Images and constructs: Can the neural correlates of self be revealed through radiological analysis?

Abstract

In this paper I argue that radiological attempts to elucidate the properties of self - an endeavor currently popular in the social neurosciences - are fraught with conceptual difficulties. I first discuss several philosophical criteria that increase the chances we are posing the "right" questions to nature. I then discuss whether these criteria are met when empirical efforts are directed at one of the central constructs in the social sciences - the human self. In particular, I consider whether recent attempts to map the neural correlates of self and its assumed properties using brain scanning technology satisfy the conceptual conditions minimally required to ask well-formed, theoretically satisfying questions of nature. I conclude that much theoretical work remains to be done.