In Quest of the Thinker of Science

2021 ◽  
pp. 178-193
Author(s):  
Steven L. Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Conscious Thought ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Brain

The relationships among mind, self, conscious thought, discursive reasoning, and social context became central issues in nineteenth- and twentieth-century psychology, linguistics, sociology, and epistemology, with direct implications for the nature of scientific knowledge. Minds and selves can be conceptualized as expressions of interactions between an individual’s nervous system and their physical and social environment. Is conscious thought, and in particular discursive reasoning, under the control of the individual thinker, or does it reflect societal influences? Nineteenth-century experimental neurophysiology and psychology began to reveal the role that systemic features of the nervous system and the brain play in producing consciousness. Concurrently, sociologists, psychologists, and linguists were proposing roles for the unconscious, language, society, and innate gestalten in shaping and limiting conscious thought. These ideas converged in the theories of individual scientists.

The Birth of Information in the Brain: Edgar Adrian and the Vacuum Tube

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Garson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Nerve Fiber ◽  
Nerve Impulse ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Vacuum Tube ◽  
Coded Messages ◽  
The Brain

ArgumentAs historian Henning Schmidgen notes, the scientific study of the nervous system would have been “unthinkable” without the industrialization of communication in the 1830s. Historians have investigated extensively the way nerve physiologists have borrowed concepts and tools from the field of communications, particularly regarding the nineteenth-century work of figures like Helmholtz and in the American Cold War Era. The following focuses specifically on the interwar research of the Cambridge physiologist Edgar Douglas Adrian, and on the technology that led to his Nobel-Prize-winning research, the thermionic vacuum tube. Many countries used the vacuum tube during the war for the purpose of amplifying and intercepting coded messages. These events provided a context for Adrian's evolving understanding of the nerve fiber in the 1920s. In particular, they provide the background for Adrian's transition around 1926 to describing the nerve impulse in terms of “information,” “messages,” “signals,” or even “codes,” and for translating the basic principles of the nerve, such as the all-or-none principle and adaptation, into such an “informational” context. The following also places Adrian's research in the broader context of the changing relationship between science and technology, and between physics and physiology, in the first few decades of the twentieth century.

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

scholarly journals Individual behavioural traits not social context affects learning about novel objects in archerfish

2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick A. R. Jones ◽  
Helen C. Spence-Jones ◽  
Mike Webster ◽  
Luke Rendell
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Behavioural Phenotype ◽  
Social Species ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Animals ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
The Individual

Abstract Learning can enable rapid behavioural responses to changing conditions but can depend on the social context and behavioural phenotype of the individual. Learning rates have been linked to consistent individual differences in behavioural traits, especially in situations which require engaging with novelty, but the social environment can also play an important role. The presence of others can modulate the effects of individual behavioural traits and afford access to social information that can reduce the need for ‘risky’ asocial learning. Most studies of social effects on learning are focused on more social species; however, such factors can be important even for less-social animals, including non-grouping or facultatively social species which may still derive benefit from social conditions. Using archerfish, Toxotes chatareus, which exhibit high levels of intra-specific competition and do not show a strong preference for grouping, we explored the effect of social contexts on learning. Individually housed fish were assayed in an ‘open-field’ test and then trained to criterion in a task where fish learnt to shoot a novel cue for a food reward—with a conspecific neighbour visible either during training, outside of training or never (full, partial or no visible presence). Time to learn to shoot the novel cue differed across individuals but not across social context. This suggests that social context does not have a strong effect on learning in this non-obligatory social species; instead, it further highlights the importance that inter-individual variation in behavioural traits can have on learning. Significance statement Some individuals learn faster than others. Many factors can affect an animal’s learning rate—for example, its behavioural phenotype may make it more or less likely to engage with novel objects. The social environment can play a big role too—affecting learning directly and modifying the effects of an individual’s traits. Effects of social context on learning mostly come from highly social species, but recent research has focused on less-social animals. Archerfish display high intra-specific competition, and our study suggests that social context has no strong effect on their learning to shoot novel objects for rewards. Our results may have some relevance for social enrichment and welfare of this increasingly studied species, suggesting there are no negative effects of short- to medium-term isolation of this species—at least with regards to behavioural performance and learning tasks.

