The persistence of the subjective in neuropsychopharmacology: observations of contemporary hallucinogen research

Introduction

Langlitz opens by situating contemporary hallucinogen research at the intersection of neuroscience and questions about the status of subjective experience. The paper contrasts eliminative materialist claims—that neuroscientific accounts render subjective reports illusory—with the empirical practices of psychopharmacology, arguing that subjective experience remains a persistent epistemic object rather than being simply eradicated by brain imaging and neurochemistry. Ethnographic vignettes from the laboratories of prominent researchers are used to frame a philosophical puzzle: how do first-person reports and neurophysiological measurements relate when both are invoked to study altered states induced by substances such as psilocybin and ketamine? The study sets out to explore how subjectivity figures in laboratory practice rather than to test a causal hypothesis. Through ethnographic observation and interviews in European psychopharmacology labs, Langlitz examines three domains in which subjectivity persists: as data (introspective self-reports used alongside neuroimaging), as the personal experience of scientists themselves, and as a culturally mediated form of experience that shapes both experimental outcomes and researchers' self-conceptions. The paper treats hallucinogen research as a case study to illuminate broader tensions between objectivist ideals and the lived practices of cognitive neuroscience.