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SOME OF US WILL, OF COURSE, reflect with high hopes upon the possible implications that exciting achievements in neuroscience have for the convergence of neuroscience and psychoanalysis. But why should we anticipate such a convergence? Do we foresee a solution to the mind-body problem? Is the theoretical reducibility of psychoanalysis by neuroscience within our reach? Do the contributions made by neuroscience to the explanation and treatment of psychopathology increasingly replace and render obsolete those contributions made by psychoanalysis?
In this paper, I shall advance arguments for five positions, which here, in introduction, I merely assert.
1The mind-body problem, as it is usually stated, is a metaphysical problem. Insofar as it is stated as a metaphysical problem, no empirical evidence can contribute to its solution.
2If we want answers to our questions about the relation between mind and body that are dependent upon and responsive to empirical knowledge, then the mind-body problem is best conceived as a question about the relation between two scientific disciplines. More specifically, it is best conceived as a question about the relation between the theories of a psychology of mind and the theories of neuroscience.