An erudite book that reveals how and why the understanding of consciousness still eludes us.
Throughout Western history, the nature of humans’ inner lives has vexed philosophers, physicians, scientists, and theologians. Makari (Psychiatry/Weill Cornell Medical Coll.; Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis, 2008) offers a thorough examination of debates about soul, spirit, and what we now call “mind.”
The author primarily focuses on 17th- through mid-19th-century British and European thinkers. Is mind, he asks, “a necessary theory, a physical thing, a language game, or a deep-seated prejudice?” Language itself has caused myriad problems. The French, for example, were at a loss to translate John Locke’s choice of words—and invention of neologisms—to represent inner life: “consciousness” and “self-consciousness” were not rendered clearly by terms such as la conscience (implying ethical awareness) and esprit, which signified spirit or soul. Besides Locke, Makari examines major theorists such as Newton, Descartes, Diderot, Voltaire, Hobbes, Bacon, Hegel, and Schelling. While these names may be familiar to readers with a background in intellectual history or philosophy, less familiar figures from Makari’s large cast of characters unfortunately emerge less as fully delineated personalities than as purveyors of abstract ideas. The author creates a lively narrative about Franz Anton Mesmer, the eccentric, egotistical perpetrator of animal magnetism, who captivated many in pre-revolutionary Paris and repelled others who feared that he conceived men as “magnetic machines with no will and therefore no capacity for self-governance or self-knowledge.” Political and social change, the author argues, were intrinsically connected to the acceptance or rejection of various thinkers. “When the French Revolution drove out the Church and the protectors of the soul,” he writes, “a fully formed secular, modern lineage of the mind was waiting, ready to emerge.” Despite advances in neurophysiology and research into mental illness, Makari maintains that we still think of dualities when it comes to mind (“the mind-body problem, the Nature/Nurture problem, free will versus determinism”), a view that many readers will share.
An erudite book that reveals how and why the understanding of consciousness still eludes us.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-393-05965-6
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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