Panacea or Posion: Placebos and Nocebos in Modern Medicine Saturday 2:30 PM EST 20 March 2021
Placebos “work” for quite a few medical problems. But how? And what is the work they do?
What one thinks a medicine is capable of, one’s idea of that medicine, may affect us in the way “proper” medicines do. This implies that, in observing the work of a placebo we are watching an idea affect biology, the mind moving the body.
Despite the dualist notions this description elicits, where mind and body are held as separate entities, most neuroscientists, generally of a monistic bent, welcome the challenge of the placebo effect. Most insist that placebos precisely demonstrate that the mind is one with the body. Yet, Continue reading Panacea or Posion: Placebos and Nocebos in Modern Medicine at the Helix Center
Kazimir Malevich, Female Torso, 1928-9
SEMINAR On Voluntary Servitude Paola Mieli With the participation of Raffaella Colombo
Saturday, March 20th, 2021 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM (EST)
In times like these, as new forms of totalitarianism are taking over everywhere, it’s necessary to reflect on humans’ inherent propensity to take joy in their own servitude. Returning to Freud’s and Lacan’s articulations of the subject of language and the social link, and that subject’s passion for ignorance, the seminar will explore the nature of the drive, masochism, and the ways the superego Continue reading SEMINAR: On Voluntary Servitude — Paola Mieli online with Après-Coup
