Abstract

This text presents a survey of problem areas surrounding recent developments in the cognitive, social and affective neurosciences and analyzes them from a critical philosophical perspective. Issues discussed include the public circulation of brain images, the stabilizing of types of persons on the grounds of alleged “brain types”, the re-formatting of humanities disciplines under the imperatives of scientific research and funding structures, the widespread construals of “cerebral subjectivity” and the tacit naturalization of social categories and conditions in the name of neural plasticity. A brief outline of the interdisciplinary initiative of critical neuroscience is provided to suggest a perspective for further analyses of these debated issues.