp, back, or peripheral regions of the body in
response to visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or cognitive stimuli”. Across
YouTube and other video-streaming channels there are thousands of vid-
eos tagged under the label of ASMR, where you see and hear people turn-
ing the pages of a book, scratch or tap various surfaces, whisper in some
exotic foreign language, or mimic you having a haircut or even your ears
cleaned. Although adepts claim that ASMR videos or audio are relaxing
and pleasurable, Wikipedia states that this concerns above all “anecdotal
evidence [and] little or no scientific explanation or verified data”.
Interestingly, while this experience has been labelled as a “cerebral
orgasm”, as a rule the sexual character is denied. On the one hand, there-
fore, the brain does seem to have become, as Malabou alludes to, an
autonomous sexual organ and a new erogenous zone wholly capable
of being excited in a specifically sexual manner. Below is how someone
describes the sensation:
Have you experienced goose bumps or your hair standing up on the back
of your neck when you’ve listened to a particularly beautiful or moving
piece of music? Imagine if those things weren’t external, but internal tin-
gling sensations.5
5
Comment on an ASMR video found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eExSM-hyhc
On the other hand, however, ASMR adepts—rather relentlessly, I might

add—stress that ASMR is not a sexual thing; as the journalist Harry
Cheadle puts it: “head tingles and sex don’t mix”.6 Or, to cite another
comment from an ASMR video in which the person wants to explain
to us:
there are so few things I can think of that are widely available, for free, that
make you feel this good … and are completely non-sexual.7
Of course, anyone with even just a passing affinity with psychoanalysis

will entertain the possibility that this repeated renunciation of a sexual
connotation is a quintessential example of Freudian Verneinung (nega-
tion). And, indeed, as one might expect, one need not look far for the
return of the repressed, that is, for the eroticism involved in ASMR, much
like the Reddit page http://www.reddit.com/r/asmr/ has its “not suitable
for work” version http://www.reddit.com/r/nsfwasmr. One can see con-
tent even in regular ASMR videos that clearly have sexual undertones:
nails being polished, popsicles being eaten, soft whispering, someone
role-playing as a doctor. Are such examples not precisely more warped
aspects of what we might call neurosexuality—involving negation, repres-
sion and its return, the sexual as the non-sexual and vice versa, and so
on—unaccounted for in Malabou’s notion that the brain has become an
erogenous zone, a conceptualisation which does not allow for an outside
of the brain?
What might be decisive here is that while Malabou, as we will see
shortly, ultimately bases her whole philosophical endeavour on the strong
ontological claim of the unmediated biological facticity of plasticity,
ASMR also claims to be beyond the discursive or beyond mediation.
As someone said to me: ASMR videos are not about telling a story, the
actual content does not matter in this respect; rather, you have to immerse
yourself in the images and the sounds, as it is something bodily, something
in your mind, something in your brain. The simple question, however, is
whether this minimal discursive framework, that is, the very rejection
6
http://www.vice.com/read/asmr-the-good-feeling-no-one-can-explain
7
Comment on an ASMR video found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eExSM-hyhc
of the discursive itself and the turn to the neurological, is not, in fact,
the very primordial story on which ASMR is based? This, when viewed
in conjunction with the erotic undertones, might form the basis of an
argument against Malabou’s positioning of the brain as a biologically
determined, erogenous zone. By observing how the brain can turn into
an eroticised object, as in ASMR, we might be able to demonstrate how
there is still an outside from where a desexualised spectral subject con-
templates, in wonder et fascinans, the image of the brain throbbing with
blood, shot through by electric currents, in a chemical frenzy. The trope
of the sexual brain, in other words, might show us how transcendental-
ity and sexuality are not as easily deconstructed by the neurosciences as
writers such as Malabou suggest.
In this chapter I will particularly set out to trace how Malabou, in her
attempt to use neurobiology as a deconstructive tool, inevitably has to
reject certain basic tenets of psychoanalysis, and that as a consequence of
this, her strong ontological claims unwittingly need to be shored up by a
silent partner: psychology. And this is where, I will argue, Malabou finds
herself at the threshold of psychology’s own deadlock, that is, psychologi-
sation. This, moreover, radically calls into question the espoused political
relevance of her concept of plasticity.
Plasticity: A Strong Ontological Claim

Cathérine Malabou repeatedly stresses that today’s materialism should
denounce the transcendental, or at the very least, search for the
non-transcendental:
Materialism is a name for the non-transcendental status of form, in gen-

eral. Matter is what forms itself in producing the conditions of possibility
of this formation. Any transcendental instance necessarily finds itself in a
position of exteriority in relation to that which it organises. By its nature
the condition of possibility is other than what it makes possible.
Materialism, in general, affirms the opposite, the absence of any outside of
the process of formation. Matter is self in formation, and selves in forma-
tion are, then, systematically non-transcendental. (Malabou, 2013d)
For Malabou, today’s neurosciences open the way for a philosophical

materialism to “transgress the transcendental” (Malabou, 2013c). In
her book, Plasticity at the dusk of writing, it is through her well-known
adaptation of the notion of plasticity that she sets out to denounce
continental philosophy’s fixation on the transcendental stance. There,
Malabou states that she neither believes in the absence of form nor in a
possible beyond of form, arguing, rather, that “[f ]orm is the metamor-
phizable but immovable barrier of thought” (Malabou, 2009, p. 49).
Elsewhere she connects plasticity to Michel Foucault’s promotion of
the idea of transsubjectivation, which Foucault, according to Malabou,
conceived as a journey within oneself, the product of a transformation.
She contends that this
transsubjectivation doesn’t mean that you become different from what you
used to be, nor that you are able to absorb the other’s difference, but that
you open a space within yourself between two forms of yourself. That you
oppose two forms of yourself within yourself. (Malabou & Vahanian,
2008, p. 5)
It is the plasticity of the brain, Malabou notes, which might provide

a name for this transsubjectivation. If one were to argue, contrary to
this claim, that it is here, in the space between two forms, where the
transcendental actually reappears, then Malabou would surely reject
this. Following Derrida’s dictum that there’s nothing outside the text,
Malabou adds that the text for her is both biological and spiritual, both
material and historical (Malabou & Vahanian, 2008, p. 1). Admittedly,
Malabou’s proposition of continuity between our brain and the mental is
not a reductionism simpliciter, especially as she goes onto situate, specifi-
cally in the passage of the neuronal to the mental, a site of contestation
and freedom precisely because of the plasticity of the brain. But, to be
absolutely clear on this point, Malabou in the final instance cannot but
ground (and enclose) this emancipatory potential in neurobiology: “the
brain is naturally plastic” (Malabou & Vahanian, 2008, p. 2).
It is on the basis of this strong ontological claim that Malabou
envisions bridging the division between continental philosophy and
cognitivism, that is, via the concept of neuroplasticity. She connects the
Hegelian notion that “the subject is plastic in the sense that she or he is
able to receive form (passivity) and to give form (activity)” (Malabou &
Vahanian, 2008, p. 4) with the assertion from the neurosciences that
brain matter is plastic and malleable. Malabou, moreover, argues that due
to this plasticity, neuronal man, then, is thus not a fully fleshed out sub-
ject: there is no fixed, positive neural agency, there is no neural Cogito.
Similarly, in her inaugural lecture at Kingston University (Malabou,
2013c), Malabou refers to the proposition of Thomas Metzinger that
the Self is its own appearance: the Self is a model which cannot perceive
itself as a model, it exists only insofar as it does not perceive itself as a
model. Malabou links this neural transparency, and its illusory subjec-
tivity, to neural plasticity: the absence of subjectivity is, paradoxically,
malleable and fashionable, she argues: “each of us is no-one in his or her
way”. From here the conclusion for Malabou is that, firstly, the brain is
the core of our individual experiences and identity and secondly, there is
no transcendental Cogito.
It is here that, as far as Malabou is concerned, neurological research
is able to complete and radicalise the “deconstruction of subjectiv-
ity” which both Derrida and Foucault had started: “neurobiology
achieves the effective neutralization of subjectivity” (Malabou, 2010,
pp. 117–118). Malabou goes on to argue that, whereas Foucault still
thought that literature represented a possible outside, one must con-
clude that it no longer “constitute[s] a neutral space or shelter that
would protect us from the mastery of transcendental subjectivity and
discourse” (Malabou, 2010, p. 118). However, the argument I will put
forward in the following sections is that neurobiology also cannot pos-
sibly be a neutral space and hence cannot but partake in transcendental
discourse. I thus set out to demonstrate that Malabou’s recourse to neu-
robiology cannot but summon the very same transcendental spectres
she attempts to rid herself of. Given that I go on to claim that the
ghosts of psychology and psychologisation are evoked together with
these transcendental spectres, I must first explain why, from my per-
spective, there is a strong bond between the transcendental and the
psychological.
The Psycho-Transcendental Subject of

Modernity
One could argue that modern subjectivity, in its lineage from Descartes
and Kant, necessarily evokes the transcendental and concomitantly, at
least so it appears, begs to be psychologised. For Kant, Enlightenment
is the moment when humanity puts its own reason to use, without
subjecting itself to any external authority. Foucault points out that it is
here where critique comes in: the task of Kantian critique is to define
the conditions of the use of reason; it explores the limits of what we
can know. By conceiving of the modern subject as an agent emanci-
pating itself, thinking for him or herself, critical philosophy’s task is
thus to question the conditions of possibility of reason. Transcendental
knowledge is occupied, as Kant writes, “with our mode of cognition
of objects insofar as this is to be possible a priori” (Kant, 2005, p. 149
(A112)). This leads Kant to conceive of the transcendental a prioris of
time and space, hence defining the subject as the subject of transcen-
dental apperception.8
Could we not say, then, at the very least, that the Kantian ques-
tioning of reason and subjectivity led to the modern question or even
enigma of the psyche as a crucial dimension of the human being and,
hence, opened up the field for modern psychology and psychoanalysis?
However, as such, the division of labour, which designates the rational
soul of transcendental apperception to philosophy and the animal soul of
empirical apperception to psychology, did not result in a straightforward
nor unproblematic recognition of psychology as a science. For, as is well
known, Kant’s conclusion concerning psychology was that it was unable
to claim scientific status. This was because Kant, distinguishing between
rational psychology (concerning the soul as the metaphysical substrate of
the self of thinking) and empirical psychology (concerning the self of the
empirical and sensible apperception), asserted that the former is not able
to justify the substantive principles on which an empirical psychology
could establish itself (Wilson, 2006, p. 24).
8
In this particular reading, the subject of transcendental apperception concerns the synthesis and
unification of empirical and sensible apperception, and leads, in actual fact, to an empty subject, as
it is the mere function of the transcendental apperception.
But, alternatively, one could argue that it was actually the Kantian
theoretical edifice itself that engendered the rationale for a modern psy-
chology. To develop this argument in yet another way still, let me refer to
Kant’s Critique of practical reason in which he attempted to ground ethics
in a formal approach. In order to consider rationality as absolutely free in
the field of morality, Kant cut morality loose from the human passions,
from any pathological object, from any particular good. From here, the full
weight of the moral Law came to lay with reason and not with “das Ding
an sich” (De Kesel, 2002, p. 132). In this way, as John Rajchman con-
tends, Kant surrendered egoism to natural psychology and thus separated
morality from the field of the empirical or technical (Rajchman, 1986,
p. 50). The field of modern psychology, the field of the pathological and the
empirical, then, can be said to have seen the light of day after all as a resi-
due of the Kantian operation (De Vos, 2012); albeit that in its attempt
to constitute itself as a science psychology had to negate Kant’s verdict of
the impossibility of a psychological science.
Do we not find ourselves here in modern hauntology, to put it
in Derridean terms: the modern field of the psyche is both a field of
impossibility and a field which demands to be addressed?9 We know psy-
chology is impossible, but nevertheless … Does this not go some way to
explaining why it always returns to haunt us? To schematise, given that
Kant’s transcendental philosophy is based on the distinction between
transcendental philosophy and psychology, he had to consider the lat-
ter as an impossible science (one could argue that the distinction—or
perhaps more accurately, the antagonism—returned within psychology
itself, thus instantiating a deadlock within psychology). However, as a
result, Kantian transcendental philosophy is always in danger of getting
entangled once again with that which it tries to expel (the empirical, the
pathological and the psychological), in order to establish its field. This is
how we can understand the fact that Kant himself has been reproached
for psychologising the transcendental—his Critique of pure reason has,
for example, been called a transcendental psychology.10 However, can
9
Consider, in this respect, Edmund Husserl’s dismissal of psychology in his Crisis (Husserl, 1970).
More recent examples of writers addressing this paradoxical status of psychology from within the
borders of the discipline itself are Erica Burman (Burman, 2008) and Ian Parker (Parker, 2007).
10
For a critique of Kant’s psychologism see Strawson (1968). For a defence of transcendental
psychology see Kitcher (1990).
one not argue that the risk of psychologisation is even greater within
philosophical traditions in which Kant’s transcendentalism is rejected?
For is it not there that the spectre of psychology is given full reign? This
is because, while Kant’s transcendental philosophy opened up a place for
psychology, albeit an impossible one which led to symptomatic returns
of the repressed within Kantianism, rejecting the transcendental can be
said to foreclose psychology in such a way that it comes back as an over-
determined reality (a return in the Real).11 As a consequence, a no longer
recognizable psychology becomes unfettered as it cannot be put back12
into its non-existing place.
This is what I shall be examining in the following sections through
a closer engagement with Malabou’s work, as I claim that her struggle
with the transcendental leads her into the clutches of an unrecognised
and unchecked psychologisation. Let me already at this juncture draw
attention to the psychologising potential inherent in her main inspira-
tion, that is, Foucault’s endeavour to, as Malabou calls it, transgress the
Kantian transcendental (Malabou, 2011a). This psychologising tendency
is especially evident in Foucault’s conception of the self-fashioning sub-
ject (a notion Malabou will incorporate within her theory of plastic-
ity). Foucault begins by demonstrating that the Kantian a prioris, the
universal limits of reason, cannot be maintained in light of the crucial
relation of the subject to power, with the latter understood as the his-
torical forms of the rule of conduct. For Foucault, objects of inquiry are
constructed within specific discursive and historical formations, defining
“the conditions in which [one] can sustain a discourse about things that
is recognised to be true” (Foucault, 1986, p. xxii). From here he envisions
another notion of the subject: denouncing Kant’s idea of the autonomous
and true subject freeing himself from authority and becoming mature,
Foucault, in contrast, sees man as he “who tries to invent himself …
modernity does not ‘liberate man in his own being’; it compels him to
11
I am, of course, referring here to the Lacanian distinction between repression and foreclosure,
whereby the first refers to the structural mechanism of neurosis and leads to neurotic symptoms,
and the second is at work in psychosis, where the return of the repressed concerns a return in the
Real (in the form of delusions, for example) (Lacan, 1993).
12
I owe this last phrase to Boris Demarest.
face the task of producing himself ” (Foucault, 1984, p. 42).13 It should

be noted that this also entails a specific reworking of Kant’s critique of
psychology: Foucault’s critique concerns, on the one hand, psychology’s
a-historicism and essentialism and, on the other, the role played by the
psy-sciences in the processes of power (how they are part and parcel of
modern bio-politics and its rule of conduct).
But while Foucault’s critique targets both psychology and the transcen-
dental, a Janus-faced psychological-transcendental spectre can be said to
be haunting his alternative. To begin with, one could argue, Foucault’s
aesthetics of the self, figuring a self-fashioning itself, paradoxically rein-
stalls an alternative form of transcendence. Indeed, as Žižek points out,
Foucault’s notion of the subject is a classical one, understanding the
“subject as the power of self-mediation and harmonising the antagonistic
forces, as a way of mastering the ‘use of pleasures’ through a restoration
of the image of self ” (Žižek, 1989, p. 2). It is precisely here, then, that
Foucault risks falling back into psychology: even though his historical a
prioris are meant to introduce a principle of “nonsubjective determina-
tion” (Han, 2002, p. 45), having nothing to do with the subject’s facul-
ties or experiences (Oksala, 2005, p. 21), Foucault’s terminology at times
veers dangerously close to that of a psychologising discourse. Foucault
speaks, for example, of reflecting on “our ways of being and thinking, the
relations to authority, relations between the sexes, or the way in which we
perceive insanity or illness” (Foucault, 1984, pp. 46–47). That said, one
could suggest that Foucault’s self-fashioning subject appears to become
its own psychotherapist.
The question then becomes: if Malabou explicitly links her project
of “neural plasticity” to Foucault’s self-fashioning subject then does
she not risk encountering the very same problems, inasmuch as she is
merely proffering a “care of the brain” instead of a “care of the self ”?
Or, alternatively, is her concept of plasticity as “an objective dimen-
sion of the brain” (Malabou, 2013c) strong enough to ward off the
13
Of course, as Boris Demarest (personal communication) remarks, this position is not a truly
anti-Kantian one: opposed to an “essential humanism” (wherein the human has an essential and
fixed place), a “transformational humanism” views the human as the only essence capable of
self-production, and it is in terms of this last position that Foucault is in line with Kant and,
amongst others, Pico della Mirandola contra Rousseau and Darwin.
psycho-transcendental spectre? After all, she bases her self-fashioning

not in some universal transcendentalism, nor in a contingent dan-
dyism, but in brain science. The place of the self-fashioning subject
is, for Malabou, the synapse, the locus of plasticity. In doing so, she
trades, at least so it seems, the transcendental gap with the synaptic
one. Malabou’s key argument in this regard will be trauma and neural
disconnection, understood here as an “empirical, biological, and mean-
ingless interruption of the transcendental itself ” (Malabou, 2012c,
p. 228). However, what are the implications for the fact that, in order
to make this point, she has to draw upon an explicit repudiation of
the psychoanalytic notions of trauma and, most notably, sexuality? In
the next section, I will attempt to demonstrate how her critique of
psychoanalysis, as such, is problematic in a number of key respects and
will culminate with her in the arms of psychology and its multifarious
deadlocks.
Malabou’s Critique of Psychoanalysis’

Sexuality
A central component of Malabou’s plasticity theory is trauma. To the two
Hegelian forms of plasticity, receiving form and giving form, she adds
a third, destructive plasticity, in which a new form is given by destruc-
tion, a form which is constituted in its very rupture with all previous
forms. It is precisely this which is at stake in trauma, the latter broadly
construed by Malabou as brain tumours, Alzheimer’s disease, organic
cerebral lesions, or traumas caused by economic disasters or political
violence. For Malabou, given the nature of our socio-historical junc-
ture we are all at risk of suffering from them (Malabou, 2012a). What is
immediately apparent here14 is how readily her argument fits in with the
prevailing discourses of risk and vulnerability which turn everybody into
a potential victim. Several authors have documented the rise of this para-
digm, located its role in contemporary biopolitics and criticised it on the
basis of its denial of agency, the stress on the individual rather than the
14
I am expanding here upon the remark I made about Malabou’s understanding of the ubiquitous
risk of brain damage in Chap. 3.
community and its promotion of political passivity.15 Remarkably, these

issues are left unaddressed by Malabou.
However, and perhaps more importantly, one should not miss the
underlying paradigm shift Malabou is attempting to enforce. It has been
argued that the entire field of modern philosophy involves the reference
to the threat of madness, or as Žižek puts it: the transcendental phi-
losopher’s struggle is basically to delineate himself from the madman.16
Malabou, however, shifts this immanent threat within reason—of going
astray on its own account, getting stuck in its own excess (which is, of
course, the terrain of psychoanalysis and its focus on symptoms, dreams,
slips of the tongue etc.)—to a permanent threat on the biological and
anatomical level—where thinking falters for reasons beyond and inde-
pendent of thinking itself.
Supplanting Cartesian and transcendental subjectivity with its horizon
of madness for the brain and its risk of lesion, Malabou consequently has to
oppose the Freudian and Lacanian positions. In particular, she rejects the
psychoanalytic conception of trauma for its being “rooted in the transcen-
dental principle of the always already” (Malabou, 2012c, p. 228). That is,
for both Freud and Lacan, a trauma only has an impact if it chimes with or
re-invokes an older (infantile and sexual) trauma. Malabou contends that
when Lacan asks what is the reality of an accident, he means that there is
something other in the accident than the accident itself; or phrased other-
wise: for Lacan contingent reality is merely “a means for the Real to come
to light” (Malabou, 2012c, p. 232). Accordingly, Malabou denounces
psychoanalysis’ recourse to the “unresolved infantile conflict” (Malabou,
2012b, p. 2), and its understanding of sexuality as central in both trauma
and subjectivity as such (Malabou, 2012a). Hence, she contends:
What brain damage allows us to see is that the violence of the traumatizing
lesions consists in the way they cut the subject … from its reserves of
memory. The traumatized victim’s speech doesn’t have any revelatory
meaning. Their illness does not constitute a kind of truth with regard to
their ancient history. (Malabou, 2012c, p. 234)
15
See, for example, Furedi (1997) and McLaughlin (2010).
16
Žižek refers to “Descartes: how do I know I’m not hallucinating reality. Kant: how to delimit
metaphysical speculation from Swedenborgian hallucinatory rambling”. Žižek calls this “excess of
madness” the very founding gesture of Cartesian subjectivity (Žižek, 1998, p. 2).
Thus, she contends, when after a major brain injury a patient does not
see that his left side is paralysed, one does not have to look for affective
imperatives or posit an unconsciously calculated blindness: “[h]e does not
see because he cannot see, that’s all” (Malabou, 2012b, p. 88). Malabou
observes that for trauma-patients:
[t]here is no possibility for them of being present to their own fragmenta-

tion or to their own wound. In contrast to castration, there is no represen-
tation, no phenomenon, no example of separation, which would allow the
subject to anticipate, to wait for, to fantasize what can be a break in cerebral
connections. One cannot even dream about it. There is no scene for this
Thing. No words. (Malabou, 2012c, p. 234)
Above, Malabou seemingly limits—wrongly in my opinion—

psychoanalysis to a kind of hermeneutics seeking to unearth meaning,
words, history. One could argue, contra Malabou’s position, that for psy-
choanalysis the subject is always already incapable of being present with
itself. Or, as Žižek previously argued in a riposte to Malabou, the subject
for psychoanalysis is always already this empty, zero-level subject, it is
always already a post-trauma subject (Žižek, 2008). But in her response
to Žižek, Malabou continues to claim that “a total absence of meaning
is the meaning of our time” and that this is not grasped by psychoanaly-
sis with its alleged resort to “revelatory meaning” and “ancient history”
(Malabou, 2012c, p. 234). This perseverance in the idea that psycho-
analysis looks for meaning in trauma is inaccurate at best: for Freud, and
certainly for Lacan, trauma is beyond revelation, meaning and history,
precisely as trauma repeats, above all else, that subjectivity is in its core
something beyond revelation, meaning and history. Just consider Freud’s
“navel of the dream”17 which testifies to the fact that the most fundamen-
tal part of the dream is the point where the interpretation falters and how
Lacan stressed that at that precise point no particular meaning nor, for
that matter, any subject is to be looked for (Lacan, 1991, p. 47). We are
here far removed from a conception of the unconsciousness as a reservoir
of meaning and history.
17
“There is at least one spot in every dream at which it is unplumbable—a navel, as it were, that is
its point of contact with the unknown” (Freud, [1900] 1953, p. 111, n. 1).
Hence, Malabou’s attempt in her book, The new wounded, to supplant

