The Mind and the Brain

The Mind and the Brain, by Alfred Binet

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Title: The Mind and the Brain Being the Authorised Translation of L'?me et le Corps
Author: Alfred Binet

Release Date: April 14, 2007 [eBook #21077]
Language: English
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Transcriber's Note:
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International Scientific Series.
Volume LXXXIX.
(The International Scientific Series)
Edited by F. Legge
THE MIND AND THE BRAIN
by
ALFRED BINET
Directeur du Laboratoire de Psychologie �� la Sorbonne
Being the Authorised Translation of
L'?me et le Corps

London Kegan Paul, Trench, Tr��bner & Co. Ltd Dryden House, Gerrard Street, W. 1907

CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE DEFINITION OF MATTER
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The distinction between mind and matter--Knowable not homogeneous--Criterion employed, enumeration not concepts
CHAPTER II
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS ONLY SENSATION
Modern theories of matter--Outer world only known to us by our sensations--Instances--Mill's approval of proposition, and its defects--Nervous system only intermediary between self and outer world--The great X of Matter--Nervous system does not give us true image--M��ller's law of specificity of the nerves--The nervous system itself a sensation--Relations of sensation with the unknowable the affair of metaphysics
CHAPTER III
THE MECHANICAL THEORIES OF MATTER ARE ONLY SYMBOLS
Physicists vainly endeavour to reduce the r?le of sensation--Mathematical, energetical, and mechanical theories of universe--Mechanical model formed from sensation--Instance of tuning-fork--No one sensation any right to hegemony over others
CHAPTER IV
ANSWERS TO SOME OBJECTIONS, AND SUMMARY
Objections of spiritualists--Of German authors who contend that nervous system does give true image--Of metaphysicians--Common ground of objection that nervous system not intermediary--Answer to this--Summary of preceding chapters
BOOK II
THE DEFINITION OF MIND
CHAPTER I
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN COGNITION AND ITS OBJECT
Necessity for inventory of mental phenomena--Objects of cognition and acts of cognition--Definition of consciousness
CHAPTER II
DEFINITION OF SENSATION
Sensation defined by experimental psychology--A state of consciousness--Considered self-evident by Mill, Renouvier, and Hume--Psycho-physical according to Reid and Hamilton--Reasons in favour of last definition--Other opinions examined and refuted
CHAPTER III
DEFINITION OF THE IMAGE
Perception and ideation cannot be separated--Perception constituted by addition of image to sensation--Hallucinations--Objections anticipated and answered
CHAPTER IV
DEFINITION OF THE EMOTIONS
Contrary opinions as to nature of emotions--Emotion a phenomenon sui generis--Intellectualist theory of emotion supported by Lange and James--Is emotion only a perception? Is effort?--Question left unanswered
CHAPTER V
DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--THE RELATION SUBJECT-OBJECT
Can thoughts be divided into subject and object?--This division cannot apply to the consciousness--Subject of cognition itself an object--James' opinion examined--Opinion that subject is spiritual substance and consciousness its faculty refuted
CHAPTER VI
DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--CATEGORIES OF THE UNDERSTANDING
Principle of relativity doubted--Tables of categories: Aristotle, Kant, and Renouvier--Kantian idealism--Phenomenism of Berkeley examined and rejected--Argument of a priorists--The intelligence only an inactive consciousness--Huxley's epiphenomenal consciousness--Is the consciousness necessary?--Impossibility of answering this question
CHAPTER VII
DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--THE SEPARABILITY OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS FROM ITS OBJECT--DISCUSSION OF IDEALISM
Can the consciousness be separated from its object?--Idealists consider the object a modality of the consciousness and thus inseparable, from it--Futility of this doctrine--Object can exist without consciousness
CHAPTER VIII
DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--THE SEPARATION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS FROM ITS OBJECT--THE UNCONSCIOUS
Can ideas exist without consciousness?--No consciousness without an object--Can the consciousness die?--Enfeeblement of consciousness how accounted for--Doubling of consciousness in hysterics--Relations of physiological phenomena to consciousness--Consciousness cannot become unconscious and yet exist
CHAPTER IX
DEFINITIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY
Difficulty of defining psychology--Definition by substance--Psychology not the science of the soul--Definition by enumeration: its error--Definition by method contradicts idea of consciousness--Externospection and introspection sometimes confused--Definition by content--Facts cannot be divided into those of consciousness and of unconsciousness--Descartes' definition of psychology insufficient--"Within and without" simile unanalogous--Definition by point of view--Inconsistencies of Ebbinghaus' contention--W. James' teleological theory--Definition by the peculiar nature of mental laws only one possible: why?
BOOK III
THE UNION OF THE SOUL AND THE BODY
CHAPTER I
THE MIND HAS AN INCOMPLETE LIFE
Problem of union of mind and body stated--Axiom of heterogeneity must be rejected--Phenomena of consciousness incomplete--Aristotle's relatum and correlatum applied to the terms mind and matter
CHAPTER II
SPIRITUALISM AND IDEALISM
Spiritualist view that death cuts link between soul and body--Explanation of link fatal to system--Consciousness cannot exercise functions without objects of cognition--Idealism a kaleidoscopic system--Four affirmations of idealism: their inconsistency--Advantages of historical method
CHAPTER III
MATERIALISM AND PARALLELISM
Materialism oldest doctrine of all: many patristic authors lean towards it--Modern form of, receives impulse