Saving Possibilities.A Study in Philosophical Psychology.(Value Inquiry Book Series 80)

The aim of Gilead in this work is to refute the reductionist view in a new and a highly original way. According to Gilead, we should understand the relation between mind and body in terms of modal categories. The mental and the psychical, he argues, belong to the category of the possible, whereas the physical belongs to the category of the actual. Both are categories of reality, together exhausting the whole. The mental-possible precedes any physical actualization, so that everything physical is necessarily also mental, though the converse does not hold, as not all possibilities are actualized. While nowadays nobody denies the reality of the actual, the reality of the possible is too often dismissed, by making the critical mistake of identifying the possible with the actual. Such identification restricts our understanding of ourselves and of the world and leads to philosophical, psychological, and ethical poverty. What is needed therefore is saving possibilities, and Gilead illustrates in various areas how this can and should be done. In particular, through an illuminating analysis of Freud, he shows hoch such saving is the ultimate aim of psychoanalysis, achieved by redeeming hidden possibilities that we repress and deny. In a surprising and original move, Gilead goes on to show how chaos theory reflects a similar concern, the desire to discover the unseen order or meaning underlying apparently random physical phenomena. Gilead exhibits rare mastery of these areas and fits his well-founded conclusions to the overall thesis of the book.
Saving Possibilities emerges from a wide theoretical perspective which is truly exceptional. Reading this book gives one a deep sense of integration. The book connects philosophical-metaphysical speculations on the psychophysical problem to psychoanalysis, and indicates how the modal view of reality helps us to understand the nature of madness, the possibility of the cinematic illusion, and other seemingly separate issues.
The book argues for the necessity of saving possibilities and itself contributes directly to this goal. Most importantly, it saves the possibility of human subjectivity in all its particularity and uniqueness, a saving with crucial theoretical and moral implications.