Freudian sexuality with “cerebrality” is problematic. Her argument is
that there are “psychic accidents that cannot be translated into the lan-
guage of sexual infirmity” (Malabou, 2012a, p. 8): trauma, rather, entails
a total “absence of sense”, wholly removed from any possibility of being
fantasised (Malabou, 2012a, p. 9). Of course, at first glance Malabou’s
argument makes sense: one can easily imagine a neurally wounded sub-
ject that would not be cognizant of its wounding and, thus, the empiri-
cal wound would have resulted in a new subject irreparably cut off from
their previous life history. However, from a psychoanalytic perspective
the condition of this so-called new post-trauma subject is, in actual
fact, not different from that of subjectivity as such: the subject, passing
through the Other of language, as Shoshana Felman puts it, “returns to
itself without quite being able to rejoin itself ” (Felman, 1980, p. 51).
Hence, I disagree with Malabou that, from the empiricity of trauma
one can necessarily infer that deconstructing subjectivity is a task for
neurobiology. As mentioned in the last chapter, when Lacan rephrased
Descartes’ cogito as “I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do
not think” (Lacan, 2001, p. 183), what this means is that the condition
of being cut off, of not being where one feels, knows, or thinks some-
thing, of always already being divorced from one’s past, is the very con-
dition of human subjectivity itself. But this is clearly not how Malabou
chooses to understand Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Starting out from how an empirical brain wound potentially completely
erases the subject—a possibility which I do not necessarily contest, as
such—Malabou criticises Freud’s contention that the unconscious knows
neither negation nor has any conception of death. By way of contrast,
Malabou posits that a brain lesion can destroy the very structure of the
unconscious, as well as the subject’s anticipation of its own destruction,
an anticipation which, according to Malabou, for Freud would itself be
indestructible:
For the neurologists, the very structure of the cerebral anticipation of

death—described as a structure of auto-affection—is not insulated from
danger, unlike the structure of the unconscious as it is defined by
psychoanalysis. Certain types of damage can overwhelm it: the neurologi-
cal horizon of the anticipation of destruction is destructible.
As a result, certain subjects with brain lesions are deprived precisely of

the possibility of seeing or feeling themselves die. A lesion or a synaptic
rupture, therefore, can never coincide, symbolically or materially, with
anxiety of the cut or of castration. (Malabou, 2013e, p. 18)
In engaging with these quotations above, I am not convinced that this

constitutes a resounding argument against psychoanalysis: to put it
bluntly, chopping one’s head off would also not be without its conse-
quences. Whilst it may be perfectly conceivable that brain damage is
capable of wiping away the Freudian unconscious, the Lacanian fantasy,
or, indeed, even the notion of subjectivity as such, what is problematic
here, however, is the way in which Malabou is conflating the psycho-
analytic Real with the reality of the brain. That said, let us consider the
following quote:
Freud, as Lacan recalls, distinguishes between two types of events and

acknowledges that “what is not illuminated by the Symbolic appears in the
Real.” Mustn’t we affirm, therefore, that the psychic horizon of anticipation
is itself threatened with real destruction? (Malabou, 2013e, p. 20)
Does Malabou here, in her haste to supplant the psychoanalytic Real with
“real destruction”, not risk confusing deconstruction with destruction?
Indeed, such a move would equate the psychoanalytic Real with the real
of the empirical and the real of brain matter, in turn, reducing the Real to
a pre-conditional substrate of subjectivity, whereas a true psychoanalytic
conceptualisation of the Real must be situated in the heart of subjectiv-
ity itself. That is to say, the Real for psychoanalysis is not that which pre-
cedes the subject (as per the genealogical conception that structures Adrian
Johnston’s transcendental materialism), nor is it the neurobiological pro-
cesses to which the subject has no access (as per Metzinger’s conception of
the self ). Rather, the Real is the antagonism within subjectivity itself, that
which thwarts subjectivity as such, which means that the subject can never
be fully equal to itself or even be present with itself. Transposing this Real
to the real of the brain wound, then, is problematic in a number of respects.
Consider here again Malabou’s notion that a “real destruction” of the
brain gives birth to a new subject, one which simply cannot be accounted
for, at least according to Malabou, in the conventional psychoanalytic

terms. To illustrate this point, Malabou cites the example of an Alzheimer
patient whose personality is so fundamentally altered that a new sub-
ject emerges with absolutely no connection to the prior identity of the
patient. However, the real question is whether Malabou is justified in
entrusting full jurisdiction to neurobiology to understand this ostensibly
new subject? Could one not argue that this post-traumatic subject—that
is, in as far as it can be said to entail a truly subjective position, by which
I mean that it is spoken through by language and engages in interaction
with itself, others and the world—can be traced back, even in a minimal
form, to the history and sexuality of the subject before the accident? Or,
phrased otherwise, will any new subject not have to emerge from the
ashes of its former identity, which would seem to necessitate a recon-
figuration, if not an out-and-out reinvention of its position vis-à-vis the
sexual, the latter being one of the central coordinates of the Real?
In this respect, one should consider why Malabou, following Antonio
Damasio, places so much emphasis on the “pathological indifference”
of the “newly wounded”: Malabou contends that these patients become
emotionally cold and indifferent, and that this indifference is also found
at the level of sexuality. However, does Malabou, together with Damasio,
not overplay her empirical hand here in order to reject the psychoanalytic
conception of sexuality? For, as other critics have already pointed out
(e.g., Fadaak, 2013), clinical descriptions of brain damage suggest a far
more diversified presentation of pathology than Malabou is describing
here. Consider the well-documented forms of sexual disinhibition and
sexual acting-out that occur in cases of brain damage, which are often
attributed to damage in the inhibitory regions of the brain. But, of course,
the real issue here is how we should understand these eruptions that are
otherwise all too readily understood as natural or instinctive sexuality laid
bare, that is, sexuality freed from its subjective and cultural constraints as
the latter would be laid down in the frontal lobes? Alternatively, however,
one could understand the preponderance of sexual symptoms as signal-
ling that any (re)mobilisation of subjectivity post-trauma must pass, for
structural reasons, through sexuality. We know that psychoanalysis pos-
its a polymorphic perverse sexuality at the root of human subjectivity;
therefore, it might be expedient to understand such transgressions not as
stemming from an uprooted natural sexuality but, rather, as showing us

the remnants of the sexual base of subjectivity, or perhaps even as a signal
of the attempt to remobilise subjectivity.
However, and on this point I want to be absolutely clear, I am not
seeking to hang my argument on any claimed for clinical and empiri-
cal value of psychoanalysis as such; rather, what I am aiming to do is to
demonstrate that when one talks about the post-traumatic subject, there
comes a particular moment when a theory of the psyche is altogether
essential. And it is precisely this aspect that Malabou fails to take into
account: in the process of supplanting the psychoanalytic Real with the
neuroscientific real she outlines her “new subject” as differing entirely
from its former appearance, as if all of this somehow pertained to a kind
of natural psychology. That said, it is Malabou’s unacknowledged recourse
to psychology that I want to take issue with in the following section.
The Spectre of Psychology

Let us begin again from Malabou’s assertion that trauma and destruc-
tive plasticity lead to “a form created by destruction, the form of a new
person, which is not the transcendental subject, but what undermines
it” (Malabou, 2012c, p. 235). But when Malabou in this way needs the
real trauma in order to deconstruct the (transcendental/psychoanalytic/
sexualised) subject, she unwittingly calls into being (retroactively so to
speak) the subject of psychology. For is it not noticeable that she can-
not but conceptualise her post-traumatic-subject against the background
of a normal subject-before-trauma? That is, she presupposes a well-put-
together, well-balanced subject—in one word, a psychological subject—
who is to be torn apart and unbalanced by real and objective brain
traumas. If, as she states in Ontology of the Accident, “Normal identity is
a changeable and transformable entity right from the start, always liable
to make a faux bond or to say farewell to itself ” (Malabou, 2012b, p. 31),
then she ends up understanding this “normal identity” within a particular
psychological framework: “Life can be defined as the harmonious agree-
ment of the movements of the body” (Malabou, 2012b, p. 31). Here,
Malabou finds herself firmly in the territory of psychology, with all the
usual tell-tale signs of normality, harmony and adaption. In the same way,
her aforementioned depiction of the post-traumatic subject as character-
ised by an affective coldness and a fundamental indifference (Malabou,
2012b, p. 79), (re)produces the image of the normal psychological indi-
vidual as affected (if not “warm”) and concerned. Is not, however, by way
of contrast, the basic lesson of psychoanalysis that the speaking subject
knows this coldness and indifference all too well and that any visions of
harmony and adaptation are but (retro-actively) constructed fantasies?
By rejecting the decentring of subjectivity by psychoanalysis, Malabou’s
wager is that neuroscience can do this deconstruction work, whereas, in
fact, all the signs appear to indicate that it is this precise trajectory that
sends her drifting into the realm of psychology.
But, so as to be absolutely clear, the subject as always already, or if
one will permit me to use the term here, a priori cut off from the realm
of the affective is in a way also precisely that which Malabou is after.
In a commentary on Descartes’ conception of auto-affection she asks:
“Can we think of affects outside autoaffection, affects without subjects,
affects that do not affect “me” ? (Malabou, 2013a, p. 6). But here the differ-
ence between psychoanalysis and Malabou’s (Damasio-inspired) outlook
becomes particularly evident. For Malabou, a subject can be cut loose
from his/her affects due to some brain trauma, while in actuality they are
still there somewhere in the brain (and thus only accessible via science
and its techniques). The affect without a subject is, for both Malabou and
Damasio, the baseline: affects precede subjectivity and consciousness;
brain trauma only lays bare this initial condition. For psychoanalysis,
by way of contrast, having affects, having feelings as such creates a point
outside: the “I” having feelings, ultimately, is outside of them. The affect
thus creates the without a subject and it is this subjectlessness, paradoxi-
cally, which represents what subjectivity is all about in the end. Lacan’s
rendering of Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” into “I think where
I am not, therefore I am where I think not” (Lacan, 2001, p. 183), could
therefore be paraphrased yet further: “I feel where I am not, therefore
I am where I feel not”.
It is at this point that Malabou and Damasio’s understanding of affect
obviously parts ways with psychoanalysis. In order to conceive of affect
they not only rely on neuroscientific imaging techniques, but also on
a whole battery of unacknowledged presuppositions stemming from

psychology. This becomes particularly acute when Malabou uncriti-
cally accepts Damasio’s understanding of a sub-conscious level of affects,
which eventually leads Damasio to the substantialisation of some kind
of psychological Ego. As Žižek remarks, while for Descartes the Cogito
was far from being a “substance”, Damasio “puts … emphasis on the
subject’s ‘substantial’ nature, his embeddedness in the biological reality of
the body” (Žižek, 2006, p. 223). This substantialisation, I would argue,
precisely takes us into the domain of psychology. That is, when Damasio
juxtaposes a “core Self ” (born out of neural mappings and its second
orders) with an “autobiographical self ”, he gets trapped in a form of Ego-
psychology: even though he depicts different Selves, he ultimately houses
all these Selves neatly in the individual that we recognise all too well from
mainstream psy-sciences:
The power of consciousness comes from the effective connection it estab-

lishes between the biological machinery of individual life regulation and
the biological machinery of thought. That connection is the basis for the
creation of an individual concern which permeates all aspects of thought
processing, focuses all problem-solving activities, and inspires the ensuing
solutions. (Damasio, 1999, p. 304)
This is the psychological individual: the ostensibly adapted substantial

individual, steered by its bodily emotions and, as such, tuned and aligned
to the outer world according to the well-known problem-solution model.
Hence, the deconstructive potential of neuroscience that Malabou is bet-
ting on risks becoming a dead end as it culminates in the reinstalment
of the psychological Ego. Damasio and Malabou’s subject is thus far
removed from the conception of the subject as divided (the Freudian
Spaltung): their individual is at the most multi-faceted and in the end
lacks the empty core of subjectivity of both the Kantian and the psycho-
analytic conceptions. Within a Lacanian perspective “I am” concerns a
pure One, or an empty Self as Žižek puts it, and is to be considered in line
with Kant’s conception of a pure subject of transcendental apperception
distinguished from the person (Žižek, 2006, p. 227). Damasio, and other
authors conversant in neuropsychoanalysis, reduce this all too readily to
the relation of an organism to its surroundings, eventually envisioning a

straightforward and potentially harmonious immersion of the individual
in its environment. This, I claim, is the psychological model.
From here we can understand why this model needs the real of brain
damage: the palpable lesion has to account for any deviation from har-
mony. Moreover, this is where the brain-psychology loop closes: in order
to flesh out the brain, neuroscience requires the psychological model,
whilst the latter cannot but understand the psyche as a function of the
brain. The pivotal point in the loop is, arguably, brain damage. Just con-
sider how the main topics in contemporary theories and praxes of psy-
chology (such as ADHD, autism, depression and so on) are judged by
psychologists themselves as not psychological but, rather, brain based,
or more specifically still, brain damage based. Contemporary hegemonic
neuro-psy-sciences cannot think the fundamental maladaption of the
human being in its own right, it needs the brain lesion to understand
what goes wrong in our lives, in our relations, in our world.
It is here that Malabou, given that her silent partner is psychology,
engages in some questionable arguments concerning the clinical field.
For example, denouncing a “psychoanalytical” conceptualisation of old
age she writes:
The concept of accidental ageing certainly calls for a different treatment

from the one used in psychoanalysis. It would require listening to, or heal-
ing, older subjects the same way that emergency rescue teams respond to
an explosion or attack. Listening to or healing older subjects as if they were
trauma victims. (Malabou, 2012b, pp. 49–50)
Malabou, at the very least, appears to embrace all too readily and uncriti-
cally mainstream psychological therapies and theories. Listening or
healing are far from simple, unproblematic, let alone natural issues.18 So,
when in a similar vein she pleads for psychotherapeutic help for Alzheimer
patients in terms of “tenderness”, this testifies to a rather remarkable
naiveté. Even the most cursory of reflections on the complex field of
psychotherapy, would suffice to understand that elevating tenderness to
18
For a deconstructionist critique of the impossibility of trauma-therapy, see De Vos (2011).
a professional task would immediately give rise to numerous paradoxes,

if not worse.
So, at a bare minimum, if in Self and emotional life, Malabou asks if
today’s neurobiology’s insistence upon the emotional brain is “an event”,
making possible an “unprecedented material and radical deconstruc-
tion of affects, feelings, and emotions—and, hence, … of subjectivity?”
(Malabou, 2013a, p. 3), she may be overlooking the possibility that we are
in actuality dealing with a pseudo-event. After all, one must ask whether
neuroscience is not precisely entrapped in a reconstruction of affects and
subjectivity along the lines of the psychological individual? In other words,
the neurosciences are fundamentally wrong if they think they can bypass
the fundamental impossibility Kant situated in the psy-sciences; neuro-
science’s recourse to brain matter is never enough and cannot stand on
its own: as aforesaid, unwittingly or not, neuroscience has to fall back on
the old psychological models (and their defensive denial of Kant’s verdict)
to flesh out the brain. Hence, in contradistinction to Malabou I argue
that neurobiology is far from, as I already quoted earlier, a “neutral space
or shelter that would protect us from the mastery of transcendental sub-
jectivity and discourse” (Malabou, 2010, p. 118). Neurobiology is not a
neutral outside, it has to fall back on psychology, and it is for this reason
that it cannot be radically material, never mind fully reductionist. The
false, or should I say, the weak reductionism occurs prior, which is to say
that the reduction is done by psychology when it reduces the subject to
psychological categories, such as cognitions, affects, the Self, etc.
This is what Malabou foregoes when she too readily and uncritically
adopts the DSM categories, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Gilles
De La Tourette and even the “discovery of ADHD” (Malabou, 2012b,
p. 10)—in turn, neglecting the voluminous critiques and deconstruc-
tions of these issues.19 To put it bluntly: all these so-called disorders have
one central characteristic in common: the firm claim of being brain-
based, and the concomitant promise that one day this will be proved.
One cannot but observe that Malabou refrains from assessing how the
psy-sciences are tied up with today’s hegemonic power discourses and
at the least does not engage with any critical literature on this. She does
19
See, for example, Timimi, Gardner, and McCabe (2010); Timimi and Radcliffe (2005).
consider how power misuses the plastic potentialities of the brain and
even how the neurosciences are affected ideologically; but she never ques-
tions the primacy of the neuroscientific discovery of neuroplasticity. Or,
phrased otherwise, her theoretical edifice and critique ultimately rest on
an alleged pure and unmediated access to the ontology of the human.
One might argue, then, that she does in fact vindicate a genuine tran-
scendental vantage point for her own critique: specifically, an ontological
one. After the spectre of psychology enters the transcendental ghost …
The Rock of the Transcendental

In her paper The future of humanities (2011a), Malabou argues, in a dia-
logue with both Foucault’s and Derrida’s understanding of the function of
the humanities, that the humanities consider the outside, that is, science,
too much as an enemy and that this leads to a deadlock of contemporary
critique. For Malabou the humanities risk becoming “useless and unpro-
ductive” as they threaten to be “swallowed or eaten alive, by science with-
out even being aware of it” (Malabou, 2011a, para. 3). She thus wants to
redefine the transcendental positioning of the humanities, refuting that it
is the task of the humanities to delineate the conditions of possibility for
the natural sciences. Rather, Malabou proposes, the humanities should
adopt the issue of plasticity in “a dialogue with neurobiology” (Malabou,
2011a, para. 3). Neuroplasticity would both respect the autonomy of the
humanities and the sciences, and redraw their mutual limits and fron-
tiers. It would, as it were, “bring some plasticity to the humanities as well
as some critical theory to neurobiology” (Malabou, 2011a, para. 3). She
puts this in terms of the transcendental: while in Kant’s transcendental-
ism there is a “transcendental prohibition of any becoming scientific of
critique or criticism”, Malabou asserts that the future of the humanities
is a non-transcendental form of criticism grounded in science (Malabou,
2011a, para. 17).
Here she joins Foucault’s contestation of the idea of transcenden-
tal insurmountable limits and his injunction to transgress the tran-
scendental, but in the process trades Foucault’s “historical ontology”
with an ontology, so to speak, of the brain. She argues that whilst for
Foucault “the historico-critical attitude must … be an experimental

one”, he, nor Derrida for that matter, never fully explored the notion
of experience itself:
Both remain silent on the passage from the Kantian understanding of self-
transformation to the deconstructive or archaeological and genealogical
one, from the transcendental to the contingent. What happened precisely
that made this passage possible, that rendered the transcendental experi-
mentable, that transformed the transcendental into a plastic material?
(Malabou, 2011a, para. 23)
For Malabou, experience and experimentation correspond with the

contingency and plasticity of the limits and this, she argues, “has become
visible and obvious only recently, i.e. the plasticity of the brain that worked
in a way behind continental philosophy’s back” (Malabou, 2011a, para.
24). It is this modifiability of the neural circuit, according to Malabou,
which renders the limit between the transcendental and the empirical
forever improbable. “Neural plasticity is an empirical fact.” Biology, for
Malabou, dealing as it does “with materiality and raw facts”—remember
here Adrian Johnston’s similar phrase about “established and exemplary
life-scientific facts” (Johnston, 2015, p. 151)—is the final base for the
humanities and its critique:
We cannot understand the becoming empirical of the transcendental with-

out exploring the space opened by neural plasticity. This means that the
“outside” of the humanities loses its monstrosity to become the material
exteriority without which criticism is reduced to the relativism and poly-
morphism of cultural studies. (Malabou, 2011a, para. 26)
It is at this point that Malabou departs from both Foucault and Derrida,
for whom the humanities, rather than dealing with a specific content, “are
concerned with the issue of their own limits and with the meaning of the
limit itself ” (Malabou, 2011a, para. 5). Hence, one could that Malabou,
in contrast to Foucault and Derrida, does claim that the humanities
have a positive object. Is she not, in fact, filling the empty space of the
humanities—a vacuity which Foucault and Derrida wanted to put to
work—with science, objectivity and neurobiology? One could claim that
the problem of modernity, the problem of critique, is that it is necessarily

transcendental while having no positive ground whatsoever on which to
legitimate itself. While it is precisely this problem that Malabou sets out
to evade in her search for a scientific, objective and material ground for
critique, I argue that the underlying but silent reliance on psychology
renders her attempt to transgress the transcendental wholly problematic.
Let us recall, immediately, how Foucault’s method has already been
characterised as not succeeding in transcending the transcendental: it has
been called a mere attempt to historicise the transcendental (Han, 2002;
Oksala, 2005), or it has been said to amount to a historical-transcendental
phenomenological position (Thompson, 2008).20 And, indeed, is it not
clear that any inquiry into the historical a priori always already presupposes
a particular position beyond history (at the end of history perhaps?) from
whence one launches an archaeological-genealogical analysis? In other
words, a universal, transcendental and in the end ungrounded, a priori is
simply unavoidable: the point of view from nowhere always returns without
ever being truly transgressed (De Vos, 2015). It is noteworthy, therefore,
that even though Foucault himself repeatedly distanced his method from
the phenomenological and the transcendental tradition,21 he once said:
“I cannot exclude the possibility that one day I will have to confront an
irreducible residuum which will be, in fact, the transcendental” (cited in
Koopman, 2010, p. 101).
The problem with Malabou, however, concerns her ontological claims:
her whole argument is based on the alleged objectivity and neutrality of
neurobiological findings. Why this is problematic becomes, all too evident,
precisely when she asserts that there is no such thing as a “first nature”:
that is, Malabou argues, there is no non-social or mechanical nature,
nature is always already cultural and social. However, is it not the case that
this argument, paradoxically, has to be made from biology itself? In other
words, the argument for the importance of culture, today, increasingly
has to be made from a “first biology”. The latter is then presupposed to
have an objective, or at least neutral, access to (neuro)biological nature.
20
For a critique of Thompson and Han, see Koopman (2010).
21
“I strive instead to avoid any reference to this transcendental as a condition of the possibility for
any knowledge” (Foucault, 1972, pp. 97–98).
Or, phrased otherwise, the only way one can prove the intermeshing of
culture and nature today is from a presupposed un-intermeshed, pure
nature.22 In this way, the radical conclusion is that Malabou’s argument
for an empirical and material approach to the transcendental, cannot but
put the chimera of a mythical unmediated nature in a precursory and
prior transcendental position from where to view the naïve human being.
Hence, in her attempt to transgress the transcendental, Malabou elevates
the neurobiological into an unacknowledged redoubled transcendental
vantage-point, which, I contend, requires as its necessary counterpart the
fiction of a psychological/psychologised subject: the naïve human who
is allegedly accessible in an unmediated way by science. In other words,
Malabou’s meta-transcendental perspective is not neutral but psychologi-
cal and, as it in this sense fails to be materialist, its potential as a basis from
which to rethink contemporary ideology critique becomes doubtful.
The Real of the Political

To be clear, Malabou’s oeuvre is undoubtedly rich and nuanced and,
indeed, she herself repeatedly casts doubt on whether today’s neurosci-
ence is really delivering an unmediated or unbiased corpus of knowledge.
She points out, for example, how the entire neuroscientific field is implic-
itly governed by a “neuronal ideology”. However, she adds that an “as
precise study as possible” of the functioning of the brain can “disengage it
from a certain number of ideological presuppositions” (Malabou, 2008,
p. 11). Hence, according to Malabou, it is ontology (the brain itself
and its plasticity) which can cleanse the neurosciences of all ideology.
Malabou wants “to place scientific discovery at the service of an emanci-
patory understanding” (Malabou, 2008, p. 53). Here, for example, she
distinguishes between plasticity and flexibility. Today, Malabou writes
“the true sense of plasticity is hidden”: in contemporary capitalism
22
Victoria Pitts-Taylor also argues against the idea of an unmediated access to ontology: “The brain
not only appears to us (through neuroscientific revelations) to be ontologically open to shaping,
but (if the theory is right) it is always already actively shaped and shaping. Thus plasticity cannot
be seen as an ontological condition captured, or not, by capital, or as a biological fact to be freed
from social and cultural ones” (Pitts-Taylor, 2010, p. 648).
“flexibility is the ideological avatar of plasticity—at once its mask, its

diversion, and its confiscation” (Malabou, 2008, p. 12). Her position is
as follows: in the end, behind the veils of ideology, there is the brain and
the ontology of true plasticity, which should be saved and freed and put
to work in the service of emancipatory politics. Malabou’s politics, then,
is based on science and its alleged access to ontology.
Malabou’s ontologised neuropolitics has been criticised in several
respects. Sarah Kizuk, for example, argues that as a concept ‘synaptic plas-
ticity’ is far too individualistic and complicates Malabou’s vision of com-
munity structures (Kizuk, 2013). Indeed, Malabou does not seem to be
able to conceptualise the collective as a central dimension of politics. But,
perhaps an even more important critique still, provided by Victoria Pitts-
Taylor, is that Malabou’s celebration of ontological plasticity over and
above capitalist flexibility is powerless to prevent plasticity from continu-
ing to be a potentiality which, as a resource, remains wholly compatible
within capitalist logics. Pitts-Taylor, moreover, criticises Malabou’s work
for ignoring “the politics of how subjects are encouraged to think … in
neuronal terms in the first place” (Pitts-Taylor, 2010, p. 649). And, here,
Pitts-Taylor strikes an important chord: for is it not the case that when
Malabou pleads for a “true understanding of cerebral function” in order
to free the speech of neuronal man, she uncritically connects with omni-
present brain discourses that enforce the brain-outlook upon oneself, the
other and the world? She writes:
let us not forget that the question What should we do with our brain? is a
question for everyone, that it seeks to give birth in everyone to the feeling
of a new responsibility. The inquiry conducted here thus ought … to allow
anyone who consents to follow its path to think new modalities of forming
the self, under the name of “plasticity”. (Malabou, 2008, p. 14)
Here, one clearly recognises the strong interpellation which is tradition-

ally attributed to popular neuroscience: starting from the claim of a firmly
established and objective access to the ontology of the brain, the lay per-
son is called upon to adopt this scientific gaze in order to form its Self. But
does this not precisely bring into being a transcendental perspective—that
of objective science—which the lay person is prompted to join? Clearly,
through neglecting how knowledge and scientific discourses function

