Since the advent of neuroimaging technologies, their limits and
possibilities have captivated scientists and philosophers. Thus far, the
debate has largely concerned technical
limits of our capacity to “read minds.” This paper extends the
discussion concerning the limitations of neuroimaging to issues that are
not dependent on technical issues or on our understanding of the
complexity of brain activities. The author argues that there is a
serious chance that brain scanning cannot replace usual intentional
assertions, and that neuroimaging has principled limits. The information
that people usually receive by neuroimaging is different in kind from
the information they hear from what others tell them. To assert
something is to act in a certain way, and scanners do not usually scan
actions, but brain activities and the neural correlates of actions.
Although it is possible to scan “mental assertions,” our usual
assertions are not accompanied by separate “mental assertions.”