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'Âme 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 à la Sorbonne
Being the Authorised Translation of
L'Âme et le Corps

London Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & 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--Müller'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 rôle 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