within hegemonic power relations, Malabou is in danger of getting
caught up in the dynamics of neurologisation by enforcing upon the lay
person the transcendental academic vantage point. Exit emancipation,
exit politics, and enter Plato’s sovereignty of Academia?
As Malabou bets on this sovereignty and the claimed for neutrality of the
sciences, she risks being unable to account for the way in which plasticity
has been hijacked by capitalism. If she writes that “[t]he screen that sepa-
rates us from our brain is an ideological screen” then she misses, I claim,
the materiality of the screen itself. That is, what Malabou does not engage
with is the whole ideological apparatus, the ways in which it has very tan-
gible, material effects on concrete people and concrete circumstances. This
latter aspect opens up to a very different materiality than the one Malabou
envisions, as she aims at the lifting of the screen in order to allegedly deal
with the ontology of matter itself (the brain, “the essential thing, the bio-
logical, sensible, and ethical locus of our time”—Malabou, 2008, p. 53).
Confronted with the screen of ideology, Malabou thus posits something
material and tangible behind the screen. It is here that psychoanalysis, as
a theory of the psyche—which is something different than a psychology;
psychoanalysis is centred upon the impossibility of psychology—can be of
central importance for ideology critique. Žižek, for example, argues from
the intersection of the Marxist and psychoanalytic traditions that it is in
the illusion that true materiality resides: there is “something more real in
the illusion than in the reality behind it” (Žižek & Fiennes, 2006).
For psychoanalysis, then, all weight lies on the designation that there is
something more real in the illusion. The purpose of psychoanalytic theory
and praxis is, ultimately, the exploration of this more, this surplus, this
excess which seems to pertain to human existence.
Conclusions
I am interested in the way neurological research helps to radicalize and
challenge certain major motifs that characterize what took place in the
second half of the twentieth century under the names “the deconstruction
of subjectivity” in Derrida, on the one hand, and “the archaeology of
knowledge” in Foucault, on the other. (Malabou, 2010, p. 117)
The principal claim in this chapter has been that neurobiology is not up
to this task of deconstruction in the way that Malabou thinks it is, as it
reinstalls the very subject it claims to deconstruct, fleshing it out once
again as it were and, more problematically yet still, taking recourse to
psychology to do so. Consequently, is the conclusion not that psycho-
analysis, as a critique of psychology and psychologisation—and a cri-
tique of neuroscience insofar as the latter for structural reasons is always
on the verge of adopting models from psychology—represents the out-
side of neuroscience? At the very least, this would appear to explain why
Malabou has to develop her own position vis-à-vis psychoanalysis, as well
as why she has to offer a critique of it. But in her critique, I argue, she
fails to understand that psychoanalysis is not so much about defining the
conditions of possibility but, rather, about grappling with the conditions
of impossibility. That is to say, psychoanalysis, in the form of critique,
is about showing not only the impossibility of the psy-sciences to truly
address the psyche but, more specifically, the impossibility of the neu-
rosciences realising a “deconstruction of subjectivity”, starting from the
“biological facts”.
The crucial point in all of this, and here I can finally return to the
theme this chapter began with, is sexuality.23 If one believes that the
“materiality and raw facts” of the neurosciences are capable of decon-
structing subjectivity, then one cannot but engage with and reject
psychoanalysis and the latter’s conceptualisation of sexuality, that per-
spective which constitutes the very skandalon of modern science itself. As
I noted in the introduction of this chapter, science is not about making
ontological claims, at least not on a surface level, and it is in this regard
that it also abandoned sexual difference as on ontological question.
That is, while traditional ontologies and traditional cosmologies relied
on sexual difference (e.g., Yin-Yang, earth-sun, active-passive), moder-
nity and modern science rejected sexual difference as the organising
principle of reality (Zupančič, 2012). However, as Žižek also points
out, psychoanalysis is the very endeavour which seeks to reassert “the
ontological status of sexual difference within the field of modern science”
23
The fact that it appeared to move to the background is, of course, fully consistent with its dynam-
ics. If one will permit my usage of an admittedly traditional psychoanalytic trope: not talking about
sexuality can make it more present than ever.
(Žižek, 2012, p. 739). Žižek argues that, for Lacan, sexuality does not
designate a particular ontic sphere of human reality; rather, it stands
for a displacement or distortion of human reality, marking a constitu-
tive gap or discord in reality as such (Žižek, 2012, pp. 739–740). It is
this skandalon posited by psychoanalysis in the heart of modern science,
which has to be rejected by those seeking to elevate neuroscience to the
ontological basis of the humanities. The subversive, the disruptive, in
short, the traumatic nature of sexuality must be warded off. Freud’s “it’s
all about sex” becomes “sex is all about the brain”, and in this transition,
inherent to the work of Malabou and others, the brain, and with it the
subject, is above all desexualised. Sexuality as a brain issue, becomes an
issue of sexual practices, preferences and identities, which is in stark
contrast to a Freudian depiction of sexuality, where it signals the impos-
sible, and represents that which thwarts our sexual practices, preferences
and identities. It is this precise naturalisation and biologisation of sexu-
ality which psychoanalysis is uniquely capable of critiquing. As Alenka
Zupančič writes: “The problem with sexuality is not that it is a remain-
der of nature that resists any definite taming; rather, there is no nature
here—it all starts with a surplus of signification” (Zupančič, 2012, p. 8).
Such a position, of course, stands wholly in opposition with Johnston’s
notion, which I critiqued in Chap. 3, that nature is that which resists
“being taken up without remainder into the non-natural or not-wholly-
natural” (Johnston, 2013, p. 194). A proper psychoanalytic stance, in
contrast, starts from the excess of signification, which is where it situates
the skandalon of human sexuality.
However, and this is to Malabou’s credit, she does pinpoint a poten-
tially problematic current within psychoanalysis that seeks to elevate
sexuality into a new cosmology providing coherence and intelligibility
to reality via the unconscious as a symbolic structure (the unconscious
structured as a language as the early Lacan stressed) and its symptomatic
manifestations. Let me once again refer to Malabou’s argument that lit-
erature cannot be viewed as an outside from whence to effect a radical
deconstruction of subjectivity:
My encounter with neurobiology helped me realize, however, that something

was preventing literature from carrying out this self-destruction—language
is the very thing that protects this neutral space from its own neutralization.
The purity of death, the truth of death, and the authenticity of death—even
when presented aporetically—guarantee the indestructible structure of the
subject’s destruction. (Malabou, 2010, p. 122)
However, so as to be clear, while I do value Malabou’s point that litera-

ture, as well as language for that matter, cannot but neutralise its own
deconstructive potential, she fails to acknowledge that psychoanalysis has
also attempted to grapple with this. Insofar as psychoanalysis is a theory
of the symbolic and of the unconscious structured like a language, it does
indeed run the risk of getting stuck in largely impotent deconstruction.
However, in as far as psychoanalysis, most notably in Lacan’s later period,
has attempted to deal with the aporia of deconstruction, the dead-end of
discursive deconstruction might be avoided. As the psychoanalyst Lieven
Jonckheere writes:
The point in Lacan’s conceptualization of enjoyment [jouissance] is that,

unlike language in the unconscious, it does not entirely revolve around the
phallus but is split up into several objects Freud calls “partial sexual”
objects. To the extent that these do not take into account the phallic differ-
ence between the sexes, Lacan calls them “asexual”. (Jonckheere, 2008)
In this sense, not only does Malabou mistake psychoanalysis for being a
theory and praxis of meaning, she also misconstrues psychoanalysis’ con-
ceptualisation of sexuality. Certainly, in terms of the late Lacan, the drive
(“la pulsion”) is eventually something that points beyond the phallus and,
hence, beyond the sexual. Malabou’s claim that the newly wounded must
be understood in terms of cerebrality rather than sexuality, does not engage
with the specific conceptualisation of the asexual within psychoanalytic
theory. If I suggested earlier that only insofar as a trauma is Nagträglich
sexualised, subjectivity can be (re)mobilised, perhaps I should add that,
given that any (re)construction will necessarily have to pass through lan-
guage, inevitably it will also entail the mobilisation of jouissance, that
which lies beyond phallic sexuality and the logic of the signifier.
It is this radical decentring of sexuality by psychoanalysis that
Malabou, ultimately, foregoes. By uncritically assigning sexuality to the
reality of the brain, by turning it into yet another separate domain of

human activity, she overlooks psychoanalysis’ designation of sexuality as,
in the words of Zupančič, the “out-of-itselfness of being” (Zupančič &
Terada, 2015, p. 194). Opting for the short cut of a positive and natural
ontology of the brain, as I have attempted to demonstrate in this chapter,
Malabou cannot but, however unwittingly, regress into psychologising
both sexuality and subjectivity. In contrast, as Žižek points out, the way
in which humans deal with sexuality is not about coming to terms with
the natural or the instinctual side of sexuality. Rather, sexuality becoming
culture causes a further decisive twist: that is, human sexuality is about
“the attempt to domesticate a properly un-natural excess of the meta-
physical sexual passion” (Žižek, 2012, p. 440). Žižek goes on to say that it
is not because sexuality is so strong somehow that it subsequently invades
other domains; sexuality, in actual fact, is weak: sexuality is fundamen-
tally thwarted to the extent that it becomes unbound and capable of
turning anything into a sexual organ and, most importantly, anything
into a sexual object.
Does this not help us understand the phenomenon of ASMR described
earlier in the introduction of this chapter? By virtue of claiming to be
beyond content and discourse and, ultimately, beyond sexuality itself,
not only does it turn tapping, scratching, whispering and role-playing
into sexual acts, it also transforms the brain, the supposed seat of the
braingasms, into a fetishised object. The return of the repressed, therefore,
is not about some pure, natural sexuality resurfacing per se, instead the
return concerns an un-natural excess, that which is more-than-sexual.
Sexuality, then, is thus not a left-over from nature, coming to disturb
and to thwart our subjectivity. Rather, it is this disturbed, thwarted
sexuality, which is our subjectivity. Crucially, it is this that Malabou, in
granting final jurisdiction to neurobiology and its established “biological
facts”, cannot account for, as she fails to recognise the Lacanian gesture
of extending Freudian psychoanalysis beyond the symbolic unconscious.
As Marie-Rose Logan contends, the pivotal mythical figure in Freud’s
thought was Oedipus in the grip of “atè”: in trying to escape his fate he
could not but realise it. This means that the Freudian unconscious is a
knowledge yet to be unearthed; hence, why Freud considered himself
to be the scientist of the unconscious. For Logan, Lacan’s paradigmatic
figure, however, is Actaeon, he who unfortunately stumbles upon the

nude Diana, thus forever personifying ill fortune and error. This is why
Lacan’s psychoanalysis is said to be a science of the Real (Logan, 2002).
Lacan himself describes his position as follows:
The truth, in this sense, is that which runs after truth—and that is where
I am running, where I am taking you, like Actaeon’s hounds, after me.
When I find the goddess’s hiding place, I will no doubt be changed into a
stag, and you can devour me, but we still have a little way to go yet. (Lacan,
2004, p. 188)
Claiming to be in possession of the “biological facts” would be analo-

gous to one claiming to have already found Diana’s real hiding place,
whilst refusing to be turned into a stag. For Lacan, the truth of Diana’s
nudity, the truth of sexual difference is Real, impossible. For Malabou,
cerebrality is real, it is reality; it is that which makes things possible:
possible to be experimentally scrutinized, charted and mastered by
neurobiology.
For psychoanalysis, the materiality of sexuality is not the brain, it is
the object a, “the substantial remainder of the process of the subjectiv-
ization of substance”, as Žižek puts it (Žižek, 2012, p. 750). You need
a brain, a real substrate to make this possible, of course. But the brain,
I argue, has no subject, one simply cannot be the subject of one’s brain,
the bearer24 of our brain if you will. One must let our body do that, our
mortal body. Eventually, this is what authors such as Malabou argue
also, but it is here that for them the subject loses all its weight and
materiality, while, in contrast, for psychoanalysis subjectivity remains
the crucial pivotal element of materiality, albeit a decentred materialism,
concerned with the truth as that which runs after truth. As subjects, we
have to be Actaeon, and know that one day the hounds will turn on us.
In the meantime, we still have a way to go, as subjects of sexuality, the
bearer of the object a.
This position, I will claim in the next chapter, is far removed from cel-
ebrating the reality of the brain (its nature or its alleged surplus to nature
24
As already mentioned: Marc De Kesel points out that “subject” etymologically means “the carrier
of ” (De Kesel, 2009, p. 22).
supposedly realised by epigenetics or plasticity), on the contrary, it calls

upon a sustained critique of this remarkable veneration of the brain, this
spectacle of the brain as we came to know it these last decades.
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6
The Celebrated Brain: The Role
of the Brain in the Society
of the Spectacle
Introduction
In Ovid metamorphoses are closely connected to catastrophic or apoca-
lyptic events. More specifically, as Philip Hardie contends, they often
stand for the closing of the narrative of a particular human life and, as
such, take the place of death (Hardie, 2002, p. 81). Hence, our initial
question, what is it that we have become exactly when we are said to be
our brain, might already be answered: nothing; we simply passed away
without even noticing. Consider, in this regard, the subtitle of Dick
Swaab’s bestseller We are our brains: A neurobiography of the brain, from
the womb to Alzheimer’s (Swaab, 2014). Here, again, one can discern what
I referred to in Chap. 1 as our epochal memento mori: ‘we are all even-
tually going to die’ has been replaced with ‘our brains will all eventually
wither away’. Malabou’s contention, mentioned in the previous chapter,
that given the nature of our socio-historical juncture we are all at risk
of suffering from some kind of brain trauma (Malabou, 2012) can be
understood in exactly the same vein. What I am proposing here is that we
should understand this in a more radical way, by arguing that such pre-
monitions and warnings are symptomatic of the fact that the catastrophe

Discontents, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50557-6_6
or the apocalyptic event has already taken place. The question I am asking
in this chapter, therefore, is whether our metamorphosis into beings of
the brain represents the discontinuation of the narrative of humanity as
we knew it. Seemingly, as we become our brain, we bury the old human
and its illusions of free will and romantic love, along with any kind of
agency or subjectivity.
However, most remarkably, we are urged not to bemoan nor mourn
this bereavement; rather, we should embrace its passing and, even more
than this, rejoice and celebrate it. We are our brains, then, so it would
appear, cannot but be followed by a jubilatory exclamation mark. One
must stress that this rejoicing I am referring to should be taken literally,
as there are numerous examples of celebrative events organised for both
children and adults under the banner that we are our brain. In Edinburgh,
for example, there was recently a “Carnival of the Mind” offering “unique
immersive workshops [and] sensational shows from the world’s best sci-
ence performers”.1 The brain, indeed, is a spectacle to be celebrated! In
Flanders, we have a yearly “Brain Festival”, advertised as “an entertaining
mix of scientific presentations, talks, art, and music”, with the main-
event billed as a “live dissection of the brain”.2 The headline act of this
celebration of the brain is thus the slicing up of the human. A similar
form of morbid-entertainment is found at “Brain Fest 2015”, which took
place in Singapore and featured an activity called “Escape from Zombie
City” (including a “pre- and post- activity briefing”):
A virus was stolen and modified, turning people into zombies. Luckily,
Professor X left clues to find the vaccine. Solve puzzles to find the vaccine
before you turn into a zombie! In this inaugural Brain Fest, put your obser-
vation, communication and problem solving skills to the test and join us
for an exciting, challenging and educational mass escape game experience!3
Should we not take this at face value and say that, as it transforms into
its brain the human dies, but yet somehow survives its own death?
1
http://www.bps.org.uk/news/we-are-supporting-carnival-mind-edinburgh
2
http://www.breinwijzer.be/i-brain, my translation.
3
http://www.science.edu.sg/events/Pages/BrainFest.aspx
The Role of the Brain in the Society of the Spectacle 171
Survival in this scenario, then, is apparently dependent on our psycho-

logical make-up (the communication and problem-solving skills we are
equipped with) on the one hand, and, on the other, the scientific facts,
figures and, above all, images (the clues of Professor X) that psychoneuro-
education is anxious to introduce us to. All of this, so it is implied, can
be included under the banner of a party. Hence, if the brain stands for
the end of education, the end of matter, the end of the analogue image,
the end of sex, the end of politics4—in short, the brain as humanity’s
death-mask—then we are all invited to celebrate this closing ceremony,
as apparently we have survived the metamorphosis after all. For, as the
zombie theme of Singapore’s Brain Fest would appear to indicate, what
the brain seems to be signalling is the death of death as it were.
It is useful, once again, to refer to the brain-in-vat idea, or to Kurzweil’s
belief in the possibility of uploading the brain and hence immortalising
the human, which both depict the brain dying in order to make way for
cybernetic reproduction, and such like. It is perhaps here that Adorno
and Horkheimer’s dilemma concerning for whom do we write, for whom
do we perform our critique, is felt most acutely. Do we write for those
who will partake in this eternal digital existence, or for those who for
some reason or another will be exempted from it? Do we write for the
plugged-ins, the as-yet plugged-ins, or the future unplugged ones, that is,
the future homo sacer? In an effort to escape this Matrix imagery and its
inevitable conservative siren voices from encircling us, perhaps we should
not address the future but, rather, aim our critique towards those various
messages in a bottle that have reached us from the past. What I have in
mind here is the Ovidian position—not entirely unproblematic in my
eyes—and its optimistic and vitalist idea that the human does not actu-
ally change during all its metamorphoses over the ages. Ovid writes:
…. that all things change, yet never die.

Or here or there, the spirit takes its way
To different kinds of being as it chooses,
From beast to man, from man to beast; however,
Or far or near or strange, it travels on
4
Of course, this enumeration refers to all the other chapters of this book.
As wax might take new shapes in many figures,

None quite the same, the same wax lives within it—
So does the soul pass through its transformations. (Ovidius, 1958, p. 427)
Even though I would concede that Ovid is not suggesting the slightest bit of
stability for individual creatures, but instead proposing that in their unend-
ing alterations and changes something of the eternal of Being persists, his
statement nonetheless contains a celebrative and joyous stance. It is precisely
this, I argue, which should be questioned and, ultimately, critiqued.
In thinking about the reception of the neuroturn, today’s incarnations
of all things change, yet never die come in two seemingly contradictory
positions. On the one hand, there is the conservative position, which
stresses that there is a human core which endures throughout the mani-
fold historical-cultural vicissitudes across the ages. From this perspective,
the neuro-turn is thought of as simply providing, or perhaps even enforc-
ing, yet another cloak that the human must wear, but one which will
essentially leave him or her untouched as the human always finds creative
and subjective ways to deal with the many fads imposed on him or her. Of
course, in terms of this position the neuropsy-sciences could even be con-
sidered uniquely capable of assessing this wondrous resilient core of the
human. On the other hand, there is the deconstructive position, empha-
sising the decentred subject and its performative transformations: new
times, new subjectivities, or perhaps even something completely different
from subjectivity (e.g. the idea of post-humanity or transhumanity). In
their turn, proponents of this position might also mobilise the neuropsy-
sciences, on the grounds that they are able to assess the basic conditions of
this wonderful malleability of the human being; for evidence of this just
consider the centrality of the two signifiers “epigenesis” and “plasticity”
in these debates.
What unites these two perspectives is their celebrative stance towards
the (ever staying the same/ever changing) Human Being, and given that
a basic reflex of the critical attitude should be a profound distrust towards
being prompted to take part in festivities, this chapter thus constitutes
an investigation into exactly just what sort of party this Brain Festival is.
A first preliminary and instructive point might be that the two aforesaid
positions are both launched from a point outside beautiful humanity, that
is, a point from where we, as equals of the classic gods, look with both
amusement and joy upon either a persistent human core, or a transitory

ever-changing form. In this chapter I want to question to what extent this
very point (from where the festivities are set up and everybody is invited
to attend) is, in actual fact—and this is, of course, the recurring base-
line of this book—is always already the unacknowledged core and cen-
tre, albeit an empty centre, of (post)modern subjectivity. Furthermore,
I will argue that in such instances where this constitutive loop—a sub-
ject engaging in reflection can only find itself being stared at by its own
reflective gaze, hence testifying to a lack—is overlooked or rejected, the
celebrative drive actually reveals an obscene kernel, an obscene surplus
unwittingly structuring festivities.
Of course, given the previous chapters the reader will perhaps not be
surprised to hear that my second preliminary remark concerns how we
must resolutely dismiss the idea that the fanfare of the Brain Festival
is only brought in afterwards and, as such, the neurosciences are not
responsible for the brain becoming a central party prop in today’s soci-
ety of the spectacle. Such a position risks overlooking the fondness for
celebration within neuroscience itself, as well its unwarranted optimism
towards the human’s neuropsychological architecture for the purposes of
either preserving its quasi-eternal core or in order to keep on evolving.
Moreover—and here I am foreshadowing the theme which I will only
fully address in Chap. 7—considering our current socio-economic and
political predicament, both options (to cling on to our humanity or to
calmly accept change) are illusory: our chances of hanging onto what we
have and our chances of truly changing the coordinates of our existence
have never looked so bleak. At the very least, these are grounds alone on
which to distrust the party mongers.
The Brain Is (a) Fun(ny Object)

The brain is fun, or so went a brain event in a primary school in Texas,
which was reported on in the following way:
In art class, students built clay brain models and neurons out of beads.
During physical education, kids learned neuroscience concepts through
games like “synaptic tag.” Even lunch turned into an awareness event, with
students dining on Jell-O from a brain mold and sipping drinks cooled by
brain-shaped ice cubes.5
When one finds such examples of cerebral celebration one, of course,

re-enters the terrain of neuro-education. So, one might immediately
object here and argue that the party aspect is only there to serve the
educational process and, as such, is merely a secondary and non-central
component of what is going on here, that is, the enjoyment factor is only
there to bribe us and seduce us into studying hard. But is the celebrative
aspect simply just a side issue? Let us reconsider what neuro-education is
about: our children, young adults, everyone all the way up to and includ-
ing the elderly, apparently must be instructed in and introduced to neu-
roscientific findings on the brain. Here, the question arises: why do we
have to instruct young adults about young adults, that is, why do we have
to instruct the human on what it means to be human? Bildung, would
be a plausible answer: the human has to be made human. However, is
not exactly the opposite process at work in neuro-education? Consider,
for example, the following excerpt taken from a learning package of a
Flemish organisation entitled Meeting of minds for youth (in English in
the original) for adolescents:
We also have to take care of our basic needs—eating, drinking, finding a

boyfriend/girlfriend—and that is why we kept our reptilian brain. (Van
Oombergen, 2014, p. 5, my translation)
Here, it appears that young adults have to be instructed in the ways in

which they are not that human but, rather, something animal-like, some-
thing reptilian. If, in this respect, an adolescent sees his or her romantic
and/or sensual desires reduced to a basic and natural need, then compen-
sation for this disenchantment and dehumanisation seems to come from
the celebrative aspect, as he or she is called upon to get acquainted with,
what they refer to as, “the amazing and fascinating world of our brain”.6
So, if the Flemish brain project for young adults offers art activities,
5
https://am2012.sfn.org/skins/main/pdf/nq/NQ_Spring_2012.pdf
6
As it is called in a Dutch neuro-educational project: see http://www.hetdolhuys.nl/bezoeker/
europees-jaar-van-het-brein, my translation.
beatboxing and breakdancing, before ending the day with the slicing up
of a human brain (a live brain dissection), all this brain fun could be said
to serve not merely as an educational incentive in neuro-education, but as
compensation for our deconstruction and dehumanisation.
But this is only one part of the picture, for upon closer inspection
one discerns that, besides deconstruction, there is above all recon-
struction at work. That is, the brain is capable of finally externalising
and, in turn, positivising and totalising what we allegedly are, and it is
this which calls for a joyous celebration. At last, science can show and
make tangible the very core of our being! It is precisely here where the
neurological turn can be said to differ decisively from traditional psy-
chological and psychologising discourses. The psychological Self was
something to be found in you, deep within you according to some theo-
ries, and in popularised versions this led to the directive: become the real
you. Within brain discourses, this surplus you is made substantial, mate-
rial and above all, something external, as your true inner core becomes,
above all else, a virtual image projected on a screen. Be that as it may,
you are also able to see yourself as externalised, and it is this very act
of exteriorisation which turns into a moment of jubilation and celebra-
tion: we are our brains, isn’t that great? Moreover, in contradistinction
to the era of psy-hegemony, no further directive is required here: you
do not need to become your real brain, you already are your brain;
congratulations!
To conclude, brain fun is thus not merely an educational incen-
tive, nor simply a form of compensation for the deconstruction of
subjectivity; above all, it stands for the celebration of the alleged over-
coming of the traditional psychological problem of being yourself. The
latter comprised of an unsolvable paradox: you cannot be yourself, as
from the moment that someone tells you that you have to be yourself,
this induces and reproduces an irreducible distance between you and
yourself. In this scheme, then, there is always something too much or
something too little at the level of being. Consequently, if one were to
say now at last I am myself, such an utterance cannot but be made from a
position distinct from one’s self. Here, one could argue that neurological
discourses, both in their popularised and academic forms, position the
brain as an object to fill this breach within being itself, as it represents
a kind of intermediate object spanning the classic distance between me

and myself. The brain, this alleged externalised core of ourselves, repre-
sented by a radiant imaginary icon, reconciles us with Being.
Here, one might engage in a spot of wild analysis and ask whether the
brain is in fact not the ultimate transitional object? This concept, deriv-
ing from attachment theory, concerns the so-called comfort objects or
loveys like stuffed animals or blankets, which the child seeks out when
it is distressed or anxious, such as during moments of separation from
its caregivers, for example. The transitional object represents the mother,
in the traditional theorisation, and, as such, is to be situated somewhere
between the child’s inner and outer worlds. Having said this, does the
brain not function similarly as a teddy bear, a mother substitute, as some-
thing which both connects our inner and outer worlds, and soothes us
apropos our lack of Being? I will readily concede that such an argument,
at this stage at least, might sound more than a little far-fetched; indeed,
one could even go as far to argue that I myself am psychologising the
neuro-turn as it were. Consequently, I will hold my horses on this line of
inquiry for now and focus instead on the observation that the brain, as
a material/virtual doublet, becomes an object of veneration and celebra-
tion around which events and spectacles are organised for the purposes
of, both, instructing the human about the human and to entertain the
human in the face of being de/re-humanised. In order to explore this let
us firstly take a closer look at the manifold logics of the spectacle of the
brain, all the while keeping this idea of “mother brain” in the back of our
minds, for I will return to it—albeit in a more nuanced and complex
way—towards the end of this chapter.
The Spectacle of the Iconoclastic Brain

