The Vocabulary of Acts: Neuroscience, Phenomenology, and the Mirror Neuron

Abstract

In “The Vocabulary of Acts: Neuroscience, Phenomenology, and the Mirror Neuron”, Paul Standish considers the groundbreaking work in neuroscience of Giacomo Rizzolatti, whose identification of the ‘mirror neuron’ has been referred to as a minor Copernican revolution with extensive implications for educational and rehabilitative practices. Rizzolatti and his colleagues draw attention to the influences of phenomenology on their work, especially from Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, and it is in this light that Standish ponders some presuppositions and implications of their research. His discussion relates these to Samuel Todes’ richly rewarding Body and World, a text whose argument and conclusions, and whose theoretical ‘architecture’, are in significant respects consonant with the holistic nature of mirror-neuron theory. While the achievements of Todes are highlighted, his work is, however, also criticised for the priority it gives to the natural philosophy of the body—a priority of the natural over the social world. Standish’s criticism, which draws on Wittgensteinian and Heideggerian insights, is shown to apply similarly to the work of Rizzolatti. The consequence of this, however, is not to undermine that work: On the contrary, it provides it with a stronger basis and shows that its consequences for neuroscience are potentially more far-reaching than has been claimed.