scholarly journals Hearing through the théâtrophone: Sonically constructed spaces and embodied listening in the late nineteenth-century French theatre

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Van Drie
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Teenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
French Theatre ◽  
Subscription Service ◽  
Theoretical Reflection ◽  
A Performance

This article presents a historical and theoretical reflection of the théâtrophone, a late nine- teenth-century telephone broadcast service that allowed users at a distance to listen in live to local theatre performances (spoken theatre, opera and musical concerts). Often cited as the first binaural experience in 1881, the théâtrophone’s much longer history as a subscription service, which operated in Paris from 1889 through the mid-1930s, is relatively unknown. This article considers what hearing through a théâtrophone meant to nineteenth- and twentieth- century users beyond its initial 1881 prototype. To hear through the théâtrophone means adopting a methodology mirroring the artefact itself: moving between social, professional, artistic, sensory registers. In doing so, the ways in which the théâtrophone was attuned to dis- course and practice emerge, as do more subtle processes involved in new nineteenth-century constructs of hearing and listening. Precisely the théâtrophone’s development is examined in relation to its particular social context: its installation on the spectacular Parisian boulevards and its relation to fin de siècle theatre culture. The article first investigates how theatrophonic listening was accorded to existent practices of theatre-going. Second, the article explores the more radical propositions of the théâtrophone in relation to important aesthetic and prac- tical changes occurring simultaneously in theatre culture. The théâtrophone’s virtual sonic experience multiplied the forms of a performance and its modalities of creation and recep- tion. Through accounts of ‘listening in’ the aspects of the new sonically constructed space are described, as are postures of early mediatised listening. The article posits that new modalities of listening are articulated through the théâtrophone, with certain users, including Proust, defining it as a monitoring and creative tool. In this capacity, ‘theatrophonic’ listening contrib- uted to the development of a refined ear, capable of detecting sonic nuance, which was central to artistic sensibilities at the time. 

scholarly journals Zemskii Sobor: Historiographies and Mythologies of a Russian “Parliament”

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Sablin ◽  
Kuzma Kukushkin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Constituent Assembly ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Modern Russian

Focusing on the term zemskii sobor, this study explored the historiographies of the early modern Russian assemblies, which the term denoted, as well as the autocratic and democratic mythologies connected to it. Historians have discussed whether the individual assemblies in the sixteenth and seventeenth century could be seen as a consistent institution, what constituencies were represented there, what role they played in the relations of the Tsar with his subjects, and if they were similar to the early modern assemblies elsewhere. The growing historiographic consensus does not see the early modern Russian assemblies as an institution. In the nineteenth–early twentieth century, history writing and myth-making integrated the zemskii sobor into the argumentations of both the opponents and the proponents of parliamentarism in Russia. The autocratic mythology, perpetuated by the Slavophiles in the second half of the nineteenth century, proved more coherent yet did not achieve the recognition from the Tsars. The democratic mythology was more heterogeneous and, despite occasionally fading to the background of the debates, lasted for some hundred years between the 1820s and the 1920s. Initially, the autocratic approach to the zemskii sobor was idealistic, but it became more practical at the summit of its popularity during the Revolution of 1905–1907, when the zemskii sobor was discussed by the government as a way to avoid bigger concessions. Regionalist approaches to Russia’s past and future became formative for the democratic mythology of the zemskii sobor, which persisted as part of the romantic nationalist imagery well into the Russian Civil War of 1918–1922. The zemskii sobor came to represent a Russian constituent assembly, destined to mend the post-imperial crisis. The two mythologies converged in the Priamur Zemskii Sobor, which assembled in Vladivostok in 1922 and became the first assembly to include the term into its official name.

scholarly journals Dissociation and the Unconscious Mind: Nineteenth-Century Perspectives on Mediumship

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 537-596
Author(s):  
Carlos S. Alvarado
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
William James ◽  
General Interest ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
History Of ◽  
Memory States ◽  
Hippolyte Taine ◽  
Unconscious Mind