The brain, by virtue of it being the paradigmatic image of the human
being today, plays a pivotal role in how we come to understand and deal
with ourselves and others. Simply put, the brain is a medium, which
mediates between us and Being. It is from here that the brain has become
a prominent actor within today’s society of the spectacle—to use the
well-known phrase of Guy Debord from his book of the same name,
originally published in Paris in 1967, in which he wrote the following:
The spectacle manifests itself as an enormous positivity, out of reach and

beyond dispute. All it says is: “Everything that appears is good; whatever is
good will appear.” (Debord, 1995, p. 15)
The question I want to raise here is whether the brain, as an integral

component of the contemporary society of the spectacle by virtue of
consistently featuring as a kind of celebrity on the covers of magazines,
is similarly not “out of reach and beyond dispute”? Indeed, one interest-
ing observation is the way in which the amazing and fascinating brain,
the celebrated brain if you will, does not allow for much critique and is
considered simply beyond dispute. That is to say, the brain is not simply
another more or less accurate reflection of the human being, it is not
a mirror in this case; rather, it is an externalised virtual form, an enor-
mous positivity, which functions as the quilting point of our existence
by virtue of connecting us to our Being. As a reflection the brain could
be criticised in terms of its accurateness and/or deviance from the origi-
nal, but as a Thing, as a biological facticity, it is beyond dispute.7 This
is where, again relying on Debord, we could argue that the reality of
the human is replaced by its representation by the brain. The spectacle,
then, for Debord, is not a mere decoration added to the real world
but, rather, “it is the very heart of society’s real unreality” (Debord,
1995, p. 13). This goes some way to helping us understand why these
aforementioned Brain Fests testify to a certain quest for the real, which
also might explain why the headline act requires a real human brain
to be dissected instead of models or animal brains. It would appear,
then, that the brain as a representation which replaces the reality of the
human being requires a firm grounding in what is believed to be the
heavy material weight of the real, in order to constitute its grandiose
positivity.
7
Even critical approaches are obliged to pay their respect to the brain: blaming the media, popular
(neuro)psychology, and so on, but sparing the thing itself as it is assessed by neuroscience.
This uncompromising materialist claim makes that the brain discourses

are highly critical of what they see as the illusory and imaginary unre-
alities held by the human about the human. This is where the neuro-
sciences testify to a deconstructive drive vis-à-vis the old psychological
stuffing that made up the human being. The neurosciences tell us, for
instance, that the unified Ego, free-will, love, altruism, etc., are nothing
more than illusions and/or tricks of the brain. Hence, at first glance at
least, neurosciences appear incontrovertibly iconoclastic. Iconoclasm, of
course, refers to the destruction of images: images are to be smashed in
order to show their emptiness and reveal the truth. It is a term associated
with those particular strands of religious thought, which argue that each
representation of God falsifies the true greatness of God and there-
fore should be destroyed. In England during the Reformation and the
founding of the Anglican Church, for example, Protestants removed
and destroyed Catholic images. This constitutive feature of iconoclasm,
the breaking of images, I contend, is inherent within neuro-discourses
which aim to break with the traditional psychological illusions we cling
to about the human being. For example, in the blurb to Swaab’s book
one reads:
he challenges many of our prevailing assumptions about what makes us

human, decoding the intricate “moral networks” that allow us to experi-
ence emotion, revealing maternal instinct to be the result of hormonal
changes in the pregnant brain, and exploring the way that religious
“imprinting” shapes the brain during childhood. (Swaab, 2014, blurb)
According to the above blurb, then, Swaab is an iconoclast, one who

wants to wake us from our illusions and show us the real, tangible truth
of neural networks, hormones and brain tissue. Here, too, the altogether
more sophisticated philosophy of mind serves as an ally in this quest. For
instance, Thomas Metzinger’s book entitled Being no one (2003), explains
how the illusion that we possess a sense of self can be explained through
neuroscientific and neurocognitive frameworks. Similarly, the philoso-
pher Daniel C. Dennett has also argued that the Cartesian Ego is but a
mirage that can be traced back to the inner workings of the brain itself
(Dennett, 1991).
But the tricky part here, of course, is that while these iconoclasts want
to demolish archaic and problematic representations of the human, in
doing so they erect an all new shiny and sacred icon: the Brain. It is because
of this that I am forced to go even further than the critique I developed
in my fourth chapter and turn once again to Jean Baudrillard, in particu-
lar, his reconceptualisation of iconoclasm. For Baudrillard, contemporary
iconoclasm is no longer about “breaking images” but about “producing
images” and, more specifically yet still, it is about “a profusion of images
where there is nothing to see” (Baudrillard, 1997, pp. 11–12). That said,
for Baudrillard, in the first place, it is the image itself, or rather the mul-
tiplication of images which functions as an iconoclasm. And, secondly,
contemporary iconoclasm does not aim at demolishing illusions in order
to lay bare the true nature of things—as was the purpose of traditional
iconoclasm—rather, the multiplication of images only reveals that behind
illusions lies nothing but empty space.
A paradigmatic example of this is the events of 9/11 and the attacks
on the WTC Towers in New York, where one can clearly discern the
two forms of iconoclasm in operation. Baudrillard’s own comments
about the attacks centred on the question of whether 9/11 could be
said to stand for a “real event” in what are otherwise mediated times
(according to Baudrillard in our hypermediated world there is only
room for pseudo-events). Baudrillard eventually proposed that 9/11
was an “image event” but one with the real “superadded” to it, “like
a bonus of terror, like an additional frisson: not only is it terrifying
but, what is more, it is real” (Baudrillard, 2003, p. 29). Expanding on
Baudrillard’s point here, one could argue that two forms of iconoclasm
were involved in 9/11. First, the World Trade Center was destroyed by
the perpetrators of the attack primarily because it served as an icon of
Western capitalism and the global domination of the United States: the
iconoclastic effect the attacks aimed at was the breaking of a paradig-
matic image and representation of capitalism: the WTC towers. One
could say, then, that the terrorists wanted to destroy the false and illu-
sory Gods of the West, in order to make way for the truth. However,
given that Baudrillard also pointed out our “fascination with the image”
in the 9/11 event (Baudrillard, 2003, pp. 28–29), one could also con-
nect this to the observation of Slavoj Žižek, among others, who stressed
the endless visual multiplication of the attacks: the constant, world-

wide replay on every channel, showing us the impact of the planes,
the fire, the collapsing of the towers, the dust storms, etc., over and
over again. If Žižek argues that the satisfaction we derived from such
an endless repetition of images “was jouissance at its purest” (Žižek,
2002, p. 39), then I would argue that within this same profusion of
images Baudrillard’s second order of iconoclasm can also be recognised.
To reiterate, the second form of iconoclasm involves the endless repeti-
tion of images, which simultaneously covers up at the same time as it
demarcates an empty space, thus concealing and revealing in one and
the same movement that there is nothing to see. This emptiness is, in
the final instance, the emptiness of contemporary capitalism: its con-
comitant global culture does not hide a truth (in the traditional sense
of an underlying or hidden meaning), rather, it is essentially structured
around a constitutive void. Already in 1993 Baudrillard noted that
there is a reason for the World Trade Center to consist of two towers:
there have to be two to mirror each other, as they reflect nothing other
than themselves: they are stripped of all reference to a world beyond
them (Baudrillard, 1993, pp. 69–70). The towers, then, do not repre-
sent things such as freedom, equality, democracy—indeed, late capital-
ism has been proven to flourish very well without these—the towers
represent and refer purely to themselves. The endlessly repeated images
of the dissolution of the towers thus, ultimately, reveal nothing but the
empty kernel of capitalism itself.
For Baudrillard, the quintessence of our late-modern image culture
is how images have lost all ties with what they once represented. Late-
modern humanity is awash with images, models and maps, and can
exist quite adequately without the real world that preceded it. Just think
of the internet and cyberspace here, which more and more function as
self-enclosed, auto-referential systems. As the image ceases to refer to
anything outside of it, Baudrillard argues that the image becomes the
space of the disappearance of signification, the disappearance of informa-
tion, the disappearance of representation. Hence, what the unchecked
proliferation of images operative in contemporary iconoclasm both cov-
ers up and makes present is this empty place, or, as quoted above, today’s
iconoclasm concerns “a profusion of images where there is nothing to see”

(Baudrillard, 1997, pp. 11–12).8
Can we not argue, in the same way, that the endless procession of brain
images we are exposed to via the media also constitutes an iconoclasm of
the second order? The spectacle of the brain images thus denotes the dis-
appearance of signification, information and representation regarding the
human: it reveals to us that there is nothing to see. Moreover, this second
order iconoclasm extends further the first order iconoclasm. The latter,
as aforesaid, is the iconoclasm of neurodiscourse itself, breaking the illu-
sions of the Ego, of free will, of love, etc., with the strict intent of showing
what the human really is all about: the truth of brain tissue, neural net-
works, all of that which can be said to make up the real, tangible material
human. However, given that this collapse of the Statue of the human as
we knew him/her is endlessly repeated through a deluge of brain images,
it becomes a second order iconoclasm: the plethora of brain images only
serves to cover up the fact that there is actually nothing to see. It is this
gap in Being itself, which one could argue the first iconoclasm denies as
it attempts to cover up this void with the alleged full materiality of brain
tissue. This is ultimately where the erstwhile deconstruction is neutralised
by virtue of anthropomorphising the brain, by which I mean that the
brain itself is ascribed a will, a hidden agenda, an occluded history, and is
thus stuffed to the brim with old humanistic and psychologistic notions.
Having torn down the Statue of the human, then, the profusion of brain
images results in the erection of a new glaring icon, conspicuous by its
virtuality. Or, phrased otherwise, as a form of first order iconoclasm, the
brain discourse as a rule tends to be blind to the fact that it is also a form
8
Of course, if Baudrillard’s conceptualisation of representation still risks being understood nostalgi-
cally as though at one point representations did refer to something real (as Karin Lesnik-Oberstein
and Neil Cocks pointed out to me), my take on the matter is, of course, to interpret the Real in a
Lacanian way, that is, the Real as the surplus or the excess of the Symbolic (as discussed in the previ-
ous chapters). When viewed in this way, Baudrillard’s attempt to speak of historical stages in which
representations gradually lose their bond with the real should be criticised: although today’s icono-
clasm reveals that “there is nothing to see” this does not mean that there was once something to see,
there never was (here the nihil nove sub sole is a valid proposition). At the bare minimum, this
means that reality only takes form in the symbolic; hence, any attempt to conceive of a reality
beyond or prior to the symbolic and to denude the final truth is a road that takes us, as this chapter
will demonstrate, to obscenities.
of second order iconoclasm: the brilliant and blinding icon of the brain
eventually comes to denote the simulation of the human being itself.
I am referring here, of course, to Baudrillard’s conception of simula-
tion which is as follows:
we live in a world of simulation, in a world where the highest function of

the sign is to make reality disappear, and at the same time mask this disap-
pearance. (Baudrillard, 2005, p. 110)
This might help us understand exactly what the brain image does also,
as it both signals and masks the disappearance of the Human: the brain
is the stand-in or the double of the human being. So, whilst the hi-tech,
full colour brain kills off The human as we knew him/her, at the same
time it also introduces us to a new Human, radiant and conspicuous in
their absence. Consequently, it is tempting to see this as the answer to
the question I posed in Chap. 1: what are we when we are said to be our
brain? The answer, in this instance, would be: we are an image, a simula-
tion or, to borrow yet another concept from Baudrillard, a simulacrum,
that is to say, a sign without an original referent, a copy that has no origi-
nal (Baudrillard, 1983).
One also finds here an argument for my previous assertion that the brain
image is neither a mirror nor a reflection. The mirror, we could say, relates
to the traditional paradigms of psychology: psychology held a mirror up
to us: look, this is what you are. Neurodiscourses, alternatively, are more
suited to the logic of the screen and its attendant virtual images: it says
look, there you are. You are thus displaced onto the screen and then sum-
moned to become one with your virtual avatar. There, on the screen, things
become real, or as Baudrillard puts it, hyperreal, that which is more real
than real: the brain image is thus a powerful and forceful simulation of the
human being. Moreover, while the psychological mirror image had its dark
and blind spots, not to mention its unfathomable depths, the brain scan
is fully transparent and, at the very least, potentially, it has no unknown
areas. One can connect this to Baudrillard’s point that there is nothing
to be found behind the screen, rather, everything happens on the screen:
the things on the screens are what they are, they do not refer to some-
thing else nor to another space. The “andere Schauplatz” (the other scene),
as Sigmund Freud dubbed his conceptualisation of the unconscious, thus

ceases to exist. “We are our brains” constitutes a full stop; there is simply
nothing to add. Although, given that we have become fully transparent,
perhaps a joyous exclamation mark is more appropriate: we are our brains!
It is this jubilatory dimension of brain discourses that we have still yet
to explore further, which helps us explain where our fascination with the
brain comes from.
Fascination and Bonding at the Side of a Grave

Not long ago a psychology professor was explaining what exactly forget-
ting was on a Flemish television programme. At one point the interviewer
interjected and asked: “Is it about repression, then?” Upon hearing this
antiquated Freudian term, the professor cracked a little smile and said:
“Oh, certainly not”, before going onto explain which specific brain struc-
tures and neurotransmitters were involved in forgetting. “Oh, that is really
fascinating” the interviewer responded. And, indeed, the disappearance
of Freudian Man and of Man tout court marked by the colourful brain
icon exerts a fascination over all of us. My contention here is that it is this
same fascination which underlies the aura of celebration pertaining to the
brain. The fact that we are ostensibly finally able to look straight through
ourselves, albeit mediated through the screen, enchants us no end.
However, one should stress that the brain does not only arouse enthu-
siasm, it also arouses fear. Such a point is, as I have already alluded to,
clearly discernible in Swaab’s book We are our brains, which although
delivering “a fun, wild ride through contemporary brain science” as the
Sunday Times put it,9 largely focuses on all the things that might go wrong
with the brain, such as brain damage, disorders, diseases—as suggested,
of course, by the subtitle From the womb to Alzheimer’s. For, if we are said
to be our brain, then we have to accept that just a tiny short circuit, or a
little too much of this or not enough of that neurotransmitter and things
can feasibly go horribly wrong; we might wake up and no longer recog-
nise ourselves or no longer be recognizable to others. This might also help
9
http://www.sharedstories.nl/auteur/dick-swaab/
us explain the morbid evocation of the zombie in the aforementioned

Brain Fest in Singapore: all of our brains have the potential to annihilate
us and to go on without us. The brain thus evokes both fear and fascina-
tion, or, to put it in the Latin words of the German theologian Rudolf
Otto: tremendum et fascinans. For Otto (1958), the sacred both evokes
fear and fascinates man in equal measure, precisely because it transcends,
overpowers and even crushes the human being. The brain, although alleg-
edly no longer a mystery,10 is a source of fear and fascination, precisely,
I argue, because its transparency and eventual emptiness both terrifies
and attracts us. Here, again, Baudrillard’s writings are illuminating:
Now fascination … is a nihilistic passion par excellence, it is the passion

proper to the mode of disappearance. We are fascinated by all forms of
disappearance, of our disappearance. Melancholic and fascinated, such is
our general situation in an era of involuntary transparency. (Baudrillard,
2007, p. 160)
Narcissus, the figure from Greek mythology, was famously seduced by

his own appearance and reflection in the water. Today, I would argue, we
are fascinated by our non-reflective transparency, a transparency which
actually signals our disappearance. We disappear both in and with our
brain: we are our brain, we are nothing else but our brain, there is no Ego,
there is no such things as free will; it is my brain which does the thinking
and the willing, not I, I do not even fall in love, it is my brain that does
so. This complete and utter disappearance fascinates and attracts us.11
Baudrillard, moreover, argues that inasmuch as these artefacts exer-
cise a form of “irradiation and fascination” (Baudrillard, 1997, p. 14),
this effects a “paradoxical confusion of the event and the medium”
(Baudrillard, 1997, p. 22). The traditional understanding of this refers to
10
Although of course this is where it starts from, as the blurb of the book of Swaab states: “It aims
to demystify the chemical and genetic workings of our most mysterious organ, in the process help-
ing us to see who we are through an entirely new lens” (Swaab, 2014, blurb).
11
It is this being fascinated by our own transparency, I argue, that sets my interpretation apart from
Thomas Metzinger’s theory of the Phenomenal Self Model. According to Metzinger, the transpar-
ency of those brain processes constituting the representations of the self is constitutive of the self-
model (Metzinger, 2003). In contrast to Metzinger, I argue that this very selflessness and
transparency are not unknown to the subject, rather, they are a central part of our phenomenal
self-experience, and, as the Brain Festivals show, exert a fascination over us (see also De Vos, 2015).
media such as television: something is only real and only really happens
when it is on television; and vice versa, when it is on television, it must
be real. This confusion of the event and the medium is witnessed at the
level of the brain image also. To begin with, something is said to exist
only insofar as it shows up on the brain scan: for example, we will only
take poverty seriously if, as research allegedly shows, it is identifiable on
the brain image. And vice versa, if it is visible on the brain scans, then it
must be real: if, for example, we see something on the brain scan when a
child with ADHD performs a task, then this means that ADHD is a real
brain disorder. Another example of the confusion of event and medium
in relation to the brain is found in the title of a lecture for a popular audi-
ence that I mentioned in Chap. 2: “How social relationships help build
(and rehabilitate) our brains”. Up until relatively recently this title likely
would have been reversed: how our brain helps build social relationships.
However, we seem to have moved beyond this, as now it is our social rela-
tionships that serve to optimise our brain! Our brain is the birthday boy
and we are its mere servant and host; all we are left to do is to be attracted
to it, to admire it and praise it.
Does such a scenario not signal the demise of the social, the latter
becoming nothing more than the supporting milieu for our brains? An
end of the social which, perhaps most remarkably, would be realised by
denying the personal and the private. That is, taking seriously the Dutch
philosopher Henk Oosterling’s (referring to Debord) argument that the
public domain is no longer the street but, rather, the “televisional and
virtual” (Oosterling, 2005), I would similarly contend that the private
domain is also no longer in your head, but has instead become digital
and virtual. Perhaps this is why in today’s society of the spectacle, the
epochal fascination with the brain results in parties and festivities: they
represent a desperate attempt to re-socialise and push back the threat
of solipsism that the brain seems to condemn us to. The Amazing Brain
Carnival taking place in St Louis (Missouri, USA), for example, which
lets you explore “the mystery and wonder of the human brain” and guides
you “through the spectacular feats of brain science” is sold as being “fun
for kids and teens of all ages, and their families!”.12 Hence, the spectacle
12
https://schoolpartnership.wustl.edu/events/the-amazing-brain-carnival-at-neuroday/
of the brain is the latest in a long line of attempts to reinforce commu-

nity, something which the neuro-discourse itself seemed to jeopardise.
To understand this paradoxical phenomenon and nail down what I am
getting at here, it might be useful to refer to Walter Benjamin’s famous
point, written in 1935, that humankind’s “self-alienation ha[d] reached
the point where it c[ould] experience its own annihilation as a supreme
aesthetic pleasure. Such is the aestheticizing of politics, as practiced by fas-
cism” (Benjamin, 2008, p. 42, italics in the original). Could we not also
say, then, that neurosciences’ ability to not only slice open the brain,
but also to disperse any notion of an active agent throughout the neural
network, thus opening up the potential for self-annihilation, could also
become a source of aesthetic pleasure and group formation? Under such
circumstances one, indeed, might find a live dissection of a brain a source
of enjoyment. The brain is our favourite disappearing act,13 as it is our
reappearance as beings of the brain that allows us to form a community.
Perhaps I should resort here for a second time to psychology: for does
not social psychology teach us that there is no better way through which
to bond or form a group than having a party? That said, perhaps there is
no better way to bond or form a group than to party next to the grave of
The human being as we knew it? We are nothing but our brains and this
is what binds us together. Or as the Dutch Brain Festival advertised it: it
wants the celebration to be “a crazy party for the young and the old”.14 It
is the festivity of the brain, then, which forms us into a group. But let us
be absolutely clear, the group which forms here is not formed in accor-
dance with the classic Freudian scheme, in which each person identifies
with the leader and this shared identification transforms the mass into
a group (Freud, [1921], 1955). Evidently, this kind of identification is
not behind the forms of group formation one sees at Brain Festivals or
in brain awareness events in schools. So, what kind of identification is
in operation here? At first glance, one might be tempted to say that we
identify with the brain, or, more specifically, we identify with the brain
qua image, the brain qua icon. Closer examination reveals that this is,
13
I am here paraphrasing Baudrillard’s use of Barbara Kruger “we shall be your favourite disappearing
act” (Baudrillard, 1997, p. 15).
14
https://www.hersenstichting.nl/actueel/kalender/breinfestijn-deventer, my translation.
in actual fact, only a secondary identification: the first and primordial

identification at this historical juncture which is increasingly defined by
neurologisation, as I argue throughout this book, is the identification
with scientific knowledge, or more accurately, with the position of the
scientist. Let me illustrate this point by again drawing on the school proj-
ect entitled Meeting of minds for youth, which invites pupils to form a
community precisely by adopting the position of the scientist:
After appropriating the necessary scientific knowledge, the pupils form

their own opinions and participate actively in societal dialogue.15
The position into which the pupils are being hailed is the proto-scientific
position. Indeed, the accompanying manual for Meeting of minds for youth
which is distributed to pupils is full of expressions such as “it is moreover
scientifically proven that”, or “Scientists have shown with brain scans
that…”. Consequently, You are your brain, above all, entails an interpel-
lation to look upon oneself from the perspective of the neurosciences.
One also reads in the manual:
During puberty certain parts of the brain grow faster than others, which
means that for a long period of time there is an imbalance. Because of this
imbalance, adolescents mostly think short term and are insensitive to pun-
ishment. They are, in other words, not capable of foreseeing the long-term
consequences of certain behaviours … (Van Oombergen, 2014, p. 15, my
translation)
It is not insignificant that the adolescents themselves are addressed

in the text above not as “you” but as “they”, “the adolescents”, even
though this manual concerns, and is in fact distributed to, these very
same adolescents. Such a gesture, I would argue, subtly signals the way
in which the adolescents are being enjoined to look at themselves from
an external position, that is, from a scientific perspective.16 This is why
15
http://www.breinwijzer.be/sites/default/files/MOM4Y_Programma_2014.pdf, my translation.
16
Could one not argue that in this way, the rather coercive introduction of pupils into the brain
sciences is a kind of initiation ritual, enforcing a secondary identification with each other via the
primary identification with the scientific position?
Swaab, for instance, does not say, “I am my brain”, because then one
would likely react: good for you! On the contrary, Swaab says “we are our
brains”, which is all the more compelling as it hails us to follow him, thus
forming a group in relation to the spectacle of the brain. Resultantly, it
would be simply inaccurate to say that we are our brain; rather, we are,
above all else, amateur brain scientists with a shared love of the brain. In
light of this, we could answer our initial question in a different way alto-
gether: what are we when we are said to be our brain? Yes, we are an image,
a simulacrum even, but all of this presupposes that we adopt a scientific
perspective. Hence, the main thing with which we identify when we are
said to be our brain is the neuroscientific gaze: we have thus become
proto-neuroscientists. The Brain Fest, then, is above all an academic party,
it is our graduation party we could say and we must keep this at the
forefront of our thoughts as we set out to trace and unpick its manifold
logics.
The Psycho-Logics of the Brain Festival

As everyone who knows, parties tend to follow a strict script; they have
rules and an explicit and implicit programme, which serves to temporally
and spatially structure the festivities. What I am arguing here is that, if
one were to do a run-through of the script at the Brain Festivals, then
one would find that the music, dance moves, balloons and funny hats are
all supplied by traditional psychological theories and discourses. What
do I mean by this? Well, as I have continually argued in the preceding
chapters, psychology and the psy-sciences have not simply disappeared
into the black hole of the neuro-vortex, in this respect they have also
miraculously survived their own death: if not as zombies as such, then as
the masters of ceremony for the neuro-turn. For example, in the Flemish
school project Meeting of minds for youth it is stated that the project:
does not only offer youngsters information but also helps them to develop
skills that contribute towards their personal development. Through the
project, pupils are offered the intellectual tools to live better. The project
sharpens their self-knowledge …. This augments their effectiveness during
their development. Their communicative skills are also targeted and devel-
oped during the project.17
The aims and objectives set out in this manual can be considered as the
party script and as one can see it is couched in psychological terms, such
as “skills”, “personal development”, “self-knowledge”, and so forth. It is
psychological discourses which thus provide the underlying rationale of
Brain Fest, informing us as to how and why we should celebrate the brain.
The fanfare of the funeral procession is whipped up by the psychologists
playing their psychological tunes. Therefore, and paradoxically, given
the relentless deconstruction of the psyche at the hands of the neurosci-
ences over the previous decades, psychology is reintroduced, albeit only
in order to celebrate its own nullification. It would appear, then, that
the unbearable lightness of the brain requires some psychological ballast
so as to make it bearable. Hence, Oliver Sack’s famous comment that
“Neuropsychology is admirable, but it excludes the psyche” (Sacks, 1984,
p. 164) should perhaps be restated; neuropsychology is so mesmerising
and able to transfix our gaze that it needs to reintroduce the psyche, or
better, the psychological, in order to make it endurable.
However, things are more complex yet still, as one of the main argu-
ments of my book, of course, is that the psy-discourses never actually
left the building to begin with. For example, if the aim of the project
of Meeting of minds for youth is to show that “fear, ambition, empathy,
falling in love, sex, addiction, depression…”18 all derive from the brain,
then this again demonstrates how traditional psychological theories con-
stitute a necessary, but not always acknowledged, starting point for the
neurosciences. In other words, the latter inevitably require psychological
conceptions of fear, ambition, empathy, etc., in order to conduct their
research. Hence, the first order iconoclasm of the brain sciences, the
doing away with the illusions and the archaic fantasies of psychology
can only ever be partial, as psychology is still silently underpinning the
whole endeavour. So when, as aforementioned, neuro-philosophers like
Metzinger and Dennett deconstruct the psyche and believe that they are
17
http://www.breinwijzer.be/mom4y/mom4y-doelstellingen, my translation.
18
http://www.breinwijzer.be/mom4y, my translation.
able to boil them down to their natural constituents, it is important to

look at what is being presented as natural. For one could argue that we
do not have names or signifiers for nature, which is where and why the
neuro-discourses unwittingly fall back upon old psychological signifiers
and models. This is what I referred to earlier as the anthropomorphisa-
tion of the brain, the point at which the old aporias of psychology return
to haunt the neurosciences themselves.
Paradoxically, at this very point—and for a third time in this chap-
ter, so there is likely a rooster crowing somewhere!—I need to make
another psychologising move. For, if it appears that socio-cultural theory
and ideology critique are sufficient bases from which to critique Brain
Festivals and its place within the neuro-turn, are we not then left with an
enigmatic subject still to account for? After all, the subject of the Brain
Festival is a split subject, hailed by the modern sciences to look upon itself
in jubilation from a non-existent point of view. Remember the drawing
by Vesalius of a skeleton—who is also a figure of the un-dead I hasten to
add—holding a skull in his hand: would a contemporary reimagining of
this painting not consist of a person under a scanner looking at his or her
brain in real-time? However, does such a position not solicit a psychologi-
cal theory, or at the very least, a theory of the psyche in order to account
for this particular reflexive subject? Given that this cannot be avoided—if
one wants to do a critique of the neuropsy-sciences one needs a theory of
the psyche—it is therefore worthwhile to bring psychoanalysis into the
equation, especially given that it is “the mother of all psychologisation” as
I have argued elsewhere (De Vos, 2012, p. 26).
So let us begin our venture down this treacherous path by taking
recourse to Jacques Lacan’s concept of the mirror stage (Lacan, 2007).
Mobilising this concept is a tight-rope act for two reasons: firstly, as
I argued above, the brain should not be considered as a mirror and, sec-
ondly, because it is probably the Lacanian concept most susceptible to
psychologisation. Nevertheless, the concept of the mirror stage is expe-
dient for our purposes here, not only to understand the human subject
that constitutes itself reflectively and reflexively within Logos, but also
in terms of grasping how the process of becoming a subject is necessarily
marked by a moment of jubilation and perhaps even celebration. Firstly,
let me sketch out the standard textbook version of the mirror stage.
The mirror stage refers to the jubilatory recognition of the child upon
seeing itself reflected in a mirror. Through this experience, the child, from
the age of around 6 months onwards, is able to perceive his body as a
unity or a Gestalt, whereas before there was only a fragmented experience
and the internal chaos of the body. The unified body image offered by the
mirror provides the child with what Lacan calls, “an ‘orthopedic’ form of
its totality” (Lacan, 2007, p. 78) producing the experience of constancy.
The crucial point here is that the child only comes to experience itself as
unified through an image, an image external to itself with which it iden-
tifies, and which is met by the child with, as Lacan writes, “a flutter of
jubilant activity” (Lacan, 2007, p. 76).
Lacan develops his mirror stage via an intricate optic scheme borrowed
from optical theory. He begins with a scheme used by Henri Bouasse, in
which a concave mirror is placed behind a table on which a vase is posi-
tioned, whilst there is a reversed bouquet of flowers under the table. The
flowers are hidden from the person standing in front of the table, but as
the table is open at the site of the concave mirror, the flowers are reflected
in such a way that the person in front of the table can see the flowers pro-
jected into the vase (see Fig. 6.1), albeit only from a certain angle.
The first thing Lacan does is to place the vase in the hidden position
instead of the flowers, before proceeding to add a plane mirror at the very
β
O
B'
γ
a A'
C V
A
S
B
b
Fig. 6.1 Mirror set-up in Bouasse’s experiment. Reprinted from ECRITS by

