NEUROMANIA: On the Limits of Brain Science

This book tells a story—a story of our times but with its roots firmly embedded in the past, intertwined with the origins of psychology in the second half of the nineteenth century. At that time psychology started to take precedence over more traditional disciplines, principally philosophy.

Concepts that philosophers and theologians had been debating for years, such as ‘soul’ and ‘reason’, were either absorbed (reason and rationality) or expunged from the field of scientific research and relegated to the status of personal beliefs (the soul). Now it appears that something very similar is happening in the area of the mind, traditionally the field of study of psychology.

NEUROMANIA: On the Limits of Brain Science by PAOLO LEGRENZI & CARLO UMILTA

At present, various disciplines described using the prefix ‘neuro’ are attempting to supplant the concept of the mind. Basically, what is happening is that the knowledge accumulated over decades of psychological and neuropsychological study is being presented as a novelty under new names.

Neuropsychology is perfectly capable of covering all aspects of the study of the mind-brain relationship. Why then is there currently a tendency to fragment it into other disciplines? Is it to give the impression that new branches of knowledge have come into being alongside psychology and neuropsychology?

CONTENTS:

I.  At the origins of the mind-brain relationship
II. Mind, body, and explanations of behaviour

Language: English
Format: PDF
Pages: 133
Size: 1 Mb