There is a long history of discussions of mediumship as related to dissociation and the unconscious mind during the Nineteenth Century. After an overview of relevant ideas and observations from the mesmeric, hypnosis, and spiritualistic literatures, I focus on the writings of Jules Baillarger, Alfred Binet, Paul Blocq, Théodore Flournoy, Jules Héricourt, William James, Pierre Janet, Ambroise August Liébeault, Frederic W.H. Myers, Julian Ochorowicz, Charles Richet, Hippolyte Taine, Paul Tascher, and Edouard von Hartmann. While some of their ideas reduced mediumship solely to intra-psychic processes, others considered as well veridical phenomena. The speculations of these individuals, involving personation, and different memory states, were part of a general interest in the unconscious mind, and in automatisms, hysteria, and hypnosis during the period in question. Similar ideas continued into the Twentieth Century.

The unification of neural activity

1968 ◽  
Vol 171 (1024) ◽  
pp. 353-359 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Nerve Cells ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
Simple Hypothesis ◽  
Neural Organization ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Brain

In studying the brain, two levels of investigation emerge naturally. One of these concerns itself with properties of nerve cells, their numbers, patterns of firing, interconnexions, and so forth. The other considers the whole nervous system in what one may call ‘macroscopic’ terms. Thus it discusses ‘stimulus’, ‘response’, ‘decision’, etc. At this latter level, the nervous system operates with considerable unity. The individual nerve cells must therefore be linked in a well-integrated manner and the general nature of this integration has been recognized, especially by neurophysiologists such as Sherrington, to present a problem of central importance for our understanding of the brain. In previously published work, I have put forward a theory of how this unification of neural activity might be achieved and of a possible molecular biological basis of the necessary neural organization. In this talk I restrict myself to the first of these and thus give an account of what might be called the basic logic of the unification. I also indicate briefly how a simple hypothesis about the basis of memory would fit into such a theory.

scholarly journals A three-step model of stress management for health leaders

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-86
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Hartney
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Stress Management ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Stressful Environment ◽  
Step Model ◽  
System Functioning ◽  
Managing Stress ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Brain

The current healthcare system is often as highly stressful environment for patients, their families, and for the employees of the system. Health leaders also experience stress, which can have profound repercussions if not well managed. This article describes the impact of stress on the brain and nervous system functioning of health leaders, then, drawing on evidence from the literature, presents a three-step model for managing stress at the individual, team/organizational, and system levels.

Genealogy of the Cerebral Subject

Being Brains ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Vidal ◽  
Francisco Ortega
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
The Body ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Brain Structure And Function ◽  
Cerebral Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Function ◽  
Cerebral Self ◽  
The Brain

The first chapter proposes to trace the distant roots of the cerebral subject to the late seventeenth century, and particularly to debates about the seat of the soul, the corpuscularian theory of matter, and John Locke’s philosophy of personal identity. In the wake of Locke, eighteenth century authors began to assert that the brain is the only part of the body we need to be ourselves. In the nineteenth century, this form of deterministic essentialism contributed to motivate research into brain structure and function, and in turn confirmed the brain-personhood nexus. Since then, from phrenology to functional neuroimaging, neuroscientific knowledge and representations have constituted a powerful support for prescriptive outlooks on the individual and society. “Neuroascesis,” as we call the business that sells programs of cerebral self-discipline, is a case in point, which this chapter also examines. It appeals to the brain and neuroscience as bases for its self-help recipes to enhance memory and reasoning, fight depression, anxiety and compulsions, improve sexual performance, achieve happiness, and even establish a direct contact with God. Yet underneath the neuro surface lie beliefs and even concrete instructions that can be traced to nineteenth-century hygiene manuals.

Sports, Brain, Body, and the World

Sport ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Schulkin
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Contact ◽  
Conscious Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
Muscle Memory ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Cognitive Event

Sport as a practice and cognitive event is largely action-oriented: there is thought in action, even if it is not particularly conscious thought. Habits codified in the motor regions of the brain underlie action. Muscle memory is fundamental; it is a metaphor for the organization of action. Importantly, neurotransmitters such dopamine are tied to the organization of action, salience, cognition, and, perhaps, the prediction of events. Diverse regions of the brain (e.g., the amygdala) and neuropeptides (oxytocin) are linked to social contact and play-related behaviors, and these same regions are crucial to a broad-based assessment of social context and meaning.

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