Jacques Lacan, translated by Bruce Fink. English translation copyright © 2006,
2002 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Used with permission of the publisher,
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
place where Bouasse positioned his viewer. Lacan’s viewer is then reposi-
tioned behind the concave mirror. The result of all this is that the plane
mirror “catches” (as it were) the “real image” (as this is called in optics), so
that the viewer sees the virtual image of the flowers in the vase from any
point in front of the plane mirror (see Fig. 6.2).
Regarding the issue of the child recognising itself in front of the mirror,
Lacan explains that the plane mirror stands for the other, which could be
a caregiver, the mother, or another adult encouraging the child to recog-
nise him/herself in the mirror. Lacan stresses that this is something which
is mediated through language, as the caregiver or mother speaks to the
child, saying things like: look, what a handsome boy! What a beautiful girl!
Consequently, it is language that ultimately functions as a mirror, which
is to say that it is in the Symbolic that the child comes to recognise itself
as a unified person. That said, the gaze of the caregiver, standing in front
of the mirror with the child in their arms, is symbolically structured and
this serves to guide the child’s own gaze towards a joyful assuming of itself
as a symbolically structured unity.
When formulated in this way, this could perhaps help us understand
the aforesaid jubilation and celebration that the brain image inspires
x'
Mirror
S/ S, I
y
a a'
i' (a)
A
C
y'
Fig. 6.2 Lacan’s double-mirror device. Reprinted from ECRITS by Jacques

Lacan, translated by Bruce Fink. English translation copyright © 2006, 2002 by
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W.
Norton & Company, Inc.
in subjects. Indeed, could we not conceive of the brain as a vase, as

that which contains, gives form to and provides a sense of unity to our
being? Following this reasoning, the flowers would be the psychologi-
cal paradigms that are needed to fill the vase and make the vase a vase
as it were. Consider, in this respect, how the neuro-discourses manages
to unify, if the reader will permit such a sweeping observation, all of
the different competing and often contradictory psychological theories.
The plane mirror in its turn—as aforesaid, in Lacan’s understanding
this mirror stands for the symbolic discourse guiding the gaze and the
identification—represents academic discourse: it is the expert knowl-
edge which is disseminated to us through media campaigns and by
brain educators telling us: look, what a beautiful brain you have! And, as
I previously argued, it is this that we identify with in the first instance.
We primarily do not identify with the brain, but with the scientific gaze
which turns us into a brain image. We come to look upon ourselves,
others and the wider world with a proto-scientific gaze: oh, did you
know that, according to brain research, this or that is all taking place in our
brain, isn’t that fascinating?
Perhaps, then, we could now say that the central tenet of Brain Festivals
is this collective jubilatory and joyful recognition provided by the unified
Gestalt of the brain. Consequently, we have traded the psychoanalytic
mommy/daddy stuff for a subjectivation which starts from an altogether
different Other, namely the Other of academia. In this way, one could
repeat here Ovid’s “all things change, yet never die” that I cited earlier
in this chapter: the human subject is forever morphing as it is no longer
formed within traditional patriarchal and religious societies but, rather,
within a post-hierarchical academic milieu. The Brain Festival testifies to
exactly this, as it is only the latest in a long line of coming-of-age festivals
or rituals, whether it be individual growing-up rituals or more collec-
tive religious or national celebrations. Having said all this, must we then
endorse after all the hegemonic conceptions of the wonderful resilience
and/or malleability of the human being? New times, new (versions of )
subjectivities as it were? My wager is that we should try to surpass this
psychologising nihil novi sub sole approach, as it merely repeats the cel-
ebrative stance and, as I said previously, we should always distrust party
mongers.
Toward a Critique of the Obscenities

of the Brain Fest
The first argument to make here is that in this move from the mirror stage
to, what I will call here, the brain scan stage a decisive shift takes place. In
the mirror stage it is the mother or another caregiver who features as the
catalyst: she or he prefigures for the child the future prospect of growing
up and mastering one’s body. But while the caregiver’s relation to the child
is personal and defined by love, in the brain scan stage this is radically dif-
ferent: the expert or the representative of academic knowledge who fuels
the identification is an impersonal figure and, as such, stands in a neutral
relation vis-à-vis the subject. The mother or the caregiver’s particular and
subjective desires in which the child must find a place (consider the idio-
syncratic desires and phantasies the parents have concerning the child),
are traded for general and scientifically established objectives concern-
ing the children or the adults it addresses (the envisioning of healthy,
well-balanced and well-adapted individuals, for example). Thus, if brain
educational discourses can be said to have emancipatory goals, they only
come in objectified terms, such as in aiming for children/adults to have
the appropriate skills and capacities to develop themselves.19
I wish to restate a question at this juncture which I originally raised in
Chap. 1: what is the effect of this shift, what will become of this current
generation of children and adolescents who are instructed in the scientific
dictum that we are our brain? Let us not forget that it is only relatively
recently that education and schooling took a subjective turn. As discussed
in Chap. 2, up until that point schooling was not concerned with the
subject as such, education was about the transference of knowledge, the
inculcation of discipline and morality and, thus, at most, about character
building, which, ultimately, is more to do with the suppression of the
subject. In the matter of several decades, in the aftermath of a systematic
psychologisation and now neurologisation of education, the subject has
now come to occupy centre stage, albeit in a very particular way, thus,
19
They are stated in general terms and thus do not concern the level of the universal, which envi-
sions the Truth. See also, in this respect, my discussion about the objectives of neuroeducation in
Chap. 2.
once again, bringing suppression into play. Consider, once again, the
objective of the school project Meeting of minds for youth, which:
does not only offer youngsters information but also helps them to develop
skills that contribute towards their personal development. Through the
project, pupils are offered the intellectual tools to live better. The project
sharpens their self-knowledge …. This augments their effectiveness during
their development. Their communicative skills are also targeted and devel-
oped during the project.20
The subject is, indeed, central here, but it is not just any subject, it is a
generalised subject, a non-pathological subject that by way of academic
methods and knowledge can be reoriented towards the good life. All this
is expert driven, as opposed to being driven by the subjective desires of
the caregivers. The ideal educator, then, is no more than a mere func-
tionary and self-effacing executive of scientific knowledge. However, if
formulated in this way, are we not at risk of entering the realm of the
perverse and the obscene? Here, I am inspired by both psychoanalytic
theorists and other writers such as Hannah Arendt who claim that in late
modernity truly perverse and obscene deeds, if not outright horrible and
evil ones, are done out of duty, which is to say that they are performed by
bureaucrats who act merely as the executioners or instruments of a higher
order (Arendt, 1992). It is instructive to think of those Nazi torturers
here who did their duty meticulously and saw themselves as mere func-
tionaries of a greater plan. Such logic is consistent with the figure of the
pervert within psychoanalytic theory, who, as Lacan puts it, posits him/
herself as the mere instrument of the big Other “for whose jouissance he
exercises his action as sadistic pervert” (Lacan, 1978, p. 135). Now, I am
perfectly aware that I am taking a leap here, but I think it is neverthe-
less important to ask the following question: if someone claims to be the
mere instrument of science, does she or he then not occupy a position
strictly homologous to the position of the pervert? Simply put, if neuro-
educational projects such as Meeting of minds for youth take the humble
position of claiming to be a mere go-between, in the sense that they are
20
http://www.breinwijzer.be/mom4y/mom4y-doelstellingen, my translation.
only passing scientific knowledge onto the youngsters, then are they not
also in danger of causing unacknowledged perversities and obscenities?21
In this respect, let me refer once again to the live brain dissection
which invariably tops the bill at Brain Festivals, which is indicative of
the fact that it is considered the big crowd-pleaser. Is a brain party, held
in the name of science, in which one of the accompanying party props
is a brain once belonging to a real concrete person, not obscene in the
strictest sense of the term? The pervert is the one who claims to know
what you desire (suffice to think of De Sade here), and from that he or
she pretends to be able to let the object of desire speak for itself. That is
to say, the pervert poses as a mere servant who allows the object to speak
through it. Is this not why there needs to be a real brain to be dissected?
Let science show us what really matters, no, let the Thing reveal itself ! The
psy-educationalist is only the MC, who builds the stage on which the
bare facts are to be presented, or better yet still, so as to let the pure flesh
of the brain speak for itself.
To illustrate this obscene undertow of neuro-education in yet another
way still, let me describe a picture I found on the website of the DANA
foundation22 that organises a worldwide event called “brain awareness
week”. The photo23 shows a woman holding out a brain to an 8- to
10-year-old girl. The girl, with her face painted—it is meant to be a party
after all—however, seems to back off, her hands defensively placed at her
side and, as far as we can surmise, with a distressed if not outright horri-
fied look on her face, as she is confronted by a person who is determined
to show the human being finally reduced to a real object. Ultimately, in
21
The professed emancipatory goal of informing youngsters so that they can partake in the societal
debate does not change the coordinates here: the neuro-educators position themselves as mere
instruments of the greater plan of Science, in which educational outcomes are conceived of in very
strict psychologising terms (targeting skills, effectiveness, personal development and so on).
22
DANA is an international consortium of universities, pharmaceutical companies and NGOs that
calls itself “a private philanthropic organization that supports brain research through grants, publi-
cations, and educational programs”. Testifying to the unperceived paradoxical turn of reflexivity
within their own discourse, the following phrase (with which they promote their annual “brain
awareness week”) is highly indicative: “celebrate a week of celebrating the brain” (http://www.dana.
org/kids/).
23
The photo can be found at: http://dana.org/uploadedImages/baw/Photo_Gallery/Gallery/2009/
slide/Moravian%20College,%20Pennsylvania,%20United%20States_brain%20exhibition_sl.jpg
Brain Awareness Week Gallery—2009.
Lacan’s depiction of the pervert, the pervert mobilises the object in order
to evoke the dividedness of the other, which in this aforesaid scenario is
the disconcerted and dismayed little girl. The pervert knows and presents
this knowledge as not consisting of any shortcomings or lack. This lack
is then realised in the other, with the pervert taking an obscene pleasure
in the others’ lack. It is as if we need this dissident picture of the appalled
girl, amongst all the other photos of laughing, dancing and creative chil-
dren engaging in the “brain activities”, in order to appreciate the obscen-
ity involved in these festivities of the brain. So perhaps the celebratory
aspect of brain-edutainment is not only a component of the jubilatory
mirror-stage as argued above, it might, above all, be tied to a specific
mobilisation of enjoyment—jouissance in Lacanian terms—in a perverse
constellation. That is, the sadistic pervert is not in it for his or her own
pleasure, instead he or she wants to provoke and thus control the incar-
nated pleasure (or pain) of the other.
This perverse and obscene mobilisation of jouissance also chimes
particularly well with Žižek’s (2002) argument that social institutions
not only testify to an obscene disavowed underside (e.g. obscene sexu-
alised rituals of initiation in the military or paedophilia in the church),
but to the somewhat troubling fact that this obscene kernel is actually
a key constituent of the institution as such (sustaining group solidar-
ity, for example). One might even connect this obscene basis of group
formation with some of the arguments put forth in Freud’s Totem and
Taboo (Freud, [1913], 1991), which I will do in the concluding section
of this chapter.
Conclusions
Is the joyous Brain Festival not an example of a collective transgression,
a kind of obscene carnival, celebrating the slicing up of the fleshy brain,
as if the latter were the ultimate contemporary totem, an academic totem
as such? The totem, which most often adopts the figure of an animal, is
that which unites the clan and ordinarily is seen as taboo and as need-
ing to be worshipped; however, once a year the totem animal is killed
and feasted upon by the clan. It would appear that the brain similarly
must have its yearly festival—remember the Scottish “Carnival of the

Mind”—or annual “awareness week” where it is feasted upon, as in old
tribal traditions, albeit in the form of ice cubes or Jell-O at the event
mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. Hence, in incorporating our
brain are we not attempting to reconnect to what we first exteriorised? It
would appear that through this totemic meal we reclaim the core of our
being, our agalma, and rejoice in the illusion of becoming whole again.
But, simultaneously, as argued in the previous section, there is an aura of
obscenity and transgression about the brain meal. The festive feeling, as
Freud writes in Totem and Taboo, “is produced by the liberty to do what
is as a rule prohibited” (Freud, [1913], 1991, p. 140).
However, if Freud connected the totem to the figure of the Father,
more specifically, to the Father of the primal horde, this patriarchal gene-
alogy cannot be maintained in relation to the brain. The brain as a totem
does not refer to any lineage, it does not assign us a place and construct
us as subjects of the law as in the case of the rationale underpinning
Freud’s Totem and taboo. In Freud’s myth the sons of the Father formed
a brotherly clan to kill and eat the primal Father, but once incorporated,
the latter morphed into the figure of the Law, which, ultimately, united
the clan; the former, real power of the Father thus became a symbolic,
institutionally grounded formed of power. If the brain totem can be said
to have any lineage, it is only in terms of a natural, Darwinian lineage:
recall the reptilian brain here. However, this naturalised scientific lineage
can also be said to inaugurate a form of law, albeit one consisting of
a scientifically informed superego that commands us to take care of our
brain, which is to say that it is science which, ultimately, assigns us a place
and makes us subject. Moreover, just as the killing of the Father had to
be commemorated annually through a transgressive carnival where the
totem qua representative of the Father is eaten, the brain as the modern
academic totem must, as said, also be feasted upon in an annually recur-
ring transgressive festival. But, as shown, the transgression represented
by the Brain Festival is not as carefree as one would perhaps imagine;
rather, it is highly staged and carefully scripted. Any transgression, then,
occurs only under the close supervision of the educators of the brain, who
through their role as clerics of academic knowledge carefully construct
the scenery and the celebrative rites of passage, reducing themselves to
mere servants and instruments of science, in order to educate and eman-

cipate those in attendance by remaking them in the image of science.
Here, by disconnecting the brain totem from the figure of the Father,
perhaps we must consider a different constellation altogether: a maternal
one. Indeed, is it not evident that, starting from the neuro-educational
context, Academia poses, above all, as the ultimate Good Mother?
Consider how the aforementioned Flemish neuro-educational project
claims to take care of the “personal development” of the youngsters,
offering them “tools to live better”, augmenting “their effectiveness dur-
ing their development”. Perhaps, this is the appropriate time to finally
reveal in full the remarkable acronym of this school project: MOM4Y
(Meeting of Minds for Youth). The brain, at least so this project purports,
is the perfect mom for you! Hence, after all, the brain is the ultimate tran-
sitional object, a substitute mother who soothes us apropos our lack of
being and who, as shown in this chapter, turns out to also be a party mom.
It is important, however, not to too readily and conclusively frame this
in terms of a shift from a patriarchal, religious constellation to a matriar-
chal academic one (after all, one’s own university is called “alma mater”).
For, if one were to stop here, such an argument would again imply that
we have accessed the ultimate Olympic and Archimedean vantage point,
from which to assess the vicissitudes of human subjectivity and society,
not to mention falling into an equally problematic trap of mobilising a
psy-theory as a Final Theory of Everything. The argument I am making
here is far more specific and limited than this: what I am saying is that the
fact that a signifier (“mom”) from the past (from traditional psychology
and, as such, a relic of the Freudian age) pops up, albeit unwittingly per-
haps, above all testifies to the fact that Academia cannot be a closed whole,
cannot fully be equal to itself. It is precisely there that not only signifiers
from psychology and psychoanalysis emerge, but also, as I have shown,
where a whole host of obscenities present themselves also. Of course, the
paradox is that this very argument, in turn, relies upon psychoanalysis,
which itself is a particular psy-theory, indeed, perhaps the most maligned
of all the psy-theories and praxes. However, there is a crucial distinction
which should not be overlooked in this respect: psychoanalysis is not (or
at least should not be if it truly can be said to be psychoanalytic) a theory
or praxis that culminates in celebrations and festivities. For, and this is
what the following chapter addresses, at the very point where a theory of
the psyche comes up against a lack, it should wholeheartedly resist the
temptation to cover this up by taking a short cut via celebrations and fes-
tivities: the true ethical stance is to keep this void open and this is where
a theory of the psyche cannot but venture down the rabbit hole and find
itself transformed into a politics.
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7
The Political Brain: The Brain
as a Political Invention
Introduction
Ovid’s Metamorphoses has long been referred to as an explicitly political
work. It is in this respect that Feldherr points to a remarkable ambiguity
in the text: on the one hand, it challenged a regime intensely dedicated
to the maintenance of its own stability and permanence by declaring
that change was the only immutable law. On the other hand, the notion
that identity somehow persists beyond even the most radical changes of
form appears to be well aligned with the emperor Augustus’ concern to
convey to the public that he had restored the past rather than replacing it
(Feldherr, 2010, p. 7).
A similar ambiguity can also be situated within the contemporary
brain narrative: at its turn, the brain stands both for change (trauma,
neurodegenerative diseases or intoxicants, for example, are believed to be
capable of causing a complete transformation) and for stability (i.e., the
idea that merely wanting to change certain aspects of yourself or engaging
in psychotherapy are largely ineffective, due to the fact that it is believed
to be very difficult, if not almost impossible, to go against the grain of
your brain). Evidently, in both of these scenarios the brain is related to

Discontents, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50557-6_7
issues of power, be it a power that can be actively handled by external cir-

cumstances or pure volition, or in terms of an inert material power that
one can only passively endure. Does this not mean that the brain should
also be viewed as an explicitly political issue?
For example, if Ovid’s metamorphoses are often concerned with
escaping some form of peril or overpowering an enemy, then one could
argue that our eagerness to become our brain is an analogous form of
active defence against a rapidly changing world. The argument would
proceed as such: due to the fact that our old psychological make-up was
perhaps only suited for a now bygone patriarchal, centralised and repre-
sentational society, today we opt for an altogether more promising cerebral
guise, one ideally suited for a politically decentred, post-Fordist society.
However, the shift towards becoming our brain could also be understood
along different lines, that is, along the lines of that other, more passive
Ovidian reason for metamorphosis: punishment for hubris (remember
how Arachne turned into a spider as a result of claiming that her weaving
skills exceeded those of Athena). From this perspective, one could view
globalised societies, marked by permanent crises and perpetual auster-
ity, as somehow forcing us to sober up and cast aside our old hubristic
psychological illusions of reason, free will and love. In this regard, the
Neuro would function as a sobering remedy, or as John R. Hibbing, an
advocate of coupling both politics and political research to neurobiology,
says: “Broader recognition of the role of gritty biological realities could
inject much-needed humility into the self-perceptions of homo sapiens”
(Hibbing, 2013, p. 479). Here, taking the place of Ovid’s deities, it is
academia which takes on the ostensibly urgent task of correcting human-
ity’s hubris.
This latter scenario would lead to several questions. To begin with,
is humanity’s hubris not in need of being slain, above all, in order to
reinforce hegemonic power relations and, like in the case of Arachne, to
silence and suppress resistance and deviance vis-à-vis power? Moreover,
if people like Hibbing take it upon themselves to instil “much-needed
humility”, then are they not also in line for some humiliation, albeit
all in the service of science, of course? Is it thus not precisely here that,
whilst posing as the party-poopers of humanity’s hubris (if one will allow
me to refer in this somewhat colloquial manner to the previous chapter),
The Political Brain: The Brain as a Political Invention 205
they themselves engage in a celebrative and boastful stance towards the

wonderful brain? In this respect, Linda Zerilli, apropos Hibbing, quite
rightly points to the “grandiosity” embedded in the “humble methods”
of science (Zerilli, 2013, p. 513). This ambiguity means that, on the
one hand, we as hubristic earthlings are brought back to earth and mat-
ter by science, while, on the other hand, through this metamorpho-
sis of becoming our brain we, somewhat paradoxically, rid ourselves of
this numbing and paralysing passivity precisely by identifying with sci-
ence and the scientists who have attained a god-like perspective on the
sublunary.
Hibbing, for example, claims that “biopolitical science” (which he
designates as political science inspired by neurobiology) can transcend
the idiosyncratic, historical and contingent political issues and discern the
timeless and placeless “bedrock dilemma’s” of politics (Hibbing, 2013,
p. 480). Moreover, he professes that such findings can not only inform
policy makers to devise alternative policies, but also greatly benefit the
layperson as well. Concerning the latter, he provides the example of how
biological evidence about political orientations might lead to more toler-
ance and less acrimony:
People need to recognize that their political opponents are not necessarily
uninformed or unintelligent but rather that, at a very basic level, they
experience and interpret the world differently. … If the depth of these
differences is accepted, tolerance of political diversity may be enhanced.
(Hibbing, 2013, p. 484)
Here, the informed layperson can partake in the benevolent Academic

Archimedean gaze and thus reclaim its agency and activity; or, phrased
otherwise, through the identification with science the passivity of being a
mere biological object can be warded off by biology and the brain itself.
This bypassing of the correction of our hubris might serve as a way
through which to question the more sophisticated attempts at devising a
form of neuropolitics and the associated turn to affect, as well as both their
claims to finally transcend a politics grounded in rationalist and subjectiv-
ist rationales. I will address this here in this chapter, setting out from the
concept of interpassivity (which the reader might already have discerned in
these introductory remarks) in order to engage with William C. Connolly’s

neuropolitics as well as Brian Massumi’s politics of affect. A central refer-
ence point in this discussion will be Benjamin Libet’s famous experiments
(to which both Connolly and Massumi refer) about becoming conscious
of an intention. The hope is that this will help us reinterpret, in this era of
the brain, the old slogan “the personal is political”.
The Brain as the Ultimate Trope of

Interpassivity
The interest in interpassivity, as it was originally coined by Pfaller (2000)
before its development by Žižek (1997), lies in the fact that it questions
the very status of subjectivity. Indeed, Pfaller first used the concept to
argue that the much celebrated paradigm of interactivity was inadequate
for apprehending a range of emerging phenomena in art, media and cul-
ture where, arguably, its obverse, interpassivity, had become the defining
mechanism. In the realm of art, for example, rather than interpellating
the audience into a participatory position, works of art began to take
over the activity of the audience; it is the art piece itself which did the act
of experiencing and enjoying. Gijs van Oenen (2006) cites the example
of a work by Eija-Liisa Ahtila at Tate Modern (2002), which involved
video recorders and monitors being placed on chairs while the visitors
remained standing; some monitors just faced each other, making the
spectator essentially redundant as the watching was done by the screens
themselves. The classic Žižekian example of interpassivity is “canned
laughter” in television: the spectators can comfortably lean back and let
the television laugh on their behalf, all the while having a good time
through “the medium of the other” (Žižek, 1997, p. 112). These exam-
ples pose a profound question with regard to subjectivity: if I outsource
my involvement, my watching, my enjoyment to others, or to an object,
then what is the status of myself as a subject? Is my true subject not the
one which remains on the side-lines, that is, the one not participating in
events ostensibly central to my being?
These questions become all the more pressing when one considers that
the ultimate trope of interpassivity has become the brain. That is to say,
the outsourcing of our basic activities today more than ever is realised
within the neurological turn, essentially the very core of our being is
transferred to the brain. It is the brain that thinks, the brain that feels
and the brain that knows. Moreover, its potentially fully objectifiable
thoughts, feelings and knowledge are the firm counterparts to the waver-
ing of myself as a phenomenological subject as it pertains to thinking,
feeling and knowing. Hence, there is no existential doubt in the brain;
at most, there is functional doubt, engendered by a shortage of data or
inconclusive information processing. In the mainstream neuro-narratives,
in its popular or academic forms, there is no Cartesian dubito in the brain.
The brain is in my place: at the cerebral level, there seems to be a full
ontological closure. Through the logic of interpassivity, I can confidently
outsource my very being to this cerebral agent. A telling example of this is
in so-called “Emergency Braking Assistance.” The neuroscientists Stefan
Haufe et al. (2011) claim that they can detect the specific cerebral activ-
ity which occurs immediately prior to an emergency brake. Using these
brain impulses to immediately and automatically perform the emergency
brake allows us to gain time and braking distance vis-à-vis the natural
motor response, which normally lags 130 ms behind the initial brain
potentials. Driving safely, then, means letting your brain drive the car.
Of course, when considered in this way, does the brain not remain
an object, a kind of foreign body over which I have no access in a direct
phenomenological way? That is, one needs to see brain scans and listen
to the accounts of neuroscientists to learn about the real me. The brain,
in this sense, then, paradoxically becomes some form of homunculus,
or a kind of golem inside my head. However, one should avoid here
the temptation to nostalgically and naïvely attempt to reinstate a direct
phenomenological, and supposedly more subjective, mode of thinking,
feeling and knowing. As such, rather than try to get rid of the brain as
the little man in our head, we must think this interpassive brain and its
paradoxes through seriously.
To begin with, it is important to understand that interpassivity con-
cerns outsourcing passivity and not outsourcing activity. Let me explain
this through another classic example from Žižek: the hired mourners at a
funeral, doing the crying on behalf of the relatives of the deceased so that
they can devote their time to more pressing and profitable endeavours
such as settling the deceased’s estate (see Žižek, 2006, p. 23). This, I claim,
has to be understood in the following way: what is outsourced is not grief
as such, but, rather, the absence of grief. For, as Žižek puts it: “I am
passive through the Other, I concede to the other the passive aspect …
of my experience, while I can remain actively engaged…” (Žižek, 2006,
p. 26). Or, in the example of “canned laughter”, what is first and fore-
most outsourced is perhaps our very non-engagement, that is, the fact
that we are not really amused with the cheap and tiresome jokes in the sit-
com. By outsourcing our passivity in this way, a minimal subjective space
and a certain degree of freedom appears to open up: or as Žižek says,
“when the Other laughs for me, I am free to take a rest” (Žižek, 1997,
p. 109). Indeed, interpassivity does appear to allow a space for freedom:
I once saw a Japanese tourist in a botanical garden pointing her camera
towards the plants, whilst she herself chatted away with her companion
oblivious to the wirelessly transmitted comments of the guide as she had
her earphones unplugged. Hence, does outsourcing our passivity to the
brain not equally open up a space through which to exercise a minimal
form of freedom?
The mode of interpassivity that characterises the neuro-turn might
turn out to be a bit more problematic, however. Consider, for example,
how the so-called mirror neurons could be said to be empathic in our
place, so that we, to put it bluntly, no longer have to worry about the fact
that we do not care that much about the other. This stress on empathy
as a function of the brain could thus be regarded as a kind of depolitici-
sation of solidarity, as the latter has always been, above anything else, a
duty which we were enjoined to take upon ourselves. Given that mirror
neurons now ostensibly do the sociality instead of us, are we henceforth
exempt from this, or, to put this another way, are we robbed of our choice
of solidarity? For, is this not precisely where the political space is closing
down, as solidarity and interacting with each other are no longer our
business or responsibility but, rather, the responsibility, besides that of
our brain, of those experts who have the scientific expertise to optimise
and steer all of our mirror neuron systems? It is with this in mind that
I want to raise the possibility that the interpassive brain might be so
strong so as to usurp the minimal level of activity or freedom which, in
Žižek’s understanding, was secured by outsourcing one’s passivity.
This new trope of an interpassivity that outlaws any leeway is equally

perhaps at stake within the humanities itself as a consequence of turning
into the neuro-humanities. That is, what unites the disciplines of neuro-
psychology, neuroaesthetics and neuropolitics, for example, is the fact
that the understanding of the psychological, the aesthetical or the politi-
cal is outsourced to the neurosciences; the consequence of which being
that any true (i.e., of course, any partial and partisan) conceptual grasp of
the psyche, aesthetics or politics is at risk of getting lost. Any active, inde-
pendent perspective within the humanities becomes subordinated to the
emergent neuro-hegemony, hence reducing the independent jurisdiction
of the humanities to zero. However, those in neuroscience should not
merely shrug their shoulders in response, for this dynamic of interpas-
sivity also eventually comes to define and structure the whole endeavour
of neuroscience itself. To be absolutely clear on this point, the outsourc-
ing originally concerned not a knowing per se but, rather, a lack in the
knowledge of the humanities, that is, the absence of a full closure. What
this means, ultimately, is that, when outsourced to the neurosciences,
understanding becomes merely self-referential or at the most locational
(understanding is equivalent to pinpointing the issue in the brain, be it
within a particular brain area or a more dynamic network in the brain)
and correlational (with the additional problem that it is the humanities
which are still (silently) providing the first terms of the correlation with-
out any foundation or mandate to do so).
It is for these reasons that we might be encountering yet another iteration
of the traditional trope of the impotence of knowledge. The aforemen-
tioned lack of knowledge in the humanities, one could argue, commonly
manifested itself in relation to the political domain: sociologists, political
theorists and other social scientists were believed to deliver interesting
analyses but ran into manifold deadlocks when attempting to mobilise
this knowledge in the service of an emancipatory project. Knowledge, one
apparently had to accept, was in actual fact a fundamental impediment to
rallying the masses; or, at the very least, knowledge turned out to be insuf-
ficient for mobilising people into action. People are not wholly rational
beings, so the argument went, and thus should also be addressed at an
emotive and affective level. The realisation of the impotence of knowledge
formed a central tenet of, for instance, Freudo-Marxism: Marxists turned
to psychoanalysis because their analysis of the economico-political state

of the situation did not suffice to win the support of the workers. When,
for example, in the crisis of the 1930s, German workers were drawn to
Fascism rather than Marxism, psychoanalysis was invoked to explain the
libidinal mechanisms manipulated by Fascists in order to ideologically
transfix subjects.
Might we not understand today’s neurological turn, and the related
turn to affect in political theory, in much the same way? Consider the
perpetually espoused argument that, with regard to today’s ubiquitous
crises, the Leftist rational analysis remains inadequate compared to the
ostensibly affective, and thus more effective, strategies of the Right.
Consequently, the plea is that the Left should appeal to the subjective
and affective registers in order to impassion a progressive political strug-
gle. George Lakoff, for example, holds that the Left should realise that
people’s beliefs are not based on rational argumentation but, rather, on
subconscious narrative “frames”. And as these frames are constituted in
metaphors, metonyms and image schemas which are “embodied in our
synapses” and “physically present in the form of neural circuitry”, the Left
should directly address this embodied, emotive and unconscious sphere
(Lakoff, 2004, p. 73). Similarly, in The Lacanian Left, Yannis Stavrakakis
(2007) advances that it is enjoyment (or jouissance in Lacanese) that
structures the logic of political discourse. As such, Stavrakakis argues that
the Left has traditionally misperceived the role of affect and emotion
in political life and should practise its own “politics of jouissance”. Of
course, my argument will be that this leftist neuro-turn and/or affective
turn will equally falter, albeit in a different way, just as the psychological
turn of Freudo-Marxism before it.
In this chapter I focus specifically on William Connolly’s neuropolitics
(Connolly, 2002) and Brian Massumi’s politics of affect (2002), for it
is my contention that a closer reading of their attempt to use neuro-
logical findings to underpin an emancipatory project is illustrative of
how the neurological turn in political theory is to be understood, more
generally. As will be discussed, both these theorists’ appeals to amend, if
not interchange, traditional politics with political work at the subliminal
level are caught within the scheme of a radical interpassivity, that is, an
interpassivity curtailing any freedom or leeway.
But before engaging more systematically with these and some other
authors, I first have to elucidate, beginning with the concept of interpas-
sivity, why modern subjectivity (and hence modern politics) inevitably
invokes the psy-discourses and, more recently, the neuro-discourse.
There Is No Such Thing as a (Free) Psyche

Gijs van Oenen, interestingly, links the notion of interpassivity to the core
of Enlightenment thought and especially to its general political project.
His basic argument is that the ideals of freedom, emancipation and democ-
racy originally concurred with the concept of interactivity, as it called for
an interactive participation on behalf of the modern subject. We learned
to think for ourselves and subsequently organise and develop both our
communal and our personal life according to norms that we individually
and collectively ascribe to, instead of norms provided by God, nature and
so on. According to van Oenen, this process culminated in the 1960s–
1970, where the process of emancipation was explicitly and formally
organised along interactive lines. He puts this in Habermasian terms: in
that period it became generally accepted that anyone who is “affected by a
social norm should have an opportunity to participate in discussions con-
cerning its validation” (Lovink & van Oenen, 2012, para 7). However,
van Oenen contends, as we became interactively responsible for just about
everything in our personal and public life, we in turn started to suffer from
this incessant appeal to emancipation. Hence, by the 1990s the momen-
tum of participation and interactivity reached a saturation point, inducing
a form of “interactive metal fatigue”, as van Oenen calls it: we became
overburdened by interactivity and emancipation, and turned to more inter-
passive modes of personal and social behaviour. Van Oenen, for example,
observes how our environment is increasingly interpassively shaped: think
of the speed bump, the roundabout, automatic revolving doors, etc. These
artefacts relieve us from being actively and personally engaged in traffic and
in public space; they subtly nudge us towards enacting courtesy or, more
specifically, they are courteous in our place (van Oenen, 2011).
But while the neuro-discourses evidently play a central role in these
forms of interpassivity, it is clear that the former practices and discourses
of interactivity and participation already leaned on the psy-discourses.

This point can be explained genealogically: the central tenets of the
Enlightenment, such as emancipation, participation and democracy, pre-
suppose, or better yet still, engender an agency or a subject. Of course,
this subject has a long history, so one would have to retrace it by going
back to the Renaissance and from there to the Middle Ages, the Judean-
Christian tradition up to and including the Roman and Greek period
and the advent of Logos. Moving forward in history, one would have to
pass through early modern philosophy and its gradual parting of the ways
with the natural sciences, before moving onto eighteenth-century materi-
alism and the emergence of the discipline of psychiatry. Notwithstanding
this history, it is my contention that the subject of the Enlightenment,
the modern subject, autonomous and emancipated from Church and
tradition, who both understands and shapes its life-world starting from
the position of the modern sciences, necessitated a particular and new
discourse to give form to its agency. This role, I claim, eventually and in
a decisive way came to be taken up by the psy-sciences (psychoanalysis,
psychiatry, psychology and their related theories and praxes). Hence, one
could argue that the psy-sciences finally gave form to the epistemic break
and the radical rupture of the Enlightenment and modernity, by provid-
ing it with a subject and an agent. Hence, arguably, the subject that the
psy-sciences address is not pre-given, nor does it precede the need to flesh
out a modern agency. In other words, it is not that the psy-sciences give
the old, historical human being new and modern clothes; rather, they
actually shape and create (and thus contain) the modern human being.
Most importantly, it is here that the issue of psychologisation rears its
head. Psychology’s that’s what you are invites the modern subject to look
upon itself via the objectifications of the psy-discourse. Interpellated (in
the Althusserian sense) into the psychological discourse, we do not iden-
tify in the first instance with that which we are said to be (psychological
man) but, rather, with the operator/agent position of scientific objectivity
itself (i.e., the point from where the interpellation is issued). In this way,
we become our own psychologists, gazing down from our Archimedean
vantage point onto the human zoo. However, this human zoo is virtually
empty, as psychological man, after all, is nothing but a non-existent
fiction; rather, everybody has joined the rank of the psy-scientists.
Hence, issues such as emancipation, participation and democracy,

are unmistakably infused by psychology and its inseparable shadow of
psychologisation. Discourses on participation, for instance, are heavily
laden with psy-signifiers, such as emotional and behavioural skills, social
awareness, self-worth, identity, etc.1 As a result, the idea of bringing
more democracy into parenting led only to the infiltration of psychology
within the home. Similarly, more democracy in schools brought more
psychology into schools. And more democracy in business environments
introduced psychology into corporations and factories. Parents and chil-
dren are thus inculcated into the basics of child psychology; pupils and
students must acquaint themselves with social and personal psychology;
and workers have to know everything that the psy-expert knows about
cooperation, leadership and group dynamics.
Leaving to one side the potential un-emancipatory and alienating
effects of such psychologising discourses, one should discern how already
interactivity here shifts into interpassivity. As the modern subject is called
upon to experience its life through the gaze of psychology, it can be said
to live its life via the psychological other (the homo psychologicus) that
he or she is said to be. Or, phrased otherwise, passing over interactive
and participatory methods, the fact that you are summoned to assume
the scientific psy-perspective means that you are convoked to express
your innermost motives and feelings interpassively. Consider this cogent
example from the school, of how the emancipatory and participative
objectives mobilise the psy-discourse: in so called circle-time, toddlers
are asked how do you feel and prompted to put on a mask from the
four available options (happy, sad, angry, or scared) (Kog, Moons, &
Depondt, 1997). That is, let the mask express your feelings—and, thus,
do the feeling—in your place. Interactivity, inasmuch as it presupposes a
subject, is given form in a psychologising discourse and it is precisely here
that interpassivity emerges: the psy-discourses flesh out a psychological
golem, who is thinking, acting and feeling in your place.
1
For example, in a UNICEF document on children’s participation we read that, “[f ]ostering
children’s social, emotional and behavioural skills in and out of school has benefits for: academic
achievement, self-esteem, personal responsibility, tolerance of difference, workplace effectiveness,
classroom behaviour, and mental health” (Children as Active Citizens, 2008).
So, if we are saying that with the neurological turn the scheme of
interpassivity is in full vigour, this is not so much because the interactive
paradigm of psychology has reached a saturation point and pushed us
toward the interpassive brain but, rather, because interpassivity was
always already the true baseline of the psy-sciences. One should, there-
fore, not misunderstand the sweeping neurological turn in psychology in
recent decades as signalling something wholly new. Surely the hegemonic
paradigm in psychology has become neurology (Gergen, 2010); brain
anatomy and brain chemistry are held responsible for cognition, mind
and mental life, both normal and abnormal (Garza & Smith, 2009).
However, does the fact that the psychology departments were able to
trade, with relative ease, the psychological paradigm with the neurological
one not testify to the fact that the psy-sciences could never fully han-
dle the psychical dimension as such? The death of the psyche might be
considered a death foretold (De Vos, 2012). For, fleshing out the homo
psychologicus—that is, in the mode of interpassivity, your psychological
other that you are said to be—proved to be highly problematic for the
psy-sciences. Just consider the traditional recourse to external metaphors
such as the machine, the computer, the market, etc. The greatest difficulty
for psychology, then, is to understand the psyche in its own right, or to be
more concise: the psy-sciences always attempt to evade and conceal the
fact that the modern psyche is a fundamentally paradoxical and empty
non-category. So, if today the late-modern subject is called upon to take
ontological recourse to the genes and the brain in order to act, react,
crave, desire, love in its place, then it is only now that the basic schema
of the psy-sciences is fully realised. Through the neurological turn, the
psy-sciences can finally dare to openly assert what it has always testified
to: that there is no such thing as the psyche. The hubris, then, which
according to Hibbing is in urgent need of being opposed, was never ours
to begin with, rather it belonged to the psy-sciences, and even then, they
never believed in an autonomous psyche anyway.
Hence, with the neurological turn, specifically as it pertains to the
way it situates the brain as the ultimate objectified Fremdkörper, par-
ticipation and emancipation have become the issue of psychofarmaca
and other similar ways to influence the brain, or participation without
participation and emancipation without emancipation.2 Admittedly,

within the field of neuropolitics itself there are varying ways of taking
recourse to both the cognitive and neurosciences—the same neurosci-
entific research, for example, can often lead to different and sometimes
conflicting arguments in relation to the social and political. However, the
main issue lies elsewhere. As the psy-sciences and the neurosciences are
in their own right riven by a fundamental and insurmountable paradox,
any subsequent recourse to them in politics, or from the perspective of
political theory, is highly problematic. William Connolly’s neuropolitics,
which, I will argue, all too readily assumes the neurosciences to be a
neutral and straightforward source for political theory, is a case in point.
Connolly’s Neuropolitics and Its

Surplus Subject
In his book Neuropolitics (2002), William Connolly attempts to address
the inadequacy of rational choice theory and the intellectualist approach
to deliberative democracy. As indicated earlier, this, since modernity,
age-old problem concerns the inadequacies of knowledge and rationality
alone as a means to politically mobilise the masses. This is related, one
could argue, to the structural abyss the Enlightenment unearthed/engen-
dered between knowledge and subjectivity, discernible in the phenomena
and dynamics of interpassivity. While one could posit that this abyss is
precisely constitutive of modern subjectivity, the temptation to bridge
or fill this gap is a powerful one: overtly in mainstream theories and
practices and more subtly in sophisticated theories and praxes. I argue
that Connolly, through his recourse to neurological research as a means
through which to provide ontological closure, fleshes out a unified sub-
ject, thus not only obfuscating the paradoxes of the modern interpassive
subject but, moreover, preparing the ground for the shutdown of the
minimal leeway interpassivity used to provide.
2
Remember Žižek’s gloss on coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol (Žižek, 2004).
Connolly’s main point of reference to the neurosciences is the research

of Benjamin Libet on the so-called “half-second delay”. Libet’s experi-
ments claim to demonstrate how an action prior to its execution is first
unconsciously prepared (Libet, 1999). Libet found that, long before a
person becomes conscious of his or her intention to do something, one
can observe in the brain a “readiness potential”. The time intervals are as
follows: between the readiness potential and the conscious awareness of
the intention Libet found 300 ms, and between the conscious awareness
and the actual motor response, 150 ranging to 200 ms. The total delay
between the unconscious intention and the act itself, he concluded,
amounts to half a second. According to authors such as Leslie Paul Thiele
this delay would be as such
detrimental to one’s sense of (an autonomous) self to perceive actions as

products of impulses that one could only retroactively endorse. Hence we
are structured to remain oblivious to the tardiness of conscious responses.
(Thiele, 2006, p. 210)
In other words, for Thiele the true state of affairs is humiliating and defies
our hubris, as it shows us that we are not actually in charge. But this
is not the full story for Libet, as he argues that the second time span
revealed in his experiments (between becoming conscious and the motor
response) in actual fact allows the subject to override an unconsciously
made intention. Libet contends that 150 ms affords enough time for the
conscious function “to affect the final outcome of the volitional process”
(Libet, 1999, p. 51).
To authors such as Thiele and Connolly, however, Libet’s revalua-
tion of free will is not a main point of interest. Connolly, for example,
focuses above all on the brain processes in the half-second delay and,
citing Tor Nørretrander, the “incomprehensible quantities of unconscious
calculation” between the reception of sensory material and the process
of becoming conscious of it and acting upon it (Connolly, 2002, p. 83).
Connolly, in this respect, never tires of pointing to the amygdala, the
brain nodule working overtime during the half-second delay. And it
is here that he moves to the political domain: denouncing deliberative
democracy, Connolly posits that it is not just you—the conscious,
narrative, autobiographical “self ”—who thinks, knows, or feels; in all of

this your brain is involved at an unconscious and subliminal level. It is
precisely here that, contra Libet’s attempt to recover free will, Connolly
puts forward, by way of drawing upon Nietzsche, Foucault, Deleuze and
others, a re-understanding of the idea of the techniques of the self:
Recent brain research is suggestive, both in its presentation of noncon-

scious operations that precede consciousness by a half second and in its
suggestions about the role technique plays in thinking and judgment.
(Connolly, 2002, p. 82)
As for Connolly, he posits that politics to a large extent is micropolitics,

happening at the cerebral affective realm operative in the half-second
delay, thus opposing the cultural and political theorists who act as if
ethics and politics consist of deliberation alone (Connolly, 2002, p. 17).
Connolly, instead, informed by contemporary neuroscience, promotes
techniques and “tactical work on dispositions installed below conscious-
ness” (Connolly, 2002, p. 82).
Connolly’s micropolitics, most pertinently, has been criticised for
denouncing the political level tout court. Indeed, if Slaby, Haueis and
Choudhury (2012) remarked that there is not much “neurology” to be
found in Connolly’s book, the main issue might concern the fact that there
is not much politics to be found in his neuropolitics either! Connolly, for
example, has been reproached for his undervaluing of traditional modes
of political action (Livingston, 2008) and for his manipulative and non-
deliberative privileging of an individualistic ethics which fails to capture
“the very real collectivist dimensions of democratic political life” (Krause,
2006, para 7). Furthermore, Fred C. Alford argues that Connolly’s fas-
cination with the pre-narrative and non-conscious realm of affects locks
his political project up within an intra-psychic perspective, thus shutting
out the social and the political as such (Alford, 2015). Adrian Johnston,
on his turn, suggests that Connolly’s plea for micropolitics risks “being
distractedly scattered in a diffuse array of trifling entities and events”, thus
losing sight of the need for a macropolitical approach (Johnston, 2012).
As sound as these critiques are, I would go even further and argue
that Connolly’s approach is already questionable at the level of his
micropolitics. That is, perhaps we should reject the very claim that there
is a level of politics set apart from macropolitics which takes place on
the infra-subjective and sub-personal levels and which, hence, could be
worked upon by the individual themselves. Consider Connolly’s primary
example of how watching movies can be useful as a technique of the
self. He recommends the movie Stranger than Paradise, for example, as
a means through which to get rid of one’s “linear or theological image
of time”. The film’s manifold irrational cuts between scenes, he writes,
“can work upon your subliminal experience of time” (Connolly, 2002,
p. 168). Connolly even proposes reviewing these issues before going to
sleep, referring to brain research on the importance of REM sleep in
consolidating new experiences. Does Connolly’s message not resemble
those of glossy magazines, in this sense: train your brain, outsmart your
brain or, even, enjoy your brain? Connolly’s point is that, although your
brain/body does the thinking, the knowing and the feeling—not to men-
tion the fact that, as he moves from neurology to neuropolitics, the brain
does the voting—it can be guided and trained. This is the paradox of
pitting the brain against nature, or even for that matter, the brain against
the brain; of course, this cannot but evoke once again the figure of Baron
Von Munchausen, he who famously claimed to have saved himself from
drowning by pulling himself out of a swamp by his own hair.
Adrian Johnston rightly calls this “contemplative materialism”, in ref-
erence to Marx’s theses on Feuerbach (which rehearse Hegel’s critique
of Spinoza that the latter cannot account for his own position whence
his metaphysics is constructed and articulated).3 According to Johnston,
Connolly fails to explain “how and why substance becomes subject”
(Johnston, 2012, p. 172). However, rather than opposing this with an
alternative genealogy of matter and subjectivity (which is Johnston’s
wager with which we critically engaged in Chap. 3) we need to unpack
3
David Pavón Cuéllar perspicaciously remarks that, perhaps more than Hegel’s critique of Spinoza
(this is questionable and has already been discussed by Althusser and others), Marx’s questioning of
the contemplative materialism of Feuerbach goes back to August Cieszkowski. Moreover, this dis-
cussion returned in the interesting debate within Marxism between those who endorsed Lenin’s
theory of reflection (see Materialism and empirio-criticism and its giving centrality to the brain as a
producer of a reflection of reality) and trends within Western Marxism (Korsch, Pannekoek, etc.)
which criticize this as ‘contemplative Leninist materialism’ (David Pavón Cuéllar, personal
communication).
Connolly’s contemplative materialism further. The first thing to notice

is that where Connolly distances himself from the Kantian and post-
Kantian framework—as he wants to move authority and morality from
the transcendental sphere of universal reason to the immanent sphere of
sensibility—he fails to see that this repressed transcendentality returns at
two critical places. First, we have the return of the Cartesian problematic
“I”: since who is the contemplative “I” who, observing how its brain/body
does all these things, attempts to steer and influence it? One could mini-
mise this objection by arguing that this agency is only immanent, aris-
ing from “interacting layers of biocultural complexity” (Connolly, 2002,
p. 60); however, that does not take away the fact that Connolly’s mic-
ropolitics still puts in charge some kind of contemplative Ego transcend-
ing both material nature and culture. Simply put: for Connolly, “I” can
train my brain in order to make it vote left. Second, and more importantly,
it is precisely here where one can discern a transcendental positioning of
scientific knowledge. Fool your brain is not just about techniques; rather,
these are primordially embedded within a firm claim of scientificity. You
can influence your brain because brain scans have shown that …, neurologists
have found that .... The adoption of the techniques in the first place requires
a Bejahung (affirmation/acceptance) of the neuroscientific discourse and its
authority. You have to be a believer, you have to acknowledge the validity
of the scientific perspective. Ergo, besides the transcendental repositioning
of the subject, scientific knowledge, too, opens up to the transcendental, as
it is the ultimate horizon of the techniques of the self.
Here, Connolly’s neurological turn bears the traces of psychological/
psychologising discourse. As I argued elsewhere (De Vos, 2013), psychol-
ogy is psychologisation; it operates via the distribution and dissemina-
tion of psychological theory. And, as argued throughout this book, in the
neurological turn this operation is but repeated: we are called upon to
assess ourselves and the other via brain imagery and neurological theory.
This theoretical induction into the scientific discourse is clearly operative
in Connolly’s work. Consider again in this respect Connolly’s example of
someone trying to expel his “linear or theological image of time”: the person
is expected to trade his alleged pre-scientific naïve folk theorisations for
genuine, benchmark scientific theories of time (Connolly explicitly men-
tions Prigogine, Stengers and Stephen Gould, in this regard). Connolly
thus addresses the subject as a subject of the sciences; following Nietzsche,

he asserts:
To be noble, then, is to be your own experiment and guinea pig, even as

you realise—if you follow Nietzsche on this point too—that modesty in
method and objective is appropriate to the uncertain process of self-
experimentation. (Connolly, 2002, p. 163)
This resonates perfectly with psychologising self-help discourse: “With a

little experimentation,” Kathleen McGowan writes in Psychology Today,
“the ornery and bleak can reshape their temperaments and inject pluck
and passion into their lives” (McGowan, 2008). In both McGowan and
Connolly, the layperson is prompted to take the position of the experi-
mental (neuro)psychologist and to assume the objective and neutral
position from which he or she can assess and manipulate him or herself
in order to make profit from this constellation.
Through this idea that the techniques of the brain can deliver a surplus,
it becomes relatively clear that today’s neuro/psycho-politics and neuro/
psycho-economy is not concerned in the first instance, as Hardt and
Negri (2000) would have it, with the direct production of subjectivity
and social relations, but instead pertains to positioning the subject in the
external contemplative position from whence to gaze upon the spectacle
of subjectivities and social relations. It is only there that a surplus value is
produced, one which can be extracted and skimmed off by the political
and economic powers that be. To illustrate this point, it is useful to refer
to the film The Matrix: what is harvested from the humans (locked in
their water-filled cradles and connected to a virtual life-world through a
supercomputer) is not the subjective and social stances their avatars adopt
but, rather, the extra bodily warmth that the human beings thus produce.
Or, to cite another example: what you actually post on Facebook does
not really matter; neither does the fact that the way you give form to
your Facebook avatar and its virtual social relations are strictly limited
and preformatted. Ultimately, what is important is that the very position
from where you engage with your virtual self, virtual others and the
virtual world is owned by a private company: this is where the actual
surplus value is cashed in. Consequently, it is neither your emotions nor
the subjective content which are the commodities, it is you yourself, the
naked, outstripped subject.
It is in this respect that my evocation of the movie The Matrix is not
entirely appropriate after all, as this would suggest that, ultimately, “the
naked, outstripped subject” would concern in the first place the body and
the bodily; such a position would lead us straight back to Connolly’s mic-
ropolitics and the cerebral affective realm. It is my contention, here, that
instead of opening up possibilities for a subject to work deliberately and
in an emancipatory way on its brain, Connolly’s neuropolitics locks the
human inside its interpassive brain, without engendering the requisite
space to breathe or corresponding experience of freedom, as it would have
in Žižek’s conceptualisation of interpassivity, for instance. Connolly’s
surplus subject, born out of neuro-interpellation, is thus colonised and
exploited from the very beginning. Given today’s hegemonic neuro/
psycho-politics, I claim that any attempt to ground an emancipatory
political project in the bodily and affective plane is bound to lead to only
further depoliticisation. Massumi’s turn to affect, I will argue in the next
section, is no exception to this.
Massumi’s Turn to Affect and Away

from Politics
Brian Massumi’s theorisation of affect hinges upon the distinction
between affect and emotion. Affect is considered to be the pre-discursive
and unconscious event of the body being affected by something extra
or intra-bodily. As an intensity, affect can eventually lead to an emo-
tion when the intensity is subsequently elaborated in a discursive and
conscious fashion.4 I would argue that much of the purchase of the
turn to affect within academia stems from the presupposition that neu-
roscience, and this is the alleged break-through, is uniquely capable of
objectifying the “pre-personal” affect to which the subject itself alleg-
edly has no access. This, ultimately, is also Libet’s position and, in turn,
Connolly’s and Massumi’s also: the notion of affect that philosophers
4
For both an overview of the turn to affect and a thorough critique, see Ruth Leys (2011).
such as Spinoza, Bergson, William James and, more recently, Deleuze

and Guattari, theorised about is no longer a mere philosophical category
perpetually in danger of being understood along psychologising lines, it
is now ostensibly a verifiable neurobiological fact.
This concern about getting caught in the undertow of psychology is
readily discernible in Massumi’s distinction between affect and emotion:
In the absence of an asignifying philosophy of affect it is all too easy for

received psychological categories to slip back in, undoing the considerable
deconstructive work that has been effectively carried out by poststructuralism.
Affect is most often used loosely as a synonym for emotion. But … emotion
and affect … follow different logics and pertain to different orders.
(Massumi, 2002, p. 27)
However, if at first glance it appears that Massumi, by virtue of consid-

ering a separate realm of emotions, is conceding too much ground to
psychology, upon closer examination one is tempted to ask whether he
does not, in fact, depict a subject both divorced from its neurobiological
affects and its psychological emotions?
To treat the emotion as separable in this way from the activation-event

from which it affectively sprang is to place it on the level of representation.
It is to treat it, fundamentally and from the start, as a subjective content:
basically, an idea. Reduced to the mere idea of itself, it becomes reasonable
to suppose that a private subject, in representing it to itself, could hold it
and the aleatory outside of its arising as well as the body in live-wire
connection with that outside, at a rational, manageable distance. It makes
it seem comfortably controllable. (Massumi, 2005, p. 39)
How are we to understand this private subject, situated at a ratio-

nal distance from both affect and emotion, as anything other than the
Cartesian subject? However, Massumi is not inclined to give this sub-
ject much space, instead falling back on William James to contest that
feelings or emotions are independent from their bodily affectedness.
However, does not Massumi still let the genie out of the bottle somewhat,
by positing a subject at a distance, one capable of managing its affects
and emotions and being “comfortably” in control? At the very least,
Massumi’s private subject seems to lead us to a surplus subject that can

be interpellated to share its emotions and thus, as argued earlier, become
today’s central commodity. Consider, in this respect, the invitations of
Oprah Winfrey, Dr Phil and others: why don’t you share your emotions
with us? Here, the emotions reveal themselves as that which they really
are: empty, commonplace and exchangeable generalities. Hence, again,
what is harvested is not these empty psychological emotions; rather, it is
the aesthetisation, the spectacle of the emotions, in which the subject is
outside of both affects and emotions: this is what can be said to constitute
the surplus of the operation.
With Connolly, this celebrative aesthetisation and its surplus subject is
especially poignant. Consider the many passages in his writings that serve
as a eulogy on the beautiful brain. Drawing upon Nietzsche’s “abundance
of being” Connolly, for example, speaks of “an experience of overflowing,
joined to a love of the world in which we participate. It is the experience
of vitality” (Connolly, 2005a, p. 244). For Connolly, arts of the self and
micropolitics should be informed by this “visceral gratitude for the abun-
dance of being” (Connolly, 2002, p. 113). For instance, as aforemen-
tioned, offering up the movie Stranger than Paradise as a strategy through
which to overcome one’s linear conception of time, Connolly asserts
how this can serve as a lesson “on how to simulate moods and emotions,
adding another layer of complexity to the endless game of expression,
pretence, and interpretation” (Connolly, 2002, p. 167):
After several such bouts of synthesis or “processing,” you may move closer
to the double experience of time initially projected intellectually. It finds
expression in the occasions and tone of your laughter, and in a readiness to
draw upon an ethical reserve of generosity exceeding the dictates of your
official doctrine when you encounter new twists and turns in time.
(Connolly, 2002, p. 168)
Are we not wholly justified in considering this to be a full-blown form

of depoliticised orientalism and exoticism, which refuses a historical,
economic-political analysis or critique? The techniques of micropoli-
tics, such as watching movies, are supposed to lead to a new, reborn and
beautiful you, who lives and feels more truly and intensely. Is this not
the logical outcome of a rejection of any transcendentalism: as it puts

forward a second-order meta-knowledge which, ultimately, harbours the
obfuscated transcendental Ego with its inevitable narcissistic jouissance
of its self-contemplation? It is this surplus, I claim, which in contempo-
rary neuropsycho-political economy is appropriated within the logic of
Oprah Winfrey and co: why don’t you share your emotions with us? It is this
logic which, ultimately, is overlooked by both Massumi and Connolly in
their assessment of the political use and abuse of affects, and in relation
to their cause to redirect this for good leftist causes.
One should consider, here, Massumi’s analysis of how in the wake of
the events of 9/11 the US government installed a colour coded terror alert
system to manage the affective and emotive responses of the population.
For Massumi, the system was designed to modulate fear as it was able to
plug into “each individual’s nervous system”:
Government gained signal access to the nervous systems and somatic

expressions of the populace in a way that allowed it to bypass the discursive
mediations on which it traditionally depended and to regularly produce
effects with a directness never before seen. (Massumi, 2005, p. 34)
Hence, factoring to Massumi politics is able to move beyond mediation,

beyond the discursive and the subjective. The biology of the nervous sys-
tem (the non-rational, non-discursive) can ostensibly be “jacked into” by
an equally non-rational, non-discursive mode of manipulative politics:
The alerts presented no form, ideological or ideational and, remaining

vague as to the source, nature, and location of the threat, bore precious
little content. They were signals without signification. All they distinctly
offered was an “activation contour”: a variation in intensity of feeling over
time. They addressed not subjects’ cognition, but rather bodies’ irritability.
Perceptual cues were being used to activate direct bodily responsiveness
rather than reproduce a form or transmit definite content. (Massumi,
2005, p. 32)
However, straight away one must take issue with Massumi’s suggestion
that the use of colours is a non-discursive issue, unless Massumi is sug-
gesting that the colour red, for example, has a purely biological weight
which enables power to directly target the bodies of its citizens? In con-
trast, one could point to the “red alert” imagery as being a central trope of
Hollywood iconography, especially within adventure and disaster mov-
ies. Henceforth, even if one persists in claiming that alert colours are
universal and biologically determined prior to entering popular culture,
one must admit that the US government alert system, quite deliberately,
is tapping first and foremost into these omnipresent popular imaginaries
of American citizens. Consequently, rather than being a merely “body-
aimed dispositional trigger mechanism”, the alert system, I would con-
tend, is a highly mediated discursive dispositive. Hence, when Massumi
speaks of signals without signification, he is only describing the function
of the signifier, which, as such, has no signification but, rather, produces
signification in a discourse. The colour-coded terror alert system, thus,
cannot be said to function beyond mediation.
Interestingly, Massumi himself is not far from making a similar
argument when he points to the television as a central medium in the
implementation of the alert system. This is a telling observation as such,
because it seems that when it matters most, that is, when disasters or
other high impact events affect the whole nation, the government has to
reinstall a public and fully shared space which, in contrast to the dispersed
new media and internet channels, has the potential to truly address the
public nationwide. Is Massumi thus not conceding that mediation and
representation are in fact in play, seemingly contradicting his earlier claim
that the system addresses “the population immediately, at a presubjec-
tive level: at the level of bodily predisposition or tendency” (Massumi,
2005, p. 33)? Does granting an unmediatedness to how power func-
tions not run the risk of buying into the very discourse propagated by
contemporary power itself that it is somehow beyond ideology, beyond
discourse, beyond politics, and instead only interested in doing neutral,
scientific good for everyone? Hence, in order to counter this overtly
ideological move of bringing into being a realm of the pre-discursive,
our response should be that the ostensibly pre-personal5 is also political!
For, in the end, both Massumi’s and Connolly’s theorisations seem to be
wholly in line with the depoliticisation forces active within contemporary
5
As Eric Shouse (2005) puts it: “Affect is not a personal feeling”.
neo-liberalism. Indeed, for Massumi, contemporary power is wholly

capable of operating outside of ideology:
Addressing bodies from the dispositional angle of their affectivity, instead of

addressing subjects from the positional angle of their ideations, shunts gov-
ernment function away from the mediations of adherence or belief and
toward direct activation. What else is a state of alert? (Massumi, 2005, p. 34)
Is Massumi not providing the quintessential rationale in this passage for

contemporary politics without politics (see for the latter Dean, 2009)?
Or, in Marxist parlance, we could say that, by understanding the brain
and the body as a pre-political and pre-ideological reality, Massumi is
attempting to conceive of a reality beyond class struggle. Therefore, while
one could argue that the fundamental Marxist insight is that class strug-
gle is the basic antagonism running through society and reality as such,6
by refusing this stance and claiming the autonomy of affect and the bodily
(not to mention conceptualising this as a sphere that contemporary
right-wing politics successfully addresses), authors such as Massumi and
Connolly cannot but conclude that any political move which wants to
oppose this alleged direct and unmediated exploitation of the body and
affect, must pursue the same strategies and tactics.7 Massumi writes:
6
Of course, one could point here to certain strands within anarchist traditions or within Marxism
itself, which reject any political mediation and instead put forward direct or spontaneous action as
a means of class struggle (I owe this remark to David Pavón Cuéllar). But one could argue, insofar
as they conceive of a terrain or a reality, as I claim Massumi does, outside of class struggle itself, they
actually undermine and leave behind class struggle. One could opt for a more Lacanian position
here, and stress that there is nothing outside of ideology and politics precisely as these are non-All.
That is, it is not that there is something that escapes ideology or is outside of it, rather, it is
the totality of ideology itself that defies itself. Or, phrased otherwise, the holes in ideology are in the
end ideological, and, one could argue, one of the central names for this hole is class struggle,
the basic antagonism running through society.
7
Massumi equally overlooks that what he conceives of in terms of affective pre-subjectivity cannot
but be ridden by subjectivity itself. From here, Massumi’s main problem is similar to Connolly’s
that I mentioned earlier: how to explain how something like (the illusion of ) subjectivity arises out
of the pre-subjective. This is why, Massumi, as well as others such as Metzinger and Dennett, in
their attempt to formulate an alternative for the Cartesian subject, eventually fall back unwittingly
on a psychologising perspective on subjectivity (see for a critique of Metzinger (De Vos, 2015) and
a critique of Dennett (De Vos, 2009)). Consider, for example, the way in which Massumi under-
stands how the subjective arises out of the pre-subjective in terms of the affect of fear:
“Confusingly, it is likely that it can only be fought on the same affective,

ontogenetic ground on which it itself operates” (Massumi, 2005, p. 47).
Whilst I admire Massumi’s honesty, his confusion, as I see it, stems
from the fact that if one believes in bodily politics, then one cannot
but conceive of emancipation in the same vein.8 The central issue that
Massumi and Connolly refrain from considering is the following: what
if the findings and theories of neuroscience, upon which their whole
theoretical and political edifice rests, is in itself, at its very base, political?
This to say, that I do not merely mean that neuroscience is necessarily
infused with political biases which colour its experiments and its theories;
rather, far more basically than this, my claim is that any neuroscientific
approach, just like any psychological approach for that matter, is, at its
very base, structured like an ideology. Hence, from the personal is political,
to the pre-personal is political, we must finally conclude that the brain is
political! The experiments of Libet are exemplary in this regard.
Libet’s Brain Is Political

To reiterate, Libet’s free will is stated in the negative: it can say “no” to
unconscious initiatives “bubbling up” in the brain, selecting “which of
these initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
What … happened is placed under retrospective review and mapped as an objective environ-
ment. The location of the threat is sought by following the line of flight in reverse. The cause
of the fright is scanned for among the objects in the environment. Directions of further
flight or objects that can serve for self-defense are inventoried. These perceptions and reflec-
tions are gathered up in recollection, where their intensity will ultimately fade. It is at this
point, in this second ingathering toward lowered intensity, in the stop-beat of action, that
the fear, and its situation, and the reality of that situation, become a content of experience.
(Massumi, 2005, p. 38)
The subject depicted here is the subject which could use a “much-needed humility” as Hibbing
(mentioned in the beginning of this chapter) put it: it is the cognitively proceeding subject of psy-
chology (of course, constructed in the image of the cognitive psychologist). A more radical posi-
tion, the one of psychoanalysis, would be to conceive of the subject as a fundamental negativity and
to think of the human being starting from a zero-level of subjectivity.
8
Consider, in this respect, the similar critique of Ruth Leys: “manipulations operating below the
level of ideology and consciousness can only be countered by manipulations of a similar kind”
(Leys, 2011, p. 461, n. 48).
abort” (Libet, 1999, p. 54). It would be remiss not to mention the fact
that Libet explicitly uses political terms, here: the conscious-will concerns
the veto-right of the subject. How are we to understand this insertion of
political imagery into basic neurological research? Is it to be interpreted
as a neurological claim reflecting, or even being in the service of, particu-
lar political and philosophical perspectives? Or, alternatively, do we have
to rethink the relation of the neurosciences to the political in a yet more
fundamental way still? One expedient way of approaching these ques-
tions is through a closer reading of Daniel C. Dennett’s critique of the
Libet experiments.
Dennett questions Libet’s conception of the becoming conscious of an
unconscious decision, the latter being supposedly situated earlier in the
timeline, by formulating a specific critique of Libet’s understanding of the
subjective experience of time. A key feature of Libet’s experiment is that
the test persons, who were asked to flex their wrist at any time they felt the
urge or wish to do so, had to report the time at which they became con-
scious of their intention to move their wrist. Dennett contends that Libet,
aware of the impossibility to experimentally “determine the absolute tim-
ing of a subjective experience” (as Libet himself wrote, cited in: Dennett,
1991, p. 161) takes recourse to the self-report of the subject itself (who
has to remember the position of the hand on the precision clock at the
moment of becoming conscious). This is problematic for Dennett, as it
adds an artificial punctuation which is not operative in normal circum-
stances. Libet fails to account for the fact that “there is no such moment
of absolute time” (Dennett, 1991, p. 161); as such, the moment of inter-
pretation typical to Libet’s experiments is an artefact of the experimental
situation actually changing the task (Dennett, 1991, p. 165). Dennett
proceeds to argue that Libet finds a gap between the “readiness potential”
and becoming conscious only insofar as he conceives of consciousness as
some central agency in the brain which, as if in a control room, watches
a screen projecting all incoming sensorial data (Dennett, 1991, p. 165).
And indeed, one could argue that Libet, through prompting his test sub-
jects to become aware of their decision, actually enforces and stages this
unified agency of consciousness noting events on a timeline.
But what does Dennett present as an alternative? Denouncing the so-
called Cartesian theatre, which he sees at work in Libet, he proposes his
“multiple drafts model”, postulating the self-organising functioning of the

network. Neural processing occurs in different places in the brain; there
is no need for a central audience/agent (Dennett, 1991, p. 165). Dennett
calls consciousness a competition in fame: whereby various impulses and
narratives compete to get the upper hand.9 However, does Dennett’s imag-
ery of “fame in the brain” and “cerebral celebrity” (Dennett, 2001, p. 225)
not take us right back to where we started? For the simple reason that fame
and celebrity still presuppose a screen and an audience, it would appear
that Dennett is in danger of being overtaken by his own metaphors (De
Vos, 2009). So, if Žižek criticises Dennett’s multiple drafts model on the
basis that Dennett fails to account for the very form of narrative itself,10
then perhaps one could contend that the basic obscured narrative for
Dennett is the scientific one. For, in the end, his endeavour is to supplant
the subject’s mistaken “folk psychology” with a scientific narrative of com-
peting impulses and narratives. This is why Dennett’s attack on the folk
psychological Cartesian theatre misses the mark and, in actual fact, does
nothing other than confirm it: consider the fact that one can find two kind
of images depicting the Cartesian theatre: one showing a man seated in
his lazy chair watching a giant screen and the other showing one or more
scientists in a control room analysing and computing incoming data.11 In
the end, the Cartesian theatre which Dennett attempts to deconstruct, is
nothing but the depiction of scientific discourse (and the scientific sub-
ject) itself in engagement with what it supposes to be the real, outer world.
As it stands, then, we are confronted with two competing images: on
the one hand, the political image of Libet’s veto-right and, on the other,
Dennett’s somewhat more mundane image of fame and celebrity, evoking,
in the final instance, the neutral and apolitical sovereignty of academia
9
Dennett writes: “Instead of switching media or going somewhere in order to become conscious,
heretofore unconscious contents, staying right where they are, can achieve something rather like
fame in competition with other fame-seeking (or just potentially fame-finding) contents. And,
according to this view, that is what consciousness is” (Dennett, 2001, p. 224).
10
Žižek writes: “the problem that Dennett does not resolve is that of the very form of narrative—
where does the subject’s capacity to organize its contingent experience into the form of narrative (or
to recognize in a series of events the form of narrative) come from?” (Žižek, 1998, p. 255).
11
See for an example of the first version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_theater#/media/
File:Cartesian_Theater.svg and for an example of the second version: https://reasonandsciencesociety.
files.wordpress.com/2012/10/cartesian-theatre.jpg
in general and cognitive psychology in particular.12 Faced with a choice

between these images, I will have to take recourse to my silent partner. That
is, like both Libet and Dennett, I too have to add something to the equa-
tion which could help elucidate these choices. If Libet’s neuroscientific
experiments are raven through by hidden and repressed images stemming
from a political imagery, and in Dennett’s work the hidden theme is both
the spectacle and cognitive psychology, I expressly turn to psychoanalysis.
This is, of course, a partisan choice on my part, but not an unreasoned
one. To critique processes of psycho-neurologisation and their political
ramifications, I argue, one needs a theory of the psyche. And it is here, for
genealogical and historical reasons, that psychoanalysis enters the picture.
My contention is that, if modernity and the objectifications of modern sci-
ences spawned a problematic subjectivity for which psychology attempted
to be the stop-gap, psychoanalysis was the first theory and praxis of the very
failure of this attempt (De Vos, 2012, 2013). The consequent Freudian
thematisation of modern subjectivity as centred on the fundamental abyss
of the unconscious had a decisive impact: it inaugurated a new discourse
and praxis and, in turn, became an inevitable landmark and referential
framework for culture, science, politics and, above all, modern subjectivity
itself. Psychoanalysis, therefore, can be called incontournable. Just consider
how, post-Freud, the psy-sciences are always in one way or another tribu-
tary to psychoanalysis: every form of psychology functions as a reinterpre-
tation, an amendment, a denial, a rebuttal, etc., of psychoanalysis.
From here, beginning with psychoanalysis’s conception of the subject
as fundamentally antagonistic and split, I concur with Dennett that
psychic processes are dispersed with no central agency notating their
clock time, whilst also endorsing his critique that it is impossible to
determine the absolute timing of a subjective experience. If Freud argues
that the unconscious knows no time (Freud, [1915] 1957), one way in
which this might be understood is that the subject is precisely divided
over time. Becoming conscious of something in this way, then, can
never be a moment on a timeline; temporal properties are always, rather,
12
To be more precise, Dennett actually starts with political imagery, denouncing Libet and other
authors as having a “Stalin-esque” or an “Orwellian” conception of how the brain functions; but
then trades this Cartesian and political imagery for celebrity and fame metaphors.
discursive reconstructions, necessitating the temporal deployment of that

discourse. Of course, with the latter we are already moving away from
Dennett’s explanation of the consciousness. Because, from a psychoan-
alytic perspective, the temporal discursive reconstructions are not just
secondary but primordial; as a speak-being the subject articulates itself
over time, constituting itself via the intricate timelines of an utterance.
And is this not precisely what Libet’s experiments actually enforce upon
the phenomenological experience? What Dennett misses is that his syn-
chronicity of mental processes always already presupposes a diachronic
logic. Arguing for timelessness in the brain, therefore, cannot but conjure
the arrow of time deploying itself within the structure of discourse. This
is not only why Dennett fails to move away from the representational and
discursive imagery of the screen and the audience, but also why Libet’s
instruction to note the time of awareness is not as artificial as Dennett
suggests: what it testifies to is how subjectivity comes into being within
discursive structures such as society, culture and politics; that is, in rela-
tion to the (O)ther. For that very reason, Libet’s question has an analo-
gous structure to the Anrufung in Althusser’s corpus: the interpellation
on behalf of the ideological apparatus engenders a subject. Libet’s ques-
tion thus opens up a space for the subject to articulate itself over time; it
clears a path for some kind of consciousness and some kind of free will.
It should be noted that Libet’s free will is not conceived as something
monolithic and unified but, rather, as essentially paradoxical and divided,
to be understood along the lines of interpassivity, but an interpassivity
that does not close down particular avenues: the fact that the brain takes
decisions outside of the subject’s knowing does open up a minimal space
for freedom, the freedom of the veto and its paradoxical time-knot.
Moreover, one could argue that Libet’s creative and fecund operation
is exactly the interpellation that the Enlightenment and the advent of the
modern sciences brought us. The objectivations of modern science posed
the interpellative question: what is it to be a subject when science can
objectify the world almost without a remainder? Libet’s instruction to
note the time of awareness thus engages a subject, who constructs itself by
focusing one eye on the clock (an instrument of modern objectifying tech-
nology) and the other on its alleged self (as an objectified interiority and
materiality). Libet, as it were, installs the gap between the unconscious
and the conscious, between the unconscious preparation of an act and

the discursively mediated becoming aware of the intention. Of course,
Libet’s understanding of a non-conscious or pre-conscious realm is still
far removed from the Freudian unconscious, but one could argue that,
albeit from an admittedly partisan reading, his experiments stage in a min-
imal form a divided subject. That is, the construction of his experiments
allows for the enactment of the subject of the Freudian Spaltung, where
the psyche is the place of inner conflict and a true unity is always lacking.
By the same token, this construction sets a scene, and this is none other
than the modern public sphere, where, in the Kantian sense, tradition and
sovereignty are suspended and where the subject of the sciences is called
upon to engage itself—in the paradoxical double bind of interactivity and
interpassivity—to act upon its being divided as a subject. Libet’s “subject
of the veto” who takes its ethical stances and positions should, therefore,
be understood as the cultural, social and eventually political subject per-
forming its own punctuation. Consciousness and free will, approving or
vetoing unconscious initiatives “bubbling up” in the brain, are ultimately
to be understood as political concepts. Or, put differently: whereas
Dennett side-tracks us with his recourse to the ersatz public sphere of
fame and celebrity, Libet testifies to how the political imagery necessar-
ily enters the domain of subjectivity. Libet’s subject is the subject of the
act, acting in the urgency of the matter. The conscious veto is, for Libet,
a “control function”, implying “the imposing of a change” (Libet, 1996,
pp. 94–95). This concerns not a psychologised self-managerial control,
in which the interpassive scheme closes in on itself, but a political form
of control: Libet’s subject of the veto concerns a political subject.13 What
authors such as Connolly and Massumi thus overlook, in their respec-
tive attempts to use Libet’s experiments in a (theoretical) political way,
is that such experiments are always already to be understood politically.
13
The role of conscious free will, for Libet, is limited to the act of saying no; it cannot initiate a
voluntary act (Libet, 1999). In politics too, the veto-right is not a positive right and serves only as
a way of blocking actions or decisions of others in order to safeguard one’s interests. But perhaps a
more interesting reference to politics would be to refer to Jacques Rancière’s conception of politics
(Rancière, 1998). The no of the veto would then in the first place indicate the true political
moment, where a “non-part of society” (those who have no place in society) denounces the main-
stream general consensus; through this “no” (e.g., “not in my name”) a particular (non)part of
society can claim universality.
Conclusions
To conclude this chapter and this book, let me refer to Nikolas Rose, who,
after criticising those who seek in biology that what supports their “pre-
given philosophical ethopolitics”, values the more cautious social scien-
tists and their “modest sociological endeavours” (Rose, 2013, p. 12). But,
is this what we should envision to counter the neuro-hubris? Rose wants
us to work together with the life sciences for the “welfare” of “the human
animals” (Rose, 2013, p. 20), whilst in a slightly more political tone urg-
ing the human sciences “to engage with the sciences and play our part in
addressing the local, national and global inequities that devastate the vital
lives of so many of our fellow biological citizens” (Rose, 2013, p. 23). But
how are we to read the latter designation? Are we fellow citizens because
we share a common biology and vitality? If so, is this apolitical bond not
that which, ultimately, puts Rose in the company of those for whom
there is only “one ring to rule them all”? That is to say, one could argue
that Rose, by speaking of “biological citizens”, is looking for a vitalist,
ontological foundation for the eventual groundlessness of politics, and in
so doing finds himself in bed with, among others, Connolly, Massumi,
Johnston and Malabou who, whilst firmly rejecting any mechanical or
reductive materialism, invariably at a certain point ground their respec-
tive proposals for emancipatory politics in biology. Even if all of these
authors claim an interwovenness of the biological with the subjective and
the socio-cultural—up to and including a fundamental indistinguish-
ability between those levels—they invariably make the argument for this
interrelatedness from the side of biology as opposed to, say, the side of
the subjective, the social, or the political. Biology, thus, is silently presup-
posed to be able to deliver basic, culture-free, ideologically free factual
knowledge on life as it is. It is only from here that the “layeredness” (as
Connolly calls its) of the biological with culture is argued for.
It is in a similar vein that the following statement from Rose, although
constituting a nuanced plea for a positive relation with the life sciences,
is also nevertheless problematic:
On the one hand, this requires us to subject the tendentious and exaggerated
claims of enthusiasts, popularizers and their media representations to
critical evaluation, and to argue for a sober evaluation of the current state
of the life sciences, recognizing the limits of their explanatory capacities
and the many weaknesses in their translational achievements. On the other,
we must move beyond description, commentary and critique, beyond the
study of downstream ‘implications’ of biology and biomedicine, to develop
an affirmative relation to the new ways of understanding the dynamic rela-
tions between the vital and its milieu—the vital in its milieu—the vital
milieu—that are taking shape. (Rose, 2013, p. 23)
It is my contention that Rose’s granting of certain limits to the life sci-

ences is still far removed from the conclusion, which I think has to be
drawn from Libet’s experiments: that is, far from the life sciences reaching
its limit at a certain point, they rely from the outset on extra-scientific
punctuations in order to structure their experimental set-ups and results.
The translations and their eventual weaknesses hence form an essential
part of the structure of the life sciences and especially of the neurosci-
ences. Consequently, it is not a question of secondary uses and abuses of
an as such limited science, rather, the uses and abuses come in prior to
that. That is, Libet cannot but lean on extra-scientific political imagery to
set up his experiment on consciousness and free will, and Dennett cannot
but formulate a critique of this without setting out from an equally
political vision of the brain. As Eric Vogt shows, Dennett clearly opts
for a vision of the brain in which a representative and centralised democ-
racy is rejected in favour of a decentralised “multiple drafts” democracy
(which Dennett considers the more natural version of democracy, as it
allegedly corresponds with our cerebral make-up) (Vogt, 2010).
This is why what Rose denounces as “tendentious and exaggerated
claims of enthusiasts, popularizers and their media representations” are,
firstly, not mere unlucky side-effects but, rather, lay bare a structural and
basic impossibility running through the life sciences themselves. Secondly,
these symptoms of the neuroturn within the social and the human sciences
testify to how the latter are themselves far from a closed and unproblem-
atic field which could unproblematically engage in a wise and detached
“sober evaluation”. Hence, in contradistinction to Rose’s subsequent soft-
political, if not pastoral call, for a critical friendship in order to “help
remake our human world for the better” (Rose, 2013, p. 24), we must opt
for an altogether more firm and openly articulated political choice!
In this respect, starting from our partisan reading of Libet’s experi-

ments and our understanding of subjectivity as a mere logical and formal
function of the possibility of issuing a veto, perhaps the first political
challenge would be to defend this negatively defined and, as such, empty
subject. From here, we should reject any perspective that not only fills
the human being full to the brim with all kinds of psychological fillings
(such as cognitions, affects, emotions, etc.), but also that which in the
same movement would fill the social space with all kinds of allegedly
neutral and scientific conceptions of what society is or should be. In other
words, the urgent political task today centres on the dual task of defend-
ing the empty subject and reopening the public domain in order to make
room for empty spaces. Indeed, public spaces are overstuffed with traf-
fic obstacles, signs and all kinds of other cues, nudging and steering us,
so that we do not have to think, make decisions, be polite or ethical
ourselves. Moreover, this kind of interpassivity which has perhaps reached
its heights, might itself be a mere transitory phase. For, eventually, if the
reader will permit me engaging in a little bit of science fiction here, when
the guide in the aforementioned botanical garden will be technically able
to connect directly into the visual cortex and the auditory centre of the
brain of those Japanese tourists, no escape will be possible anymore, as
they will be forced to fully coincide with their brain. Would this not
constitute the final disappearance of the public sphere?
When in the latter half of the twentieth century both Hannah Arendt
(1989) and Richard Sennett (1974) bemoaned the loss of public space,
they pointed to the fact that while the human being was still playing a
role (and was supposed to), there was no longer any guarantee that there
would be no poking into what was behind the mask. The genealogy of
this argument can be understood as such: in bourgeois-society the public
space was where one played his or her public moral role, whereas behind
the mask there was the private realm, the psychological contours of which
were eventually charted (or perhaps we should say ‘constructed’) by
Freudian theory. Gradually with the rise of psychology and its attendant
discourses of power, individual’s private spheres were increasingly probed
into. Here, again, one should not miss that this very act of probing itself
can be considered as constitutive of that very private psychological sphere.
Processes of psychologisation in this way reveal that the private realm
never was an autonomous or sovereign terrain but, rather, was equally

as much of an ideological and political construction as the public space.
Or, to put it in more political-economic terms: the psy-sciences sketched
out the profile of the worker as an individual with his or her own psy-
chological make-up so as to exchange his or her labour time for money
within the public sphere of the market (see Parker, 2010). However, we
should not overlook the fact that this, simultaneously, also initiated a psy-
chologisation of the public sphere which only culminated in the closing
decades of the twentieth century, and which resulted in the paradox
of an ideologically and politically inspired de-ideologisation and de-
politicisation of the public. This double bind, of the private becoming
public (as the psy entered the private sphere of the family, for example)
and the obverse of the public becoming private (the why don’t you share
your emotions with us in both reality TV and educational settings) can
be said to only reach its full zenith in the changing of the guards and
the turn to neuro-discourse. With the advent of the Neuro, given
that the brain is situated behind the (imposed) mask of the human
being, the private as it were is fully turned inside out and made public:
through the spectacle of the brain we are all enjoined to show our brain
or to gaze at other brains laid bare in front of us. It is not simply that
we are no longer allowed to play a role anymore but, rather, that the
underlying rationale of our role is ostensibly now fully known and, as
such, should be completely out in the open. Moreover, as argued in this
chapter, because we are summoned to bring our brain-based affects and
emotions with us into the market, the surplus value is only fully realised
in the repositioning of the subject into the academic expert position
from where they can steer and manage their own affects and emotions.
So, contra Rose, who puts forward an altogether, at least in my estima-
tion, apolitical, optimistic nihil nove sub sole argument that the neuroturn
“enables us to be governed in new ways … [a]nd … enables us to govern
ourselves differently” (Rose, 2006, p. 192)—yet another argument for the
resilient and ever transmutating human being as it were—I argue that we
should not underestimate the forceful aspect of neuro-interpellation and
neurologisation. Indeed, it is only in such a society where everybody is
acquainted with the wonderful and subconscious world of affect (and, in
turn, is aware of being influenced and steered on a subliminal level) that
issues such as “speed control bumps” are accepted and operate. Hence, if
Connolly wants the Left to similarly operate at this level whilst, simulta-
neously, explaining the underlying scientific knowledge, what he misses
is that this kind of knowledge is long since a kind of shared “gaie savoir”.
That is to say, the fact that commercials use subliminal messages to influ-
ence our consumption is regularly discussed in the news and magazines,
and is by and large greeted with both shock and fascination from the
public. Such a knowledge locks the subject up in a solitary, impotent and
passive position, whilst, at the same time, making possible neuropsycho-
politics and neuropsycho-economy.
It is precisely here and nowhere else that Connolly’s neuropolitics
takes recourse to its recurring interpellative “you may” refrain, where he
not so gently invites us to prime ourselves with the right sounds, films
and books (before we go to sleep, for example) in order to work on a
subliminal register on ourselves:
you may now note more sensitively than heretofore how the rhythm of
waves during a gentle day at the beach communicates with your mood and
thoughts at the end of the day. Or profit from the positive effect, recently
confirmed in neuroscience, of inaudible vibrations in organ music upon
your mood and disposition. (Connolly, 2002, p. 66)
However, what Connolly is not explicit about is whether he really is con-

sidering installing hidden speakers which transmit inaudible vibrations,
so as to enhance or diminish attachment to the world or the wider popu-
lation on the eve of a General Election, for example. One may remember
Hibbing pointing to research that allegedly proves that disgusting odours
increase expressed dislike of gay people14; perhaps Hibbing might want
us to consider scenting congress when gay marriage is on the roll to be
voted on. It is here, in his understanding of politics as something work-
ing below the level of ideology and consciousness, which, in turn, leads
to the conclusion that this should be countered by manipulations of a
similar kind, that Massumi admits confusion. Connolly, for his part, is
14
Most noteworthy, the research to which Hibbing refers is about people’s opinions on marriage or
sex between first grade cousins and not about gay people. The question could be what prompts
Hibbing to change this to the issue of gay people?
cognizant that he is entering “dangerous territory” here, but nonethe-

less argues that instead of the falsehood of a “no spin zone” progressive
forces should engage in a “reflexive spin” (Connolly, 2005b, para. 11),
one which “publicize[s] how such strategies work”, such as by pointing
people towards the relevant neurological studies, for example (Connolly,
2002, p. 62). Or, to put it in more quotidian language: we will manipu-
late you, but at least you’ll know how and why!
Hence, if the bourgeois individual and his morality was decon-
structed by psychoanalysis, and on its turn psychological man (of post-
Freudianism) was first deconstructed by poststructuralism and then by
neuroscience (the latter showing the mask behind the mask as it were),
then we should not stop here; now it is time to target the neuroturn,
which, as exemplified by Connolly, potentially brings about a danger-
ous anti-political concoction of naturalisation along with pragmatism.
The agent of deconstruction this time perhaps is none other than politics
itself. At the very least, our message should be absolutely clear on this
point: what we think of when we lay down our heads and go to sleep at
night is none of your business!
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Index
A automatic emotion recognition

Abi-Rached, Joelle M., 92 systems, 106
ADHD. See Attention Deficit and Autonomous Sensory Meridian
Hyperactivity Disorder Response (ASMR), 133–5
(ADHD) Ayers, Drew, 108
Agamben, Giorgio, 66
Aldworth, Susan, 110
Alford, Fred C., 217 B
Althusserian interpellation, 59, 96, Baudrillard, Jean, 101, 103, 180
97, 101 contemporary iconoclasm, 179
“andere Schauplatz,” 108, 110, 182 late-modern media concept, 117
anti-Freudian notion of “unconscious representation concept, 181n
affects,” 62 simulacrum concept, 116, 182
Arendt, Hannah, 195, 235 simulation concept, 182
ASMR. See Autonomous Sensory “bedrock dilemma’s” of
Meridian Response (ASMR) politics, 205
attainment targets, 27, 28 Being no one (2003)
Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity (Metzinger), 178
Disorder (ADHD), 14–15, Benjamin, Walter, 112, 186
28–9, 32 Bouasse, Henri, 191–2

Discontents, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50557-6
244 Index
brain goal of, 18

iconographic brain, 91–5 management and exploitation
and data-gaze, 111–15 of, 16
iconology of brain image, neuro-economy, 40
116–22 rationale of, 19
image as interpellation of unifying force of, 16
subjectivity, 95–101 political brain, 203–6
psychological portrait to Connolly’s neuropolitics and
disembodied brain image, its surplus subject, 215–21
105–10 Libet, Benjamin, 227–32
spectacle of brain and Massumi’s turn to affect and
virtuality, 101–5 away from politics, 221–7
in society of spectacle, role of, psyche, 211–15
169–73 ultimate trope of interpassivity,
fascination and bonding at side 206–11
of grave, 183–8 sexual brain, against
funny object, 173–6 neuro-plasticity
iconoclastic brain, 176–83 Malabou’s critique of
obscenities of brain fest, 194–7 psychoanalysis’ sexuality,
psycho-logics of brain festival, 142–8
188–93 plasticity, 135–7
material brain, 8, 55, 60–4, 73–7 psycho-transcendental subject
critical issue for, 77 of modernity, 138–42
Freudian psychoanalysis, 76 spectre of psychology, 148–53
materialism of, 79 transcendental, 153–6
and neurosciences, relation trope of, 129–35
between, 60 ultimate trope of interpassivity,
philosophy and, 70 206–11
and politics, 75 “brain awareness week,” 196
psychologised version of, 64 brain-discourse, 4
unique value of, 68 Brain Festival, 170, 172–3, 188,
metamorphoses of, 1–11 189, 193
neuroeducation, critique of, 14, Dutch, 186
16, 17, 17n3 obscenities of, 194–7
advocates of, 20 psycho-logics of, 188–93
burgeoning theories and praxes in Singapore, 171, 184
of, 30 brain imaging, 95–101
case of, 25 culture of
Index 245
iconographic brain and cognitive psychology, 29, 33–4

data-gaze, 111–15 colour-coded terror alert system, 225
image as interpellation of Connolly, William C., 206, 215
subjectivity, 95–101 neuropolitics and its surplus
psychological portrait to subject, 215–21
disembodied brain image, contemporary neuro-psy-sciences, 36
105–10 contemporary neurosciences, 44
spectacle of brain and culture of brain imaging, 91–5
virtuality, 101–5 iconographic brain and data-gaze,
iconology of, 116–22 111–15
brain-in-a-vat issue, 8 image as interpellation of
brain in society of spectacle, role of, subjectivity, 95–101
169–73 psychological portrait to
fascination and bonding at side of disembodied brain image,
grave, 183–8 105–10
funny object, 173–6 spectacle of brain and virtuality,
iconoclastic brain, 176–83 101–5
obscenities of brain fest, 194–7 cyborg visuality, 115
psycho-logics of brain festival,
188–93
Bricken, William, 59 D
Bruer, John, 22 Damasio, Antonio, 37–8, 147
Buck-Morss, Susan, 111, 112, David, Andrew J., 34
112n19 Debord, Guy, 177
decentred materialism, 77–82
De Kesel, Marc, 102, 103
C Demarest, Boris, 17n6, 141n
“capitalisation” for libidinal Dennett, Daniel C., 178
economy, 132 Derrida, Jacques, 102
Carter, Rita, 92 destructive plasticity, 142, 148
Cartesian spectre, 44 developmental psychology, 34
catechesis, 26–7 Diagnostic Statistical Manual
cerebral iconography, 112 (DSM), 15
Christianisation of Roman digital brain image, 107
iconography, 122 DNA portrait, 108
Christian-Platonic iconography, 112 DSM. See Diagnostic Statistical
Churchland, Patricia, 97, 104 Manual (DSM)
Chute, Douglas, 42 Dumit, Joseph, 96
246 Index
E H
Ecclestone, Kathryn, 27–8 Hardie, Philip, 43, 104n, 117, 169
educated brain. See neuroeducation HBP. See Human Brain project
emancipation process, 211 (HBP)
“essential humanism,” 141n Hegelian dialectics, 62
evidence-based clinical psychology, Hegelian forms of plasticity, 142
130 Hegelian philosophy, 61
“exphrasis,” Greek concept, 102 hegemonic paradigm in psychology,
“extimacy,” Lacan concept, 65 214
Hibbing, John R., 204
Hieronymus Bosch style, 62–3
F Howard-Jones, Paul, 34
Felman, Shoshana, 145 Hruby, George G., 45
Flemish brain project for young Human Brain project (HBP), 99,
adults, 174–5, 188–9 100
folk psychological gaze, 115 human sciences, 68
folk psychology, 56, 79
Fordist production economy, 27
Foucaultian–Agambian terms, 76 I
Foucault, Michel, 136 iconoclasm, 178–82
approaches, 70 iconoclastic brain, spectacle of,
concept of biopolitics, 73n 176–83
Freudian concept of Spaltung, 74 iconographic brain, 91–5
Freudian non-concepts, 74–5 and data-gaze, 111–15
Freudian psychoanalysis, 34, 76 iconology of brain
Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalysis, 60, image, 116–22
145 image as interpellation of
Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalytic subjectivity, 95–101
meta-psychology, 61 psychological portrait to
Freudo-Marxism, 209–10 disembodied brain image,
Freud, Sigmund, 183 105–10
Freud’s theory, 76, 235 spectacle of brain and virtuality,
101–5
iconology of brain image, 116–22
G Immordino-Yang, Mary H., 37
generalised neuro-education, 16 interactivity concept, 206, 211, 213
“Google Image Search,” 121–2 interpellative process, 97
Index 247
J plasticity, 135–7
Johnston, Adrian, 60–2, 68, 75 psychoanalysis’ sexuality,
Jonckheere, Lieven, 161 142–8
Massumi, Brian, 85
affect and away from politics,
K 221–7
Kantian perspective, 18 McGowan, Kathleen, 220
Kant, Immanuel, 17, 100 medial prefrontal cortex
Kizuk, Sarah, 157 (MPFC), 34
Kurzweil, Ray, 7 Meeting of Minds for Youth
(MOM4Y), 199
mereological fallacy, 44
L Metzinger, Thomas, 137, 184n11
Lacanian concept, 190 micropolitics, 217
The Lacanian Left (Stavrakakis), 210 techniques of, 223
Lacanian neologism, 65 Milgram, Stanley, 21
Lacanian perspective curation, 61 Miller, Jacques-Alain, 102
Lacan, Jacques, 110, 190–2 mirror neurons, 208
double-mirror device, 192 mirror stage concept (Lacan), 190–1,
Lakoff, George, 210 194
Langelier, Carol, 32 Mitchell, William J.T., 116, 120
Lasch, Christopher, 74 mode of interpassivity, 208
Leftist rational analysis, 210 MOM4Y. See Meeting of Minds for
Libet, Benjamin, 206, 216 Youth (MOM4Y)
Logan, Marie-Rose, 162 Monroe, Marilyn, 93
Mood Management Skills
programme, 32
M MPFC. See medial prefrontal cortex
Malabou, Cathérine, 75, 135–6 (MPFC)
contemporary neurobiology, 132 mutatis mutandis, 75
elevation of brain theory, 76
Freudian notion of sexuality,
130–1 N
function of humanities, 153 Narvaez, Darcia, 40–1
metamorphosis concept, 131 neural plasticity, 137, 141, 154
meta-transcendental perspective, neuro-colonisation, 23
156 neuro-discourses, 15
248 Index
neuroeducation, 14, 16, 17, 17n3 P

advocates of, 20 Panksepp, Jaak, 61
burgeoning theories and praxes of, Panofsky, Erwin, 116
30 paradoxical ‘de-nuding’ of human
case of, 25 being, 10
goal of, 18 perceptual cues, 224
management and exploitation of, perniciousness concept of
16 interpellation, 96
neuro-economy, 40 personality disorders, 29
rationale of, 19 phenomenological methods, 4
unifying force of, 16 pictorialisation, 92
neurological research, 60 Pitts-Taylor, Victoria, 156n, 157
neurologisation process, 8–9, 16, 57, plasticity of brain, 76, 135–7
72n political brain, 203–6
neurology, 30–2 Connolly’s neuropolitics and its
neuronal economy, 37–41 surplus subject, 215–1
Neuropolitics (2002) (Connolly), 215 Libet, Benjamin, 227–32
neuropsy-sciences, 55–9, 73 Massumi’s turn to affect and away
neuroscience, 55 from politics, 221–7
neuroscientific knowledge, 30 psyche, 211–15
neuroscientific theories, 18 ultimate trope of interpassivity,
neuro-signifier, 16 206–11
neuro-turn, 5–7, 10, 16, 33 political idealism, 73
The new wounded (Malabou), 145 political theory, 215, 217
9/11 events, 179, 224 positioning psychoanalysis, 82
non-psychology of modern Prasad, Amit, 112
subjectivity, 85 “pre-neurological” psychology, 56
Nozick, Robert, 104 pseudo-concretisation, 86
psychical economy, critique of, 85
psychoanalysis, 8, 55, 60–4, 73–7
O critical issue for, 77
obscenities of Brain Fest, 194–7 Freudian psychoanalysis, 76
old socio-psychological models, 8 materialism of, 79
Oosterling, Henk, 185 and neurosciences, relation
optimal care system, 27 between, 60
Otto, Rudolf, 184 philosophy and, 70
Ovid’s metamorphoses, 5, 92, 131, and politics, 75
169, 204 psychologised version of, 64
Index 249
unique value of, 68 scientific psy-perspective, 213

psychoanalytic materialism, 77–8 sexual brain, against neuro-
psychoanalytic theory, 158 plasticity
psycho-education, 32 Malabou’s critique of
psychological discourse, 26 psychoanalysis’ sexuality,
psychological model, 151 142–8
psychological paradigm, 55 plasticity, 135–7
psycho-logics of brain festival, psycho-transcendental subject of
188–93 modernity, 138–42
psychologisation process, 9, 10, 72n, spectre of psychology, 148–53
235 transcendental, 153–6
of catechesis, 27 trope of, 129–35
issue of, 212 sexuality, 160
psychologised version of shock generator experiment
psychoanalysis, 64 (Milgram), 21
psychologists, 53 Slaby, Jan, 98
psychology, 25, 26, 28, 29, 68, 92 Smith, Shawn Michelle, 108
spectre of, 148–53 Snowden, Edward, 103
Psycho-transcendental subject of society of the spectacle (Debord),
modernity, 138–42 176–7
psychotropic medication, 19, 20 Socrates, 10
psy-paradigm, 29 Spaltung, Freudian concept of, 74
psy-sciences, 68, 212 spectre of psychology, 148–53
and neurosciences, 215 Stavrakakis, Yannis, 210
Steinberg, Laurence, 43
‘synaptic plasticity’ concept, 157
R
Rajchman, John, 139
Rimbaud, Arthur, 55 T
Rose, Contra, 24–5 therapeutic culture, 74
Rose, Nikolas, 13, 92, 233 Thiele, Leslie Paul, 216
Rose, Steven, 24, 25 traditional psychological paradigm,
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 17 71
transcendental materialism, 78,
83, 84
S transcendental psychology, 139
Salzman-Mitchell, Patricia, 92 “transformational humanism,” 141n
Samsa, Gregor, 3 trauma-psychology, 63
250 Index
V Y
Valk, Frank Vander, 45–6 Young, Allan, 98
van Oenen, Gijs, 211
Verhaeghe, Paul, 53
Vincent, Jean-Didier, 132 Z
virtual political economy, 70–3 Zerilli, Linda, 205
Vogt, Eric, 234 Žižek, Slavoj, 9n, 80–1, 98, 179–80
vulgar materialism, 78 Zuckerberg, Mark, 58
Zupančič, Alenka, 78, 129, 160
W
weak education, 26–30
weak psychology, 36
We are our brains (Swaab), 183

Jan de Vos - The Metamorphoses of The Brain - Neurologisation and Its Discontents

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The Metamorphoses of the Brain –

Neurologisation and its Discontents

ISBN 978-1-137-50556-9 ISBN 978-1-137-50557-6 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016936399

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

1 Introduction: The Metamorphoses of the Brain 1

2 The Educated Brain: A Critique of Neuroeducation 13

3 The Material Brain: A Plea for the Uselessness

4 The Iconographic Brain: An Inquiry into the Culture of

5 The Sexual Brain: Against Neuro-Plasticity 129

6 The Celebrated Brain: The Role of the Brain in the

7 The Political Brain: The Brain as a Political Invention 203

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

ordeal of remembering what exactly we were before, might best be

This is reminiscent of Gregor Samsa from Kafka’s novella The

In a stream he longed to say, “O miser-

always be resilient enough to adapt to new epistèmes, on the grounds that

prepares us for a similar metamorphosis, by virtue of the fact that the

a homologous fashion to the brain-in-a-vat issue, psychological theories

and sociality—with neurologisation here being understood as the sub-

And heard him say. “O son of Aecus, go make

We are increasingly coming to relate to ourselves as “somatic” individuals,

What Rose is suggesting here is that, in terms of analysis and explana-

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 13

Medication is highly effective for treating ADHD. But it can’t teach you

As one can discern in the above quote, it is the role of psychologists to

I am my brain, but …. Apparently, something in your brain can set

in order to understand neuroeducation3 one must first get a handle on

is a rather sweeping observation: contemporary education focuses, above

a direct linkage with post-Fordist production and modes of consumption

The Question of the Surplus

the case of disorders which directly or indirectly affect learning processes.

a religious, moral or ethical injunction related to some universal truth,

right-brain people, for whom we must devise different educational meth-

But can one, for example, merely be critical of “neurologised parental

Contra Rose, however, why should we think there is a consensus of what

in the United Kingdom whereby well-being and mental health perme-

upon masses of information and educational campaigns. In clinical set-

Caught up in all of its contradictions it is often difficult for you to under-

Adolescents, then, are to be acquainted with neurological sciences. Of

In order to answer the question, where does this inculcation and/or

Why Psychology Sticks

psychology and developmental psychology, the much maligned Freudian

Following the sincere or sarcastic comment, participants were asked to

One possibility is that the cognitive strategy for mentalising changes

Here, the ostensibly precise high-tech neurosciences end up engaging

A Critique of Neuronal Economy

Damasio unwittingly transform the old dualistic nature versus nurture

the equation; in fact, not doing so is readily considered as indicative of

longer thought of as being capable of harbouring problems in its own

in this regard, how Narvaez defines morality within a spectrum of devel-

this partition of discursive positions is repeated: everybody is called upon

alienation of the modern subject, the ancient wound of meaningless-

De Vos, J. (2012a). The deadlock of Husserl’s life-world: From a critique of

Kant, I. (2007). Anthropology, history, and education. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge

Purdy, N., & Morrison, H. (2009). Cognitive neuroscience and education:

Vlaamse Gemeenschap (n.d.). Development aims for nursery education—

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 53

Badiou), the Freudian legacy in ideology critique can hardly be over-

The Neuropsy-Sciences